Leopard Server 10.5.6 Update Problems on PPC

After remotely updating a G5 Power PC (PPC) Leopard Server to 10.5.6 , we were very disappointed to find out that our server did not come back to life, or so it seemed. Since the server was updated via remote control, we were not on location to fix this problem resulting in a late night drive to the site to restore the server. Hoping it was something as simple needing to agree to a license agreement, we did not expect to find a blank gray screen when we turned on the monitor.
Ugh, it’s 2am we are going to kill Murphy for his damn laws…

After holding the power button down for 10 seconds or so (which will shut off almost ANY computer), we powered it back on and within a few minutes we got our login screen. Wow that was easy, let’s see if everything is working now. We check the websites, nothing. Ping, nothing! Server Admin cannot connect to localhost #$&$, you have got to be kidding me!

We load the network settings from system preferences, both the internal Ethernet and Apple USB NIC are not functioning. That is not a good sign. We shutdown and unplug the USB NIC since the ethernet card has the IPs assigned that we need to host the sites and services, so one problem at a time.

Power back on, and suddenly all the external services come back on. Well that is very good, let’s get that USB NIC back on. We plug it in and down goes the Ethernet card. Seriously… Unplug the USB and the Ethernet starts working, that’s just not right… Several more attempts to enable the USB fail so we added a new PCI NIC and all is well. We still have not figured out what is going on with the USB NIC, but after adding another PCI NIC the reason is moot, although we will probably go back to this in the future when we bridge a 3rd network so hopefully we can explain how to fix the USB NIC on the Leopard Server PPC.