Leopard installation problems - blue screen

Sat, 27 October 2007

Some users have experienced the blue screen of death while installing Mac OS X Leopard. Installation goes fine until your Mac reboots, but then you are stuck with the blue screen, with your mouse pointer being the only thing working.

A cold restart doesn’t help either, you come back to the blue screen again. Some users have contacted Apple and have been told to wait for 2 - 3 hours and the installation will continue (oh, yeah right!), but this seems to be going nowhere.

The problem seems to be a process or an application that loads at start up and then hangs. In many cases, including myself, the application causing this problem is Application Enhancer (you had the Clear Dock installed, haven’t you?).

If you are reading this before upgrading your computer, go and remove the Clear Dock now. If you are already at the stage of pulling your hair - worry not, there is a bit of work to do, but it’s likely to be fine after that.


Reboot your Mac while holding Cmnd-S on your keyboard. Your computer will boot into the single user mode, no graphics, only the good old command line.

To modify files you need to type the following

/sbin/fsck -fy (then press return)
/sbin/mount -uw / (then press return again)

You can either go straight to their respective folders to delete these four files, or you can do it in one go by typing the following commands and pressing return on your keyboard after each line:

rm -rf /Library/Preference Panes/Application Enhancer.prefpane
rm -rf /Library/Frameworks/ApplicationEnhancer.framework
rm -rf /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ApplicationEnhancer.bundle
rm -rf /Library/Preferences/com.unsanity.ape.plist

Now reboot your Mac from the installation DVD, open Disk Utility and repair the permissions. Reboot again, this time your Mac should boot into Leopard.

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43 Responses to “Leopard installation problems - blue screen”

  1. brent said: Sat, 27 October 2007 at 19:57

    i have a black macbook which has a third party hard drive. Prior to 8 pm today this computer worked perfect. My first attempt to install led to an error screen which told me to try again. This corrupted my hard drive, i tried to repair it with disk first aid but no luck. I erased the drive and started over. This time installation was successful but i ended up with the blue screen where only my mouse and sound controls worked. I erased and installed again, this time i cant even get the mouse up, it freezes at the apple. Needless to say it is now 3 am and im typing this from my iphone and i wish i didnt totally ruin my computer by attempting to install leopard. Any ideas?

  2. Tom said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 00:06

    I am not sure what you mean by “CLEAR DOCK”…..? I am a Noob to the Mac World, so PLEASE forgive my ignorance ! I am currently waiting for delivery of my copy of Leopard (sched. to arrive today 10/27), and have been reading ALL of the posts on Apple Discussion boards….. I sure am glad my copy is a day late, with ALL of the problems that people have been having, I think I am going to wait till next weekend to load mine up to see it there is any headway in correcting the install process….. Unless you know of a good “Step by Step” guide to hasslle free/ bug free install…? What do you recomend ??? Archive & Install, or Erase & Install ???

    Thanx,
    Tom

  3. Miro said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 02:48

    Hi, I installed it last night. Tom backup yur files - documents folder, copy your photos and music. Then insert the disc - in my case I selected the upgrade option, when you restart the computer use the disc utillity to verify it’s ok (this should take 5 min’s) and then let it do it’s thing. My installation went well, and so far all my programs work on the Leopard as they were on Tiger.

  4. eve said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 05:19

    whatever happened to the best skin ever? did it set up properly?

    i bought one for my 5g (yes, old) ipod and a screen protector for my treo, but after reading about your application problems, i don’t know if i want to use it!

  5. Lars (DD-DE) said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 06:08

    I had the same problem after installing on my Mac mini G4 1.42GHz, 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM. Installed it twice with the same result - installation went fine, but then it came up with a light blue screen with mouse pointer only.
    Then googled for help (with the already upgraded MacBook Core Duo 1.83GHz, 250GB HDD, 2 GB RAM) and found your solution here. Thank you very much!!!
    I had to change one line of your code (missing space):
    /sbin/mount -uw/
    into
    /sbin/mount -uw /

  6. Mike said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 08:07

    Thanks Lars, I have updated it now. Cheers.

