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slider · Feb 13, 2008, 10:07 AM

I didn't see this discussed in another thread so I'm hoping when I try a clean install tonight the issue will be resolved.
I have a PowerBook 1.25GHz with 2GB ram and a 160GB hard drive. The system is continuously locking up. First I thought it was just when coming out of sleep and maybe somehow related Spotlight indexing. Then this morning when the system was locked up again I decide to try repairing disk permissions. That locked up too when I used my BT mouse. I turned off BT, airport, disconnected my network cable and have no other apps running and am trying to do a permissions repair again. It's been hanging at a quarter of a way indicating "1 minute", and the screen saver just came on and is working. I'm hoping if I just give it some time it'll complete. Just checked and the repair of permissions has increased to 38 minutes ans is now dropping, but progress is being made.

Has anybody else been having lock ups after the 10.5.2 update? This has been a full lockup btw, no response, no force quit, needed to restart with power button depressed until restart.

OK, repair is complete. Got "ACL found but not expected on......." message for Applications/Utilities, Applications, and Library. What's ACL?

I'll update later this post a bit later.

Big Mac · Feb 13, 2008, 10:14 AM

Access Control List. It's the replacement for POSIX (right?) style permissions that existed in the previous milestones of OS X. It's no big deal

I don't want this to come off sounding harsh, but a permissions problem will never cause OS X to freeze. People treat repair permissions with exactly the same mystical reverence they treated rebuilding the desktop in OS 9 (perhaps worse), and it's social conditioning that many OS X users need to eliminate from their minds. It will not help you with the problem you're having. You're right, though, that is a very serious issue. I don't think it's happening as a result of 10.5.2. It could be a number of issues (such as bad RAM resulting in a bad installation, bad hard drive, bad install disc). I would run the Hardware Test and see if you get any abnormal results from it, and if not I'd do either an Archive and Install or Erase and Install of the OS. But before you do that, is there any chance you have a pre-10.5.2 backup that you can run off of for a while to see if problems occur there as well?

UpQuark · Feb 13, 2008, 11:06 AM

Try to boot into single user mode and run FSCK -yf to clear any repairable HD issues.

slider · Feb 13, 2008, 11:19 AM

Hi Big Mac.
My system ran fine before the update. While all those things are true, ram, hard drive, etc as possible causes, none of these issues existed before the update. I think for now, it's safe to assume that the issue is related to the 10.5.2 update. I suppose the permissions thing is the only thing that I know to try, though it seems to have helped in the past. My backup consists of Time Machine. So far the system has been responding fine, I plugged in my external HD and let TM finish it's backup, then I turned on my BT and worked with the mouse, then the ethernet cable and I'm running mail and safari. I'll close her up in a bit to see to sleep then wake a few times at different intervals to see if the freezing from wake issue continues.

As for the Hardware Test. Are you referring to the one that came with my Apple Care package? Or has this changed recently, ie a download from Apple? This computer is several years old and shipped with OS 9. Is there a Hardware Test on the Leopard Disk?

I have not seen the ACL not expected message before. Since a permission repair is clearly something I try often enough - and I ran it several times in 10.5.1 - why would it not have come up then?

So far, though, still running.

Big Mac · Feb 13, 2008, 11:58 AM

Any panic logs by chance?

Your Mac may not have shipped with a hardware test CD. I am a bit surprised because I thought the 1.25GHz PB was long after OS 9 was relegated to Classic status.

I'd also check around to see if any other owners of the same PB are having 10.5.2 problems like you are. Given Apple relatively lackluster QA in modern times, I wouldn't be all that surprised if they let a critical PB incompatibility slip through the cracks.

Person Man · Feb 13, 2008, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't want this to come off sounding harsh, but a permissions problem will never cause OS X to freeze.

It will never cause a freeze, but certain permissions problems may cause interesting problems, such as the other day when I was using the Sharing control panel in Leopard to try to share my entire hard drive on my home network.

I dragged the root hard drive directory (/ ) to the list, and changed the permissions to: root can read/write/execute, owner can read and write, everyone has no access. Oops. Suddenly things started malfunctioning, so I rebooted. The system booted up, but the login window never appeared.

"That's strange," I thought. "I didn't change the permissions in the Finder's Get Info window..." Then it hit me. The Sharing Panel must have applied the settings immediately when I set them, which I think is a BIG no-no. The interface is NOT clear that the actual permissions would be changed immediately. I thought I was only changing them for remote connections. Someone not as technically inclined would not know how to fix the problem.

What I ended up doing was booting off of the Leopard DVD, running terminal and issuing chmod commands to return the root drive's permissions to normal. (The problem affected my Power Mac G5, and I used the permissions on my MacBook Pro as a guide). Once the permissions were corrected, my G5 booted up just fine and I had normal access to the system.

I'm not sure that running a "repair permissions" would have fixed it. And though I could experiment by deliberately changing the settings and running repair permissions, I'm not inclined to go through that again.

My point was that when the root drive permissions were wrong, the system booted, but appeared to hang when it came time to display the login window. And it just sat there. Most people would have interpreted that as a "freeze."

Big Mac · 01:50 PM

Okay, in that case, I concede the point. You should file a bug report with Apple.

Person Man · Feb 13, 2008, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Okay, in that case, I concede the point in that case. You should file a bug report with Apple.

The thing is, they may not consider it a bug.

I consider it more of a "misfeature." I don't think you should be able to actually change the permissions of a folder from the Sharing panel. But, if that's the only way to do it, they need to make that more clear in the interface.

olePigeon · Feb 13, 2008, 02:22 PM

Mac OS X 10.5: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions reports issues with SUID files

"Any message that starts with: 'ACL found but not expected on...'."
"Solution: You can safely ignore these messages. They are accurate but not a cause for concern."

slider · Feb 13, 2008, 05:24 PM

So far so good. No problems after repair of permission, though I also did the FSCK thing which came back as OK. I also have not found anyone else reporting this issue so whatever it is/was it's likely something specific to my system.

Thanks for the replies.

slider · Feb 14, 2008, 10:12 PM

I think it's official. Whatever was causing the constant freezes after the update appears to have been resolved. I don't know if it was from repairing permissions or the FSCK but after a day of putting it through its paces, my old powerbook is humming along. In fact, it's running smoother now than since I upgraded to leopard and I think my battery life has improved greatly as well ( I was starting to think I need to buy a new one already).