If a magazine like "Variety" devotes itself to a computer problem, it has to do with the film industry. So it was Monday night when the magazine reported that a "mysterious data error" was paralyzing Mac Pro computers throughout Hollywood.
According to "Variety", film and TV producers in Los Angeles suddenly had more or less of the same problems with their high-performance Apple computers. The machines simply did not want to start, nothing helped them to get back on their feet.
The rumor quickly spread that it could be a computer virus. Apparently, users who used older computers, older operating system versions or older versions of the Avid Media Composer video editing software were particularly likely to be affected.
The manufacturer of this software, Avid, saw itself under pressure to move. The problem will be treated as the top priority for the support and developers of the company, it said in a statement. Work on a solution under high pressure.
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Nice to look at, take apart quickly: the Apple Mac Pro in the testIn Hollywood, this solution was evidently eagerly awaited, but the failure of the computer had brought several projects to a standstill. In a user forum on Facebook affected persons exchanged experiences and tips for possible troubleshooting. As a mantra was repeated over and over again, you should its Mac Pro in any case off or restart, because the problem occurs only then.
Protective function switched off
On Wednesday morning, however, Google answered with a posting in the Chrome Support Forum to speak. "We recently discovered that a Chrome update might have shipped with an error that corrupted the file system on MacOS machines that had system integrity protection disabled or that did not support system integrity protection."
As system integrity protection, Apple calls a technology that prevents malware from changing protected files and folders. Apparently, in Hollywood some users have turned off this protection against cyber attacks. Or they use computers that are so old that they do not support this technique. Or they did not get the necessary software updates.
Google also provides instructions in its posting on how to get an affected computer up and running again. Incidentally, the update in question has now been stopped, they say.
Why this error has hit especially video workers, meanwhile, remains unclear. "Variety" speculates that video professionals would disable system integrity protection to connect external audio and video systems to their computers. Perhaps also so-called hardware dongles played a role, with which Avid protects its expensive video software against illegal copies.
