How to fix Snow Leopard after T-Mobile mobile broadband has killed it
This article comes with a serious health warning. So lets get it out of the way: If you install T-Mobile mobile broadband on a Mac running Snow Leopard, you will brick your shiny pride of joy!
Shortly after you install the required T-Mobile Mobile Broadband Manager software (which sucks by the way), things will be very obviously wrong. Certain tools and software will start throwing error messages, you won’t be able to successfully power down, and worst of all, your Mac won’t power back up. You’ll have an iBrick!
This happened to me a couple of nights ago and to say I was upset doesn’t really do justice to quite how seething with anger and despair I was.
Fortunately I’m a geek and I found a solution to bring my baby back to life. As I wouldn’t wish the feeling of utter desperation on anyone, I shall share my solution here.
Diagnosing the problem
I won’t take credit for this - David Glover documented the issue back in September. Without David’s post I would probably have committed suicide by now. So, cheers David!
Basically, the T-Mobile installer does a very naughty thing. It overwrites a core library file with it’s own version of that file. This is such shockingly bad practice that I’m absolutely astonished that this really is the problem!
Specifically, the file in question is libcurl.4.dylib which can be found in /usr/lib. This library file is used by… well, just about everything that your Mac does! I suspect (although don’t know for sure) that the version T-Mobile dumps in your system is an old 32bit version which is why your 64bit Snow Leopard has a fit when it tries to do anything with it.
The solution
OK, here we go. First thing you need to do is dig your Snow Leopard CD out of that drawer where you stuff all those CDs. Got it? Right, pop it in your iBrick then.
In fact, you might have difficulty inserting a CD into a Mac that isn’t booted up. What I did was power up holding down Cmd+S to boot up in Single-User Mode. That should enable you to slide in the CD.
Next up, type in reboot (or power off and on) and hold down C to boot up off the Snow Leopard CD. This might take a few minutes, but it should eventually take you to the Snow Leopard installation screen.
What you don’t want to do is reinstall Snow Leopard (although that is an option if you’re desperate). Instead, go to the Utilities menu and power up trusty old Terminal.
From here we have one lovely command to type:
cp /usr/lib/libcurl.4.dylib /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/lib
All that does is basically copy the unbroken libcurl.4.dylib file from the installation CD back over the top of T-Mobile’s filth-ridden troublesome version. Jobs a goodun, Mac fixed. Restart and sigh a huge sigh of relief.
Thinking of buying T-Mobile mobile broadband?
If you haven’t yet bricked your Mac but are considering buying T-Mobile’s mobile broadband, then my honest advice would be to think again.
Using my fix I have got the software working, and the Mobile Broadband experience is fine. It works. But any software that overwrites core library files is simply unforgivable. To make matters worse, Phil Harman reckons T-Mobile aren’t even aware this problem exists… almost two months after Snow Leopard was released.
If you’re insistent, then the way to do it is to open up a Terminal session before you do the installation, and make a copy of the good libcurl file. Then keep that Terminal session open whilst you install the T-Mobile software (if you try to open a Terminal session after the software has wrecked your Mac then you won’t have much luck, but an open session should remain open). Then, after the installation just copy the good file back over the bad one.
Simples, eh? Well, no - not at all, really. Which is why I recommend not going with T-Mobile until they acknowledge how downright Noddy their software is and do something about it!
Update - 10 January 2012
Unbelievably, over two years since publishing this article, people are still emailing me reporting that this issue hasn’t been fixed by T-Mobile. Also, Mickaël reports that if you’re using Lion, the original boot DVD isn’t required. You can boot from the recovery partition that Lion creates by holding down option on startup and selecting “boot from recovery HD”.
26 responses
Michael Murphy responded on with…
Thanks for this. I currently use T Mobile broadband and am soon to buy a new macbook pro so glad i found this post!
Adam Pearson responded on with…
Thankyou, thankyou, so much or taking the time to post this solution. I got into this situation not knowing anything about the problem in advance, and this has really bailed me out - even though i have lost a morning to it.
Before finding this post I called T-Mobile technical support and they were absolutely useless - claimed to know nothing about the problem despite it being documented on the internet for three months now. All they could say was “We don’t support Snow Leopard”. I pointed out to them that there is a big difference between not supporting a system, and releasing software which totally destroys a system.
Thanks Aaron - you are a lifesaver.
Ziko responded on with…
Hi
Thanks very very very much for this post. I have just bought a new Mac Book Pro and not knowing anything about Mac at all I have installed T-Mobile Mobile Broadband. First thing was I could not do anything with Network, I thought restarting would resolve the problem. Well, after a few minutes the Mac Book could not boot I knew T-Mobile messed up horribly.
Fortunately I found this website and that solution. I was in shock when I found this and read T-Mobile software OVERWRITES the core file in the system. How the hell on the whole Earth this would be possible. The coders in T-Mobile are such rubbish. This is absolutely unforgivable, at all. I really would like to thank more than I can because without this article I would be doomed, frustrated and probably got down in heavily bad mood during the weekend.
