Proceed with caution with the OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update

Summary: Last week Apple pushed out a combined OS X Lion and security update. It's still being pushed out through the Software Update service. While most third-party applications appear to be playing well with the update, a number of serious compatibility issues have been reported, including problems mounting external SATA drives and software RAID volumes.

Last week Apple pushed out a combined OS X Lion and security update. It's still being pushed out through the Software Update service. While most third-party applications appear to be playing well with the update, a number of serious compatibility issues have been reported, including problems mounting external SATA drives and software RAID volumes.

OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update appears to have a number of attractive fixes for users in a Windows server environment, including improved reliability of binding and logging into Active Directory accounts, and when connecting to a WebDAV server. It appears to fix a longstanding bug for issues that may prevent files from being saved to an SMB server.

Details on the security portion of the update can be found here.

However, a number of storage vendors have reported problems with mounting external SATA storage following the update. In a Macintouch post, a Sonnet Technologies tech advised customers to wait on the update based on a number of support calls. However, the company hadn't been able to replicate the issue.

Mark James of SoftRAID also posted on Macintouch saying that his company started receiving reports of SoftRAID volumes not mounting following the update. The company had then received reports of Apple RAID volumes also failing to mount.

However, we have identified the likely source of the problem through the kernel.log file. The file system is failing to mount the [volume]. If you encounter this problem (your RAID volume is not mounting), open the Kernel.log file in the Console.app and filter for "45"; you should see strings indicating "hfs_mountfs: buf_meta_bread failed with 45". There are also entries with "unsupported function" when the OS tries to mount the volume. We are investigating this, and do not yet have a solution. We want to alert all Lion users who use RAID (or PGP), do not update Lion to 10.7.4 until there is a published fix for this problem.

Some products that weren't certified to run under OS X Lion but that had, now may break under the OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update. This may be with Java security tightening in the update. Some of these titles were detailed in the Macintouch discussion.

Some users may have been running VMWare Fusion 2.0.x under OS X Lion 10.7.3 or earlier, however, the end of the road is the latest update from Apple. Of course, the latest Fusion 4.1.2 is fully Lion compatible. VMWare certifies Version 3.x for Snow Leopard and Leopard but Version 3.1.3 will run Lion with some caveats explained in this Knowledge Base article.

Topics: Hardware, Apple, Operating Systems, Software, Storage

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16 comments
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  • You are holding it wrong

    nt
    Your Non Advocate
  • uhhh....

    so?
    If your running old software that doesn't list that it supports the OS your running, well your out of luck and should always be careful when updating the OS. If you want to keep using your old software, then keep using your old OS too.

    The RAID thing of course is a bug that will be fixed.
    doh123
    • You forget.

      Just like the Democrats blaming their missteps on Republicans. On ZDNet it is always fashionable to blame things on Apple.Instead of the software vendors updating their unsupported software, just blame Apple. ZDNet might find away to spin this into a gate issue.
      Jumpin Jack Flash
      • Blame anyone except Apple...

        Perhaps if Apple worked with their partners and not against them (e.g. Adobe, Oracle etc) then maybe they could keep their software working And not break it in a minor update.

        If this was Microsoft you would be screaming bloody murder.
        dazzlingd
      • dazzlingd

        I blame the lazy software people that do ot update their software. In your case, substitute Microsoft for Apple, and see if your tune changes. When it does then you'll see who's really at fault here.
        Jumpin Jack Flash
      • So you're saying Apple is Republican?

        --
        Patanjali
      • Patanjali

        Apple is a Corporation, and thus is neither Republican, nor democrat. I am pointing out that blaming Apple for moving on, rather than updating your software makes as much sense as blaming Bush, for your own bad decisions.
        Jumpin Jack Flash
  • Some products that weren't certified to run under OS X Lion

    What part of "weren???t certified" is hard to understand??
    wackoae
    • lol

      Welcome to Microsoft.

      Where it's always MS's fault, no matter who screwed up.

      Wait, this is happening to Apple? What's next, you're going to tell me Macs aren't immune to Malware?
      Badgered
  • 10.7.4 is Working perfectly well for me on client and server thanks

    "Software engineers can't make their software support an OS that is released after they shipped their software."
    nuxnix
  • We need a patch to patch the patch

    When is Apple going to release the patch to patch the patch that Apple broke?
    toddbottom3
  • Old bugs or new bugs?

