November 12, 2007

Troubleshooting Leopard on an Aluminum iMac

Author's Note: This is a story-pseudo-article about troubled 20" iMacs. Feel free to skip down to "The Solution" if you've come here via Google, or aren't interested in what happened beforehand.)

Last week, my family broke a decade-old tradition of buying Windows machines by purchasing a brand-new 20" iMac. I made the switch personally about three years ago- with an iBook- and combined with our weening patience with Windows (as well as some prodding from yours truly), we went to the Apple Store and sealed the deal.

Now, when I purchased my own Mac in 2005, it was the best computer transition I've ever had, period- especially coming from Windows. That's a not-so-secret joy of owning a Mac: a stellar out-of-box experience. However, what followed our iMac purchase was far from blissful- a pain at best, and a nightmare at worst.

I'll start right from the beginning. When we bought the iMac, it shipped with an up-to-date version of Tiger, not Leopard- understandably, by the time our particular iMac had left the factory, Leopard (as well as Leopard-compatible patches to a lot of applications) hadn't been released publicly yet. So instead of making us fork over $130 for an OS it should have included, Apple kindly included a free Leopard DVD, as well as the original Tiger restore discs. After applying the software updates available, I popped in the Leopard DVD, and made the upgrade. Total time: 45 minutes, not bad at all for a major OS installation.

Initially, everything was running great. I did the obligatory out-of-the-box testing of the apps, messing around with Front Row and Photo Booth, and migrating my music off of my iPod and into iTunes. But once it was time to get down to work, I did the first thing my father requested I do- install the copy of Final Cut Express we purchased. That's where the smooth sailing ends.

The Problem

Final Cut Express installed almost without issue- until the installer reached the very end of the LiveType (Apple's pro type application) installation. Once we were told to re-insert the Final Cut Express disc, the iMac deemed it "damaged" and request that we install it again. Ah, great- damaged disc. One problem, though: the disc was spotless. So I tried installing it again (but not the extra LiveType and Soundtrack content- it did that successfully), and, whodathunkit, it worked; Final Cut opened without a problem. I quit that, and opened up iTunes again and plugged in my iPod.

Now comes the pain. Again, since the iMac left the factory after a bunch of important downloads were released, Software Update needed to download the new version of iTunes, as well as some security updates and pro application patches. I complied and let it do its thing. Once it restarted though, I received not a friendly, familiar gray Apple- but rather, a boot chime and a black screen.

*gulp*

So I turn off the iMac and unplug the iPod for safety, and, sure enough, said gray Apple makes a triumphant return. Leopard, the funny Dock and the crazy space background load perfectly, and nothing appears to be out of place. I hand it over to my dad, who needed to capture video for work, and left it at that.

Eventually, we were encountering problems with Final Cut Express- error messages, slowness, and crashing. What followed were the obligatory steps for troubleshooting: trying again, quitting FCE, rebooting, and dumping the preferences. No luck came, even with searches on Apple's discussion forums- we gave up and tried it in iMovie instead. What ho, that locked up, too.

So I force quit iMovie. It won't do that, either. I log out and back in, and it still locks up iMovie. I try to reboot, and it gets as far as closing the Finder, the menubar, and my mouse cursor before hanging- just inconvenient enough so I can't actually do anything but a hard shutdown. We start up again, and now it just won't go into OS X- a lovely gray Apple, but no progress bar. Wait for it, and nothing happens.

Repeat the hard shutdown. No Apple logo now, splendid. And the Final Cut discs are still inside the computer, so of course, we can't do something useful, like, say, boot from those nifty restore discs. We attempt every alternative startup option- single user mode, verbose mode, a safe boot, and we try to eject all of the removable media. Nothing is working. Magically, we let it sit for about 20 minutes and it goes right into OS X without a hitch.

Leopard boots- we eject our FCE disc and insert the Tiger restore disc. We run the Tiger installation app to restart and boot from CD, and finally, it does. I choose "Erase & Install", wait another 45 minutes, and Tiger not only boots correctly, but is beautifully running after a full day's use (Final Cut Express, too).

The Solution

Summarized chronology of my iMac woes:

  1. I installed the iMac Software Update for Tiger, then performed an "Upgrade" installation of Leopard from Tiger.
  2. After installing Final Cut Express, I encountered numerous problems with the application, and through the course of freezing and multiple reboots, the OS became unusable.
  3. Upon downgrading to Tiger using the "Erase and Install" option, and running Software Update again, everything is running normal and I haven't encountered a problem since.

But why would it do this to me, given I only booted into Tiger once- after turning on the computer to insert the Leopard upgrade disc? In fact, there were two separate issues at hand:

  1. The problems with Final Cut Express; version 3.5 does not run correctly on upgraded Mac OS X systems, i.e: going from 10.4.10 to 10.5 without first erasing the entire hard drive. The initial installation problems might be due to the disc, but the application began running normally once we re-installed Tiger.
  2. The freezing of the operating system itself, excluding Final Cut Express; iMacs that were released in September of 2007 have freezing problems that can occur under Tiger or Leopard. Running the iMac software updates in Tiger, then performing an "Upgrade" installation to Leopard, can cause the boot problems I mentioned above.

Here's a step-by-step process for fixing my problem, though steps 1-3 pretty much apply to any Mac-related problem, too:

  1. Back up all of your user folders and applications to an external drive, and install Leopard using the "Erase and Install" option. Even better, try to back up your entire hard drive to an external using SuperDuper! or the free Carbon Copy Cloner.
  2. Install Leopard using the "Erase and Install" option.
  3. Once your iMac boots into Leopard, let Software Update download and install everything. This also includes the iMac Software Update for Tiger- you'll need to reinstall that for Leopard.
  4. Final Cut Express is made up of four components: the actual Final Cut Express application, Soundtrack, LiveType's fonts and animations, and the actual LiveType application. Install each of these components separately, starting with Final Cut Express and ending with the LiveType fonts.

A Reminder to the Wise

I was once told a great anecdote about taking risks: "What are the chances I'm right, and if I'm not, how catastrophic is the outcome?" Upgrading my system to Leopard, without checking its compatibility or backing up my Tiger installation, was certainly a risk that wasn't worth taking.

So, the lesson here? It's obvious, but rings true: take the safe route when you install anything, especially system software. It might cost you some extra time, but the extra time you save not recovering from a fatal system error in the long run will always make it worth it.