  7. Tom said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 09:37

    Thanx for the info MICRO !

    I am patiently waiting for my FW 500 Gig HDD to arrive on Monday so I can get on with this…. I have read a TON of post at the Apple site, and all of the HORROR stories have me a bit concerned ! I read on MACFIXIT, an article that recomended installing Leopard to a “Clean” Ext. HDD, and leave the internal HDD with 10.4.10 in tact untill I have a chance to “Verify” that my pgm’s on Tiger function properly with Leopard…. Guess I will try that, and if all works OK, then I will “Wipe” the internal HDD and move Leopard to it…. I am new to this side of the fence, so I am a bit leary….

    Does this sound like a good idea ??

  8. Lars (DD-DE) said: Sun, 28 October 2007 at 16:24

    Just a small update from me:
    Now that the Leopard runs on the Mac mini G4 (without Apple Remote Control receiver) even Front Row works fine, which was only possible with a hack in the past with Tiger and also no longer possible with the new aluminum keyboard drivers. Now I can just press Command+Escape and Front Row comes to life at my nearly 3 years old G4 Mac mini. It is easy to use with the brand new aluminum bluetooth keyboard now even from a distance.

  9. Night said: Tue, 30 October 2007 at 07:34

    If you are opposed to typing those difficult codes, you can also choose for ‘Archive and Install’ when installing Leopard. This will defenitely help you past the ‘Application Enhancer’ problem.

    If you really need the Application Enhancer, keep an eye on the [url=http://www.unsanity.com/products/compatibility]developper’s website[/url] for update info.

    ;)

  10. Winobie said: Thu, 1 November 2007 at 19:43

    I just had success with the command line, single user mode method described at the top of this page. I had the offending APE in my system… BAD APE!

    All seems well now, although I am scared to turn off again. Disk Utility will not verify or repair the Disk Permissions (progress bar runs endlessly), The disc itself verifies OK.

    Worried, Imac G5 (ppc) 2.1ghz 20inch

  11. JR said: Fri, 2 November 2007 at 04:36

    People are just too impatient nowadays. I’ve done several LOS upgrades and yes the blue screen does appear for a length of time. But the new login screen eventually appears. So what if it takes like 1 or 2 minutes, that’s nothing compared to the 90 minute LOS install. If you upgraders are PATIENT. and not press the PANIC button after 20seconds of the blue screen or more, you’ll see for yourselves the login screen comes up!

  12. Mats said: Fri, 2 November 2007 at 06:02

    Thank you very much for this help.
    Solved my blue screen :-)

  13. Chris said: Sat, 3 November 2007 at 07:40

    I’m installing onto a separate HD in my tower so anything I have on the other HD should not affect this install.. but here I am with blue screens on my monitors.

  14. Jonas Hummelstrand said: Sat, 3 November 2007 at 08:00

    A small tip:
    Before you restart with Cmd-S, you need to remove the Leopard DVD (I could only do it by starting with the Option key depressed to get the Startup disk choice and then using the Eject key.)
    Also, some keys are hard to find on a non-English keyboard, I had to use - and + on my Swedish keyboard to get to the / and - keys.

  15. Mike said: Sat, 3 November 2007 at 09:51

    will these codes work with an imac g5
    software 10.3.9?

  16. Mac said: Sat, 3 November 2007 at 10:35

    Mac Mini G4 gets permanent blue screen for over an hour and I am trying the recommendations, etc. This is not an impatience issue.

  17. Jeff said: Sat, 3 November 2007 at 16:36

    I just installed Leopard on my new MacBook Pro and I, too, had the light blue screen of nothing happening. I pressed cmd + option + esc a couple of times and the Force Quit box came up and few seconds after that I got the login screen. So try that first.

  18. braceta said: Mon, 5 November 2007 at 01:26

    Thank you very much!