    Apple fan boys are impervious to this. But, with apple updates, it's either fix the old bugs and live with new bugs, or just live with old bugs. Apple always forgets that patches are supposed to fix issues and not bring new ones. Such bad software is making my job really hard, because patching day on MACs is just a nightmare that brings in a slew of new issues. Sometimes, the so called fixes actually make the old bugs even worse. I honestly look forward to change jobs where i dont have to support apple products or Users that blame IT for non working MACs
    sr27
  • Lion

    I hate lion!!!
    It won't sync with My Iphone, calendar and so on. I had hundreds of documents in word and excel business files for a Church books system that had been built and operating perfectly for years along with personal files. I have a external hard drive that isn't recognized now . The files I needed was backed up and on my hard drive, but Lion wouldn't open them. when I tried to get help from apple and Microsoft. the tech from Apple told me to format my hard drive, like that was going to save the documents. To save the information, I had to buy a newer version and install it. I saved it, but it cost me over a $100.00 to do it. I had to replace a perfectly good program because of lion... and in a few months, they will be pushing another os. even my day planner was lost where I had records that need to be kept for reports.... it wasn't because it wasn't there, but because Lion won't work with it. No warning of these problems, they say...Just buy it .... NEVER AGAIN warning stay away from Lion.....
    Ronstunt
    • I feel for you

      However Apple did, in fact, tell us about these issues ahead of time. Almost all legacy software that stopped working in Lion also did not work in Snow Leopard by default. The vast majority of software "breakage" happened because the Rosetta compatibility piece was not included in Lion. It also was not included in Snow Leopard, but was an optional install. The purpose of Rosetta is only to support code written for non-Intel Macs. Apple announced that this support would be dropped when they first introduced Intel based Macs back in 2006. So in 2006 Apple says that eventually software you use will stop working. In 2009 they introduce an OS that begins the process unless you do an optional install, and they tell you that this optional install will not be available in future OSes. In 2011 all of these warnings come to pass. We had 5 years of warning.

      Incidentally, Microsoft also warned that older versions of Office would not be upgraded to be compatible with future (non-Rosetta compatible) versions of OSX. I got 'bit' by this issue with Office as well, but I figured "well, they did warn me".

      When Lion was released, there were months of articles in the tech press warning users that some software was incompatible with it and you should check your mission critical apps before upgrading. Never mind the fact that this is simple common sense. If all your eggs are in one basket, you don't change baskets without making sure the new one isn't going to break your eggs.

      If spending $100 on a software upgrade was too much, why in the world didn't you just revert tot he previous (perfectly good) version of Mac OSX? I'm sorry but 5 years is a very long time in IT. Your rant may be applicable to you, but by and large you seem to have fallen victim to your own bad practice of not doing your homework before upgrading your OS.

      Addendum: Not my favorite source, but a decent description can be found at Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
      use_what_works_4_U
  • Hrunga Zmuda

    Dudes, get over yourselves. This is just a bug that pops up in any OS and with much of the hardware out there - from time to time. Stop turning every article about Apple into a Rorschach test of your fetishes and neuroses.

    Interesting, this bug bit me. I have two Sonnet Tempo E4P PCIe cards in my 2006 Mac Pro at work. The 10.7.4 update wouldn't let my eight drives mount. I could see them, and I could even run Disk Utility and other utilities on them, but they wouldn't mount. So I backdated to 10.7.3 and they worked again just fine. On my 2008 Mac Pro at home, with the E2P card, it's working just fine driving an external drive with an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD.

    If you have an OS X install DVD or flash drive, it's easy to do. Just do a new install and update with the Combo updater to 10.7.3 and all will be fine.

    Sonnet tech support is compiling a list of customers who have this problem, and they will notify them when a fix is out if customers having the problem contact them.
    ewelch
  • No More YouTube

    This update has messed with the ability to watch video.

    When I first started using Lion it took weeks to find the right "patch" from Adobe to allow it to use Flash.

    Are we there again?

    Why is Apple so intent on "disabling" Flash Player anyway??????

    If anyone has any fixes I would appreciate your advice, surely this must be happening to others.
    Nick Lento