As well-intentioned as Apple may be, a number of users are reporting that the company’s latest Security Update (2010-001) is causing extremely slow start-up times and poor performance or crashing for several programs, including Skype, Firefox, and Photoshop CS3.
Per CNET, a used identified as “Forgiss” reported the following issue on the Apple Support Discussions board:
“I installed the security update this morning, and rebooted the machine. Startup was extremely slow. in the region of about 5-10 minutes with a consistent beachball untill startup has completed. After startup, I could not launch any non-apple product so far. That includes:
Skype
Firefox
CaptureONE Pro
Photoshop CS3 or CS4
Microsoft office suite (word, excel, etc)
Some applications would open, and then as soon as I try and open a file, it would crash (microsoft and Adobe Products) some would just bounce in the dock (skype, firefox) and some would start to open and then crash after the ID screen has been up for a few seconds. My Wacom Tablet is not recognised and crashes (through USB) although my iTunes and iPod Touch seems to work fine (so it’s not the USB drivers, per se). I have not had any problems with this computer since my upgrade to snow leopard (10.6) and have had no indication that there are any system issues.”
The help in the forum suggests that the hard drive on the computer was being slowly damaged to the point that Disk Utility (via Permissions Verify/Repair) was not noticing anything. The update also seems to have been the catalyst for the hard drive damage to become evident to the system.
If you’ve seen anything like this on your end, let us know.