    I have installed the KCNCrew and my powerbook stopped to work after the reboot! Didn’t know why, even checking out through logs…

    This solved my problem at the very first time! :)

    BTW, don’t install missing sync 4.0.1…

  19. steve said: Wed, 7 November 2007 at 01:27

    I got the new login screen first time okay after upgrading Tiger to Leopard, but the prompt box won’t accept my password. It just kicks back to the same prompt box via a few seconds of the blue screen. It is the correct password so now I am really stuck…help please, I am a newbie to macs. Same thing happens everytime I restart.

  20. Ralph said: Thu, 8 November 2007 at 18:14

    Thanks man!

    That worked… Phewwww…

  21. Josh said: Fri, 9 November 2007 at 07:24

    Im getting the same login problem as steve. Can someone please post a solution this is killin me!

  22. Nermin said: Sun, 11 November 2007 at 04:26

    Hi.. I can’t eject my disc the way Jonas says.. Any ideas what to do ?

  23. Nermin said: Sun, 11 November 2007 at 19:56

    Never mind .. I found out that the only thing that helped, was to hold the mouse button when i started my mac. Everything works fine now, thanks !

  24. Krazeeeyez said: Tue, 13 November 2007 at 04:44

    THIS FIXED IT FOR ME!
    need second mac to target disk though…

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857

  25. finalboss said: Tue, 20 November 2007 at 14:02

    found your site through google. just wanted to say this worked for me as well. instructions were simple and i was able to do it and i’m high as hell.

  26. Steve said: Wed, 28 November 2007 at 06:20

    Just to let you know I had my G4 876 Powerbook with Blue Screen after Leopord install, I had it on my G5 in target mode as was going to run disk doctors when I came upon this thread.
    I hooked the said files out like bad potatoes straght from the target disk via the G5, re set perm’ and BINGO big thanks to U guys

  27. Mark said: Mon, 3 December 2007 at 23:39

    hi!

    i have an ibook g4 (2005), with 512mb ram.
    after installing the leopard upgrade and rebooting, i encounter a problem:
    the o/s seems to load as usual, i see the leopard backdrop, my dock appears, my menu bar appears, but the color wheel spins non-stop (for hours and hours). when i hover over the dock, i get a cursor, but applications don’t open (only firefox opened once), i also get a cursor when i hover over the top righthand portion of the menu bar, but no cursor on the left portion (only the spinning wheel).
    any help would be soooooo appreciated!!!

    thanks!
    mark

  28. Mattie said: Mon, 3 December 2007 at 23:56

    Patience not an issue. My blue screen ran over 24 hours.

  29. Mark said: Tue, 4 December 2007 at 00:39

    hi - you mean i should let it run as long as it wants as if it was indexing?

    thanks,
    mark

  30. Emma said: Sat, 15 December 2007 at 00:58

    I had the blue screen on restart after upgrading to Leopard. I have ejected the DVD and tried to remove ApplicationEnhancer.bundle via Target Disk Mode and in Single-user Mode but ApplicationEnhancer.bundle was not there.

    The blue screen has been running for about 15 hours.

    The installation was a second attempt. The first time there was an error (couldn’t install Leopard) and when I tried the install it a second time, I could only do so after repairing the hard disk. Could this be anything to do with the blue screen?

    Does anyone know of anything else I can try other than Erase and Install?

    And how can I erase and install anyway if I can’t get past the blue screen?

  31. Waldoh said: Sat, 15 December 2007 at 10:13

    Verify/Repair Disk Permissions not working after Leopard Install
    Since I installed Leopard on my G5 dual processor, I cannot run the Verify disk permission anymore. The progress barr keeps spinning, but not the mouse arrow. The Verify Disk works fine, though. Any idea what wet wrong?
    Thanks

  32. Mike said: Sat, 15 December 2007 at 10:17

    I think 10.5.1 update fixes this problem.

    I had the same issue on an Intel iMac, but since the update it’s all fine.

