All of you Mac users out there are surely familiar with the ubiquitous Software Update screen that pops up regularly on your desktop. Using it to update individual apps is one thing, but think very carefully before initiating one of the incremental OS X system updates that are sporadically released by Apple. Basically, within a given version of OS X (Tiger, Panther, etc.) your updating philosophy should be “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I speak from experience, because I recently ignored that concept and paid the price. I’ve been using 10.4.8 for a while now, and all my music software was functioning nicely. Software Update had been pestering me about 10.4.9 for a while, but I held off (I have a Power Mac G5). One of the sequencers I use the most is Pro Tools LE, and I know that Digidesign doesn’t immediately put new Apple System updates on it’s list of approved system versions. So I waited and waited, and then one day last week, I deemed that enough time had passed and hit the update button for 10.3.9. Big mistake. The ironic part was that the program I had the most trouble with wasn’t Pro Tools LE, which ran fine, but rather Apple’s own Logic Pro. Go figure?

I couldn’t even get Logic to open. It kept crashing while it was launching. The problem appeared to have to do with plug-ins, as it was trying to re-validate (using the AuVal utility) all of my AU plugs, but couldn’t get through the list without crashing.

I searched the problem on Google, and found relevant hits on some of the user groups–such as KVR–which told of similar problems. Some people were also having trouble with their PACE copy protection software when running 10.3.9. Several users suggested using Apple’s Combo Update (separate versions are offered for PPC and Intel users) rather than the one offered on Software Update. I downloaded and installed that, but still had the same problem. Then I noticed that Logic was getting hung up while trying to evaluate a particular third-party plug-in. So I went to the Web site of that plug-in developer and downloaded the latest version of the plug. After that, Logic made it past that plug-in but got hung up on another one. I repeated the same process, with the next plug-in and after updating a couple more (most of my plug-ins didn’t need updating), Logic was good to go.

By that point, I had spent hours troubleshooting a problem that could have been avoided by simply staying with 10.4.8. So as a general rule, I advise thinking long and hard before updating your system, unless there’s a compelling reason that you need to do so.