Leopard users fall prey of install problems

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A significant number of Apple Mac owners upgrading to OS X 10.5 Leopard over the weekend reported hours-long system freezes or total shut down, accompanied by the infamous PC 'blue screen of death'.

Within hours of the new operating system's debut, Apple's Installation and Setup forums were flooded with posts from users having trouble with their new copies of Leopard.

One user named Doug Mcilvain said: "I have re-installed and it [Leopard] has been sitting there with a blue screen for four-and-a-half hours. Not good."

Other users including pbella who logged an Apple bug, report number 5563474, complained of a 'grey screen': "After successfully surviving the Leopard betas, the final release has (at least temporarily) bricked my PB [PowerBook] G4 1.67 (it locked up shortly after a full install, not upgrade, and I now get a grey screen of death on boot)..."

All of the users followed the advice given in the Leopard preview on Apple's website and manual and chose 'upgrade' installation option, which it warned could take a couple of hours and would protect users' data while updating the operating system in the background.

But many reported that, re-booting and re-starting the process after selecting the alternate 'archive and install' or 'clean install' options was successful.

One advised users to backup data before attempting an installation, while others said they had received a variety of different advice from Apple support, ranging from re-booting and re-installing Leopard, to taking their systems into an Apple store to have "data recovered and start over".

While most, whose systems varied from the new Intel-based Macs to older ones, expressed anger or concern over the glitch, a number speculated as to the cause. The most popular has been the suggestion that uninstalling the application enhancer (APE) framework from vendor Unsanity would allow Leopard to install.

A user identified as Chris Mcculloh posted Unix command code to speed the restart, which quickly spread through the forums. And some reported success after following his instructions, although he advised the solution was not for the "faint of heart or those unfamiliar with the Unix file system/command structure".

But Unsanity hit back over the weekend, pouring cold water over suggestions its APE was to blame. It did, however, add a compatibility note to its website home page and email mailing list members saying: "Please make sure you have APE 2.0.3 or later installed before you upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5." Older versions may be affected it seems, but those running post-Intel Macs should not, it said.

Allan King, a PowerBook G4 user who had befallen the 'grey screen' problems speculated: "It may be that they are not Leopard upgradeable for firmware or hardware reasons. Apple should have done this research before release," he wrote.

Apple had not responded to a request for comment at time of writing.

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