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Nasty bug in Snow Leopard ruined my kexts!

A

armoguy94

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 9, 2007
388
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Ladies and gents, I just got hit with a bug in SL's sharing pane in system prefs that ended up ruining all my kexts and now my iMac won't even boot into the OS.

All is fine, I just need an 8gb flash drive to load snow leopard's installer onto (since my mac's dvd drive is not working. I already have the SL disc)

From memory: I enabled file sharing, and added me as an account able to access the files. I added my whole Macintosh HD folder is accessable. I then right clicked on that folder in the list, and chose "apply to enclosed items". Yea... DON'T do that unless you want all your necessary drivers to get messed up!!

Anyways all I need to do is reinstall the OS so its all good. I would like to backup my iTunes music but I don't know how to given I can't access OS X. Any pointers?
 
if you simply reinstall the os without formatting, all your files will still be where you left them :)
 
that is pretty cool. I will try that out, thank you. Right now I'm on my iMac G5 trying to copy over my Snow Leopard disk to an 8gb flash drive.

I think I should format my iMac though, because it had a slight delay when waking the computer up because it would wait for Airport to connect to my home network before allowing the computer to do anything...

anyone else have that issue?
 
That's not a bug; that's a user error. I believe it simply applied those permissions to the Unix file permissions.
 
belvdr said:
That's not a bug; that's a user error. I believe it simply applied those permissions to the Unix file permissions.
Click to expand...

It's an action that Apple designed for any user of its product to be able to execute easily. When executed, it ruins the drivers installed. I would call that a bug.

It probably did apply the permissions but why would that ruin my kexts? It just set them to read/write. Anyhow, whether it's a bug or not, Apple should really fix that. They made it too easy to break your system - if I wanted that, I would've just been using a PC all along.
 
PurrBall said:
Can you boot into Single-User Mode?
Click to expand...

Nope I can't boot at all because my drivers are messed up. I'm trying to call Apple right now. I just got hung up on a customer service representative when trying to explain my issue..thats discouraging.

The reason why I'm calling Apple is because I can't do a restore in Disk Utility so I can copy over my Snow Leopard Install DVD to my 8gb flash drive. I'm trying to do this all on a G5 iMac running 10.4.11.. I hope that doesn't hinder anything.
 
If you can get booted from an installer somehow, all you'll need to do is repair permissions. This is the rare instance where this will fix the problem.
 
chrfr said:
If you can get booted from an installer somehow, all you'll need to do is repair permissions. This is the rare instance where this will fix the problem.
Click to expand...

As long as I get this flash drive loaded with the snow leopard installer.. but when trying to do a restore in Disk utility, the "destination" field is grayed out which makes it impossible to restore anything. :/

I called Apple for the second time, got transferred to a senior executive(or whatever he said he was, but he said "this is the highest up you'll get" in terms of level of support). He placed me on a very long hold to "look up the issue", and after about 7 minutes of waiting on hold for him, he hung up on me. AGAIN.

What is up with Apple and hanging up on people?!?!? Does anyone know what steps I can take to report this?
 
I don't think you understand how *NIX permissions work. Virtually all *NIX systems allow you to bung up the system by messing up permissions. No OS can prevent all possible user mistakes. Before I retired, I worked in the OS kernel on a *NIX derivative, and it was always funny to see recent college comp sci grads mess up permissions and result in an awful mess. It is not a snow leopard problem; you can mung it up with any version of OSx. There are always people who go into permissions without knowing what they are doing and create a terrible mess.
 
old-wiz said:
I don't think you understand how *NIX permissions work. Virtually all *NIX systems allow you to bung up the system by messing up permissions. No OS can prevent all possible user mistakes. Before I retired, I worked in the OS kernel on a *NIX derivative, and it was always funny to see recent college comp sci grads mess up permissions and result in an awful mess. It is not a snow leopard problem; you can mung it up with any version of OSx. There are always people who go into permissions without knowing what they are doing and create a terrible mess.
Click to expand...

I understand your point, but this should not have been possible to execute. This is easily replicable for any OS X user and given that Apple is supposed to make their products extremely user-friendly, this is a clear oversight from Apple.

What's the point in having users able to do what I did using system preferences? It serves no purpose; it just breaks your drivers.
 
There are many many things you can do in OSx or any other operating system that can render the system unusable. It doesn't matter if you are talking about permissions or deleting necessary files or simply creating a mess. No operating system will completely protect against user running amuck. Offhand I can think of quite a few ways to create an unbootable system, regardless of whether it's Windows (any version), *NIX, or OSx.
 
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old-wiz said:
There are many many things you can do in OSx or any other operating system that can render the system unusable. It doesn't matter if you are talking about permissions or deleting necessary files or simply creating a mess. No operating system will completely protect against user running amuck. Offhand I can think of quite a few ways to create an unbootable system, regardless of whether it's Windows (any version), *NIX, or OSx.
Click to expand...

Other than user error where the user goes into system files and begins tampering with them, or using a 3rd party app that does so (I.e. a theming app), in my opinion it should be much harder than what i did to render my computer unbootable. Furthermore, this was all done through system preferences. It just plain and simply shouldnt have happened.

I Understand completely what you are saying, trust me, i do. However, i think youre missing my point. my point is, is that this was a clear oversight when apple was coding system preferences and they should not have allowed me to set rw permissions to my entire hard drive as that would render any computer unusable.
 
armoguy94 said:
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Ladies and gents, I just got hit with a bug in SL's sharing pane in system prefs that ended up ruining all my kexts and now my iMac won't even boot into the OS.

