You can try to: save /Applications/iTunes.app to another location, use
AppDelete to delete /Applications/iTunes.app, install itunes.pkg created with the script.
I have just updated to 10.14.5 and iTunes 12.6.5.3 is working fine from ~/Applications
Help pls,
(1) How critical is ""iPodUpdater.framework" from the 12.6.4 iTunes framework folder" from the older instructions? I don't see it mentioned in the latest series of instructions, but the earlier instructions were also from before we were using iTunes 12.6.5.3.
(2) Where is this file and folder if I need it? Even with "Library" folder unhidden, it still DOESN'T SHOW UP IN A FILE SEARCH anywhere on the iMac or TimeMachine backup.
We planned to leave the iMac on High Sierra for a while, with iTunes 12.6.5.3, but things went bad. It's a long story, but the only way I could get our iMac running again was with Mac OS X Mojave. TL;DR below.
First, her iMac password keychain got corrupted, although it was fine on her iPhone and iPad, and I could not sync her iMac to the iCloud PASSWORD keychain. When turning on keychain back on in iCloud settings it asked for her iCloud on the iMac, and then it stalled for an hour after entering the password.
I rebooted and tried again, no love. I rebooted and held CMD-R and reinstalled High Sierra, and THEN I was able to get the keychain to sync back after I was done. I stayed up till 5:30AM to complete this, and went to bed after the sun was up, with a working computer.
Later that day I had to rerun the latest 2019-003 security update, Safari 12.1.1. update, and iTunes Device Support update in App Store on High Sierra, but not sure why it wasn't on the version of High Sierra I'd just installed in recovery mode. After the update it wanted to reboot but my wife's iMac crashed and hung on the reboot after the update.
When I forced it to shut down, rebooted, and logged in, it would show that the updates had downloaded and there was a reboot button in the app store to finalize the updates. Every time I clicked the reboot button it would try to reboot and hang on a black screen with the backlight on, and not reboot.
After a few tries, having to force shutdown with the power button (running disk first aid each time) it would no longer take my wife's login password. I exited the log in screen to try again, and saw that her user account was now gone from the login screen. It not only deleted her user account, but I could still not shut down without pressing and holding the power button.
I then tried to repeat the task of reinstalling High Sierra from booting with CMD-R, which worked the day before, but it would hang on the beginning of the install after I selected the drive to install onto, regardless of what drive I'd select (internal or external).
Rebooting or shutting down the iMac would always hang, and I'd have to force shut down with the power button every time after the failed updates. Her account was the primary account where we would run iTunes to sync our iDevices, but High Sierra was trashed and her account was gone. I had to boot up and log into an empty unused administrator account we have on there in case of emergency to work on things.
After a second all nighter, I finally got her account back after I broke down and installed Mojave 10.14.5 from within the spare administrator account, and now I want to install iTunes 12.6.5.3 again.
Her login account was the only account from which we typically would run iTunes, and I'd found her user home folder still on the hard drive but locked. When I got the computer fixed and on Mojave, I added her user account back, and it allowed me to incorporate her old user directory and files/settings. Now everything has been fine for a day.
I have not launched iTunes yet. I do have a several backups of all the iTunes Library and genius files from 12.6.5.3 on High Sierra, and I have 2 time machine backups from before Mojave if I need to go there for files.
But since her user account was deleted, and was not recovered until after the iMac was updated to Mojave, I suspect her personal files were untouched, especially since the upgrade was done from the blank administrator account while her account was AWOL.