Is it me? The other day I had that problem with the Office 2011 update. But it was fixed fairly quickly. Today Software Update tells me that OS 10.8.3 is available. So I start the process on the Mini and fire up the MBP to do the same. As I'm watching both screens, I notice that the d/l on the MacBook is more than twice the size of the d/l in progress on the Mini. Huh?

Next thing I know, the MBP shows an error message saying the update couldn't be installed because the file couldn't be expanded, and that it would retry the next time I launched SU. And then it restarted itself.

In the meantime, the update completed successfully on the Mini. So when the MBP rebooted, I opened SU again, and it said "No updates available". So now I have 10.8.3 on one machine, and 10.8.2 on t'other, and can't get an update!

I guess I'll try again tomorrow. Weird.

Check "About this Mac" on the MBP and see what it says?

I did when it rebooted after the fail. 10.8.2. The update couldn't install. I'm just gonna try again in the morning.

That's odd indeed. The reboot usually means that it installed.

Downloaded it via Macupdate--no probs.

Downloaded with Software Update. No problems

What's odd is that there were no problems with the Mini. And I've tried the d/l from MacUpdate, Cnet, and Apple. All deliver a corrupted dog and SU still says no updates available. I even d/l'd the dmg on the mini and transferred it to the MBP via thumb drive. Same error message: "image data corrupted". I'm completely stymied.

Sounds like a house call.

I'd like to take look at the logs. We might want to test RAM too.

I'd say put the mini into Target Disk mode and boot the MBP from that and see if it installs, to see if it's a corrupt system or bad hardware, but your FW port is blown. I wonder if a thunderbolt to FW adapter would work.

Talk to you Friday sometime. I have some other ideas.

Yeah, the last time I ran DW, I had to connect the MBP to the LaCie and boot into the external to get it done. That was because the FireWire port on the Thunderbolt display wouldn't see the Mini in Target mode, either. I wonder, can TM work over an ethernet cable?

Anywho, I'm gonna be on a conf call starting at 2 today, so call me and we'll figure out a time.

In the meantime, I might see what happens if I d/l and expand the installer on the Mini and then copy it over to the MBP.

Did more digging and found a few discussions related to problematic update downloads, and in a few cases, bad router connections or configs were contributing factors. So I power cycled my modem and wireless router, and rebooted both Macs. Then I went back to Cnet and d/l'd the updater again. This time the dmg was solid, and the update was successful. Go figure...