  33. Vince said: Wed, 19 December 2007 at 15:06

    I had the same problem but did not have Clear Dock on my computer. Apple has posted a more generic version of the solution on their web site.

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857

    Hope this helps.

  34. Jenn said: Sun, 23 December 2007 at 02:18

    Mike,

    I did a spotlight search (on Tiger - haven’t upgraded yet) for the “Clear Dock.” I wanted to remove it like you suggested, but I’m not sure where to look for it.

    If you are reading this before upgrading your computer, go and remove the Clear Dock now.

    BTW: A friend of mine had this problem when they purchased their new Mac Mini and your solution worked like a charm! Thanks! Also, (not really a big deal) but in your tab order, the authentication text box comes before the comment text box. When tabbing through each field it goes: name > email > website > comment box > authentication (you probably don’t notice since you’re logged in!)

  35. Dave said: Tue, 25 December 2007 at 14:28

    We just bought an iMac, started installation and everything froze when we began loading leopard. Now we just get the apple logo and spinning wheel after power down and restart. I tried the “Command S” fix above but only get a scrolling “SAM Multimedia: READ or WRITE failed, SENSE_KEY = 0×03 etc etc”
    Any suggestions?
    (P.S. I’m a Windows-guy and am used to these frustrations but I NEVER expected to have these problems with Apple, go figure.)

  36. Claurene said: Fri, 28 December 2007 at 17:05

    Thanks for your solution! I have a Logitech wireless mouse attached to my iMac and I guess it installed all the Application Enhancer files.

    Anyhow, thanks to you, I did not have to do a clean install!! It would be such a drag to have to do a clean install and reconfigure all my preferences and installing of software again.

    I was so worried initially when I encountered into that dreaded infamous blue screen.
    I’m so so so happy with the Mac Leopard OS X now! :D

    Thank you for sharing this solution once again. :)

  37. Carolina said: Sun, 30 December 2007 at 21:31

    I encountered same problema as Dave. Bought an Imac yesterday and installed Leopard but have the apple logo and spinning wheel……

    Please need your help on this…. I cannot eject the DVD or anything …..

  38. dr gauravsuneja said: Tue, 1 January 2008 at 12:19

    I encountered same problema as Dave. Bought an Imac yesterday and installed Leopard but have the apple logo and spinning wheel……

    Please need your help on this…. I cannot eject the DVD or anything ….

  39. Rory Jarrard said: Sat, 5 January 2008 at 07:26

    Dave and Carolina,

    I also have the spinning wheel issue. I don’t know how to fix it. However, if you reboot while holding down the touchpad “mouse button”, it will force eject the CD.

  40. Ayaan said: Thu, 17 January 2008 at 19:47

    I cant beleive u had a solution for this… it happened to me a month ago…i had to re install tiger…wipe off my hard drive clean…and then install leopard again…wat a pain…

  41. Bob F. said: Fri, 1 February 2008 at 02:49

    What a pain in the arse!
    iTunes won’t work, Mail won’t work, support tells me to clean my disc and start anew! G4 iBook. Program half installed! Message says install failed yet I have Leopard running…POORLY!
    I am real disappointed here having been a big fan of apple…damn, I bought an iPhone, 2 ipods, not to mention Logic and Final Cut. Now my computer is screwed up and the best they can tell me is to erase?
    Looks to me like they did not test this to see if it was tamed before they let it out of the cage.

  42. Tristan said: Thu, 19 June 2008 at 18:56

    I recently updated the software on my mac, I’ve never done this before. I restarted my computer and the blue screen was stuck on there, needless to say I was devastated. How do I fix this problem.. will it go away on its own?

  43. Chris said: Tue, 24 June 2008 at 10:43

    This fixed it for my system - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1545?viewlocale=en_US

    Boot mac with issues into Target Disk Mode (hold down T)….delete App Enhancer bundle, reboot.

    –
    Dual 2 GHz PPC G5, 2.5 GB ram (some “3rd party”).

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