Solved: Unsuccessful Software Update :-(

[Ashley Aitken]

Howdy All,

Just reporting back that the OS was not on the SCSI disk after all.   
It was just on a slave disk. I changed it to master than then it  
showed up in TDM.  Applying the combined update showed me what was  
wrong (I had moved swupd to another partition with a soft link and it  
was causing the install to fail). I fixed that and installed the  
update again.  All worked this time and I am up again working as  
usual.  I think I will setup a script to mirror the OS partition on  
another partition daily so that if the OS does crash during an update  
etc, I should probably have a pre-update version on the other disk.

Cheers,
Ashley.


On 17/03/2007, at 2:16 PM, Ashley Aitken wrote:

>
> Howdy All,
>
> It seems I am up the creek without a paddle.
>
> I have had an unsuccessful software update of Mac OS X Server  
> (10.4.6 to 10.4.9).  It has left the machine without a whole lot of  
> system files (I believe).  It can boot until the boot startup /  
> progress bar screen but it stops there.  Interestingly the mail  
> server seems to continue to work but the Web server doesn't.  I  
> can't connect with Server Admin or login to the machine directly  
> (since there is no login screen) or remotely (it will accept the  
> ssh but the password doesn't work).
>
> I tried a safe boot, booting without extensions, zapping the PRAM  
> etc, but nothing helped.  Finally I booted into single user mode  
> and tried to run softwareupdate (to see if the update had  
> succeeded).  It won't run because parts of the Security.framework  
> are missing.  Similarly, the system.log says that parts of the  
> servermgr are missing (image missing from framework).  So, as  
> mentioned above, it seems as though the update didn't complete  
> successfully (for some reason).
>
> I have the OS on a different partition from the user data and other  
> files.  However, there is a lot of stuff still embedded in the OS  
> volume (eg databases, configuration files).  I back up the user  
> data partition but I haven't backed up the OS (silly me, I guess,  
> since all of those configuration files are embedded therein I  
> should have).  Any suggestions on what I should do next?  Can I  
> recover this partition, or do I need to do a fresh install (on  
> another partition) and scavenge old data?
>
> It would be nice if I could just run softwareupdate again on this  
> partition (the receipts file for 10.4.9 isn't there) and hopefully  
> this time complete the update.  The corrupted system itself won't  
> let me do that.  Unfortunately, the OS volume is on a SCSI disk and  
> doesn't show up in TDM, so I can't boot from another machine.  I  
> don't believe the OS X Server install disk will allow me to run  
> softwareupdate on another partition but I guess I will try that first.
>
> Any other suggestions, or tips or hints, most appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
> Ashley.
>
> --
> Ashley Aitken
> Perth, Western Australia
> mrhatken at mac dot com
> Skype Name: MrHatken (GMT + 8 Hours!)
>
>
>
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