A Google Chrome update has knocked out the Mac Pros of many Hollywood studios: what happened
Fear and delirium in… Hollywood. For a few days now, video editing studios have been having problems with Mac Pros dedicated to editing various TV series. According to reports from various U.S. newspapers, in the last few hours the Mac Pros have become totally unusable. The cause? An update of Google Chrome.
Google has obviously run to the remedies immediately stopping the distribution of the update. In a post published on the browser’s support pages, the Californian company acknowledged the mistake by stating that it had discovered that the latest Chrome update might have been distributed along with a bug. The bug would target the file system of macOS systems and for now the distribution of the update has been paused until a new update is released that will solve the problem.
Google Chrome update problem, what’s happening
Initially the problem seemed to stem from Avid’s Media Composer software as it was only found on machines that had this program installed. Avid, despite not being at fault in the matter, promptly suggested to its users to quickly back up their data, but after a thorough research it tracked down the real source of the problem. In particular, it would seem that the Keystone software, which is present in Chrome to automatically download updates, was able to corrupt the file system, making it impossible to restart the machine.
SIP: System Integrity Protection, what is it
Sip, or System Integrity Protection, is an Apple technology that ensures the protection of system files from malicious software. Some programs require System Integrity Protection to be disabled in order to work properly with external hardware such as graphics or sound cards, which happens, for example, with Avid Media Composer. Google has reassured all Mac users, reminding them that if System Integrity Protection is not disabled and the computer has macOS 10.9 or later the problem does not exist.