All is fine, I just need an 8gb flash drive to load snow leopard's installer onto (since my mac's dvd drive is not working. I already have the SL disc)

From memory: I enabled file sharing, and added me as an account able to access the files. I added my whole Macintosh HD folder is accessable. I then right clicked on that folder in the list, and chose "apply to enclosed items". Yea... DON'T do that unless you want all your necessary drivers to get messed up!!

Anyways all I need to do is reinstall the OS so its all good. I would like to backup my iTunes music but I don't know how to given I can't access OS X. Any pointers?
Click to expand...
Like this?
bildschirmfoto20100828u.png


And you should still be able to boot into single-user mode, as it doesn't really need drivers.
Just hold ⌘S and press the power button.
Then, a simple
Code: 
diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2
will fix it. If your DVD-Drive doesn't work (or you don't have one like on the MacMini Server and MacBook Air), ALWAYS have an USB stick with Snow Leopard handy. Once booted from the DVD, select your language and go Utils->Disk Utility from the top-menu. Select your disk and click "Repair Permissions", reboot. There you go.
 
No, it was through System Preferences -> Sharing -> File Sharing. To the right, there are two small white windows. The small window on the left are shared folders, and in the window to the right are the user accounts who may access those folders. I'd post a screenshot, but I no longer have a computer with Leopard/Snow Leopard to do so.

Giuly said:
And you should still be able to boot into single-user mode, as it doesn't really need drivers.
Just hold ⌘S and press the power button.
Then, a simple
Code: 
diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2
will fix it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your help. I tried that, and I was able to boot into single user mode successfully. I then typed in diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2, and it returned this error:

Unable to run because unable to use the DiskManagement framework. Common reasons include, but are not limited to, the DiskArbitration framework being unavailable due to being booted in single-user mode.

So I guess that repairing permissions is not possible in single-user mode?

Giuly said:
If your DVD-Drive doesn't work (or you don't have one like on the MacMini Server and MacBook Air), ALWAYS have an USB stick with Snow Leopard handy. Once booted from the DVD, select your language and go Utils->Disk Utility from the top-menu. Select your disk and click "Repair Permissions", reboot. There you go.
Click to expand...
I have an 8gb SanDisk Cruzer USB stick that I'm trying to restore the Snow Leopard installer on to. But, it won't let me restore it for some reason in Disk Utility on OS 10.4.11

My partitioned USB stick:
w6kqN.png


Trying to restore Snow Leopard Install DVD onto my USB stick. Notice how the destination field is gray, so I can not restore it:
WqQBe.png
 
armoguy94 said:
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Other than user error where the user goes into system files and begins tampering with them, or using a 3rd party app that does so (I.e. a theming app), in my opinion it should be much harder than what i did to render my computer unbootable. Furthermore, this was all done through system preferences. It just plain and simply shouldnt have happened.

I Understand completely what you are saying, trust me, i do. However, i think youre missing my point. my point is, is that this was a clear oversight when apple was coding system preferences and they should not have allowed me to set rw permissions to my entire hard drive as that would render any computer unusable.
Click to expand...

It's not up to Apple/Microsoft/etc to protect the OS from user stupidity.
 
sorry colourfast but part of the reason of the simplicity of os x's gui is just that..compare it to using windows and doing tasks on windows like file sharing which is a little bit more complicated. whatever though, that's beyond the point, cause now I just need help on fixing my drivers to make my computer at least bootable.

Diskutil appears unusable in single-user mode however I did run fsck and it did "fix" my drive (or whatever the utility does) but I still can't boot up.

Holding shift down to boot into safe mode doesn't work either, it the progress bar goes about halfway then disappears and then tries to boot normally.


EDIT: I booted into verbose mode to see what exactly was going on when I was booting up my Mac. I figured out that why it really seems to take so long is that the startup hangs at "Waiting for DMOS..."

DMOS stands for Don't Steal Mac OS. I wonder why it thinks I am stealing it..

I can't seem to find any way at all to fix my permissions in single-user mode, and Disk Utility on my other Mac is not letting me set up a bootable USB installer for Snow Leopard. I am going to try another USB-bootable utility like Disk Warrior.
 
armoguy94 said:
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I enabled file sharing, and added me as an account able to access the files. I added my whole Macintosh HD folder is accessable. I then right clicked on that folder in the list, and chose "apply to enclosed items".
Click to expand...

Um... why?
 
OP, put your other Mac into Firewire target mode with the DVD in it, and connect that to the problem computer. Then try to boot the problem computer, holding down option and you should find the DVD as a boot source.
 
I agree with belvdr and others. This is not a bug. This is indeed user error. A case of "If you don't know what it does, don't mess with it."

Anyway, what you did sounds similar to another thread on here.

Try the solution I posted there:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/859556/

Also, it didn't ruin the kexts. You screwed the permissions on the drive.
 
Hey guys thanks for all the help and I know it was 100% a user error but I'm just saying, Apple should implement something to prevent a user from making that mistake again.

I ended up making a bootable USB drive of Snow Leopard and repairing permissions a few times. The computer works fine now and I went right ahead and installed Applejack for the next time that something may happen to this computer, it won't be such a hassle to fix. Some of the permissions are still messed up, most noticeably some of the printer and add-on drivers that come with OS X but I don't need any of those anyways. My printer works fine and I printed with it this morning so whatever.

You guys rock! :)
 
armoguy94 said:
Hey guys thanks for all the help and I know it was 100% a user error but I'm just saying, Apple should implement something to prevent a user from making that mistake again.
Click to expand...
If you believe that you should just use Windows. People who use Unix like it because it doesn't get in the way, and it doesn't suck. It gives you enough rope to hang yourself, but it doesn't treat you like a baby. That's the way it is and should be. If you don't like that there's always the nagging mother that is Windows.
 
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