Fortunately, good people are in internet and I have found out how to run Mac Book in Single User mode, how to boot it from CD. Great work, much appreciated =)))))
Aaron responded on with…
Hey guys - Glad this post is proving useful :)
Jimbo responded on with…
Thanks for this. Really. Saved my bacon. God bless the inneret
Bfreesun responded on with…
many thanks for this. Saved me from a computerless christmas Tesco are selling this dongle for £9.95 but have no idea about any problems. Took me a while to figure out that spaces need to be included as a relative newcomer to Mac
MadOne responded on with…
Thanks so much! I bought the dongle yesterday (8 Jan 2010). I did still run into the same problem. Unbelievable….
Ayhan responded on with…
Thanks so much for this blog entry! My mac works again. It was a nightmare until I figured out what happened. Never again t-mobile! NEVER!
Relieved responded on with…
Thank you thank you thank you thank you! X
Cesar Laser responded on with…
Hey man, thanks so much! I actually got a new mac from my apple store (because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it), and installed T-mobile again before I realised something was afoot! So thank you very much.
Andy Ives responded on with…
Hu Aaron, thanks a bunch for this… you are a real life saver! Anyone else noticed a slight slow down in startup after fixing this problem?
Sarah responded on with…
Aaron, thanks so much for this. It’s people like you who make the internet so wonderful. I read another post on this subject before I found yours, but they didn’t include the command line for Terminal, so I was still stuck with my ibrick. You just saved me a clean instal or visit to the genius bar. I now have everything running smoothly again and the T-Mobile broadband seems to be working fine. Mega thanks.
Aaron responded on with…
Glad people are still finding this post helpful… and disappointed T-mobile haven’t fixed the underlying problem yet.
Douwe responded on with…
Aaron, thank you so much! In my case it was a MTN UMTS stick from Cameroon that turned my MacBook in an iBrick. So I couldn’t use my MacBook for half my trip. Back home, your solution fixed everything in five minutes!
Thank you so much!
Joe responded on with…
I ordered the T-Mobile Mobile Broadband dongle on Tuesday and it came on Wednesday and guess what - they haven’t fixed the problem yet. Unbelievable.
I was having a bit of a problem with the registration process on their website so I figured I’d try a restart… bam, my Mac was dead, Well, or so I thought.
I’ll try your little trick now and if it works a million thank yous to you for posting this.
sarah responded on with…
If you weren’t an intangible presence existing only in the ether I would hug and kiss you. You have just saved my little world from total collapse. Bless you, Saviour of iWorld.
Aaron responded on with…
LOL, I do actually exist. Hugs and kisses never rejected.
Veloru responded on with…
Hey,
THAAAAAAAAAAAANKS a lot dude. All the way from Germany!!! I was going insane. Now everything is working fine again.
Calling T Mobile Germany didnt help at all. Incredible that they can actually get away with this without even apologizing.
Anyway I also reported this to some magazines and all. Hopefully there will be an article to save others BEFORE they install this sh… without warning.
Again thanks a lot!!!!
Azuka responded on with…
Thanks to this thread. I almost lost all my files due to this.
I am so happy I am back up and running again. I have no intentions of even attempting to get the t-mobile broadband to work with my MBP. I think the place for that dongle is the bin.
Garfield responded on with…
Thanks for this! I am soon to buy a MacBook Pro and though the T-Mobile dongle didn’t brick my old MacBook, I don’t think I’d want to try it on a new machine!
Annoyingly I can’t find a decent alternative to the T-Mobile broadband. 3’s MiFi needs a PC to run the configuration software so it’s not looking good at the moment :o(
Anne responded on with…
I have a brick……I hope that the apple store will help me fix it as I currently don’t have my snowleopard CD with me on holiday……:-(
Glad to know it’s fixable though! Thanks
Andrew responded on with…
Thanks for an excellent description of how to fix this very annoying problem. As you say, the t-mobile site is not at all helpful on this issue. It’s unfortunate that Mac OS doesn’t offer system restore points like Windows, but your instructions fixed the problem perfectly.
For other people using your instructions, it’s worth knowing that you should replace “Macintosh\ HD” in the text “/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/lib” with the name of your hard disk, if you’ve changed it from the default name.
Dawn responded on with…
I just had to post…I had some sort of scary mac collapse following installing a T Mobile dongle and went to restart to get out of the chaos I was in - and my shiny new Christmas Macbook pro hung and wouldnt start.
3 hours of near terminal sadness - and I found this site …followed the advice word for word and I’m back operating. Thank you so much ….a computer lifesaver!
Thank you thank you thanks you
Dawn
Matt responded on with…
Thank god for your post! You’ve saved my bacon!!
Rod responded on with…
Thank you so much for repairing my reputation. After persuading a friend to buy an iMac with snow leopard, and Geek squad support, we had problems after installing the T-Mobile dongle. We couldn’t get into some preferences and it then wouldn’t restart. A few days later iMac no 2 works fine until the dreaded dongle turns the computer into a door stop. We left it on for the Geek squad to take control, but they advised uninstalling and restarting - BIG MISTAKE. We were back to grey screen and spinning circle. They couldn’t help any more. This time I found your blog, and without telling my friend how dangerous Terminal is, I talked her through your solution and she is over the moon and I’m out of the doghouse. She’s cancelled the T-Mobile contract and sending your blog address to both T-Mobile and the Geek Squad. Thank you very much. Rod
Aaron responded on with…
Glad to be able to help, Rod. Although can’t believe that I wrote this article in September 2009, and it’s STILL not been fixed by T-mobile.
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