Has anybody had problems after installing updates recently?

Question

Hello,
I installed some updates about an hour ago on my MacbookPro, and now it is unable to start up. I do remember that I got a message saying "was unable to install ... and ..." before I restarted, but honestly, I didn't pay that much attention to it because I didn't think I'd get such huge problems from installing an update, and I don't remember what exactly was getting installed, or what two things were listed in the error message.
I think my MacbookPro is in pretty bad shape, because before it can even display the login screen, my screen goes gray and there's a message saying "you need to restart your computer, press the power button down for a few seconds" in several languages. And when I do restart, it takes me back to the same screen. I'm guessing that one of the components that were supposed to be installed didn't get installed properly and that's what's causing this.
I'm wondering if this has happened to anybody else. The first thing that came to my mind was to pop the Leopard installation disk in and see if I can reinstall everything again, but I'm on vacation right and I don't have the disk on me. Are there any known workarounds for something like this?
To give some background info, I use Leopard and I actually reinstalled the operating system (while preserving the non-system files) exactly a week ago, so I am certain that there were no files corrupted, at least on my part.
Thanks,
Yuri

Answer 1

Hi again Yuri,
Sorry that didn't help ferret out the issue. If a trip to the Apple store isn't too inconvenient, it might be worth it (and it's free!). I can give some more thoughts if you have the time and inclination to try to solve the problem yourself.
By the way, what do you mean when you say that your computer automatically reboots? It is making it through the booting process? Are you doing anything specific when it reboots? Will it do this even if you just leave it alone?
Here are some troubleshooting suggestions:
1. Kernel panics can be caused by both software and hardware problems, but the hardware ones are pretty easy to test. You could try unplugging everything you have attached to your computer (assuming you have an Apple keyboard and mouse, those can stay plugged in) and rebooting to see if the problem persists. If you have two RAM sticks in your machine, you could try swapping the bays they're in, and you could also try the Apple Hardware Test if you still have the original disk that came with your machine. (Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense.) My suspicion from your description of how it started is that this is a software problem, but you never know.
2. If none of that works, it probably is software-related. To try to figure out what might be causing the problem (I'm assuming here that your spontaneous reboots are happening after your system is fully booted), reboot your computer normally (to cause a KP so that we have an exact time frame), and then when it forces you to reboot, do so in Safe Mode. You can then access your log files (in the Console Program, under Applications > Utilities) and look for the section called "LOG FILES"—which you may have to click "Show Log List" to see—and select "PanicReporter." If you can paste that information in this thread before your computer crashes again, that would probably be very helpful in diagnosing the problematic software. (If it's quicker, you can e-mail a copy of that log file by selecting it in Console and going to File > Mail.) This file should tell us exactly what the computer was doing before the kernel panic, and if we know that, we might just know how to get around it.
If these solutions don't work, a lot of the troubleshooting procedures can be complicated if it's a software problem and if you're unfamiliar with the UNIX command-line environment. So if you're so inclined, it might be easier to just take the patient in! If you don't want to or can't, I'd be happy to help you further.
Good luck!
—Hazy