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CubaTBird

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 18, 2004
2,135
0
How do i fix this so I can install updates on my comp :confused:
 

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it doesn't work, i hit repaird permissions and i still get the same thing.. im perplexed.. :confused:
 
k heres what it says from disk utility, im gonna try the individual updates now.
 

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one thing you could try doing is directly addressing the error and changing permissions on that one file. open up a terminal window and type (w/o the percent sign):

% sudo chmod 644 /tmp/501/TemporaryItems/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate


you'll be prompted for your password. if that doesn't do the trick, try it again, only use 755 instead of 644 (i.e. i assume com.apple.SoftwareUpdate is a file, but it may be a directory, and that needs the execution bits set, which is what the 755 does [among other things]).

report back on if it works. if the sudo command gets you an error, cut and paste both your command and the error message here for debugging.
 
That file shouldn't exist, so you'll probably need to set write permissions on its parent directory.
 
i still get that same error, i did that thing in terminal and it says no file existed.. the irony of this is i reinstalled os x twice! and im still getting that error, fully formatting the drive as well.
 
damn.. all i can say is wow, this isn't working for me, i tried the unix command anybody else got any other ideas?
 
here is the message i get after i typed that command in

Chris$ ls -las /tmp/501/TemporaryItems
total 0
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 Chris wheel 68 22 Jan 18:57 .
0 drwx------ 3 Chris wheel 102 22 Jan 18:57 ..


what does it mean? is it fixed? :confused:
 
also, before i got this error i did an 8 way random format on my hd but interrupted it b/c it was takin way to long and just had disk utility do a normal format and partition the drive, then installed os x.3 could this have been the culprit for this error? me stopping the 8 way random format? What does it mean to do a "8 way random format" on a harddrive? And how long would it take on a 40 gb hard drive? if i let it go all the way through this time would it finish whatever it didn't finish before? :confused:
 
CubaTBird said:
total 0
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 Chris wheel 68 22 Jan 18:57 .
0 drwx------ 3 Chris wheel 102 22 Jan 18:57 ..

what does it mean? is it fixed? :confused:
those permissions are the same as mine, so unless it all works now, i'm out of ideas.
 
so that 8 way random format thing had nothin to do with it then? i mean it seems to be workin' now.. ~sigh~ it seems there isn't explanation for everything eheh
 
CubaTBird said:
so that 8 way random format thing had nothin to do with it then? i mean it seems to be workin' now.. ~sigh~ it seems there isn't explanation for everything eheh
so it is working now? perhaps the com.apple.SoftwareUpdate file was the problem and reinstalling the OS wiped the file.
 
YES I FIXED IT!! here's what i did! :p i went to the folder /tmp/ by using the go coommad in the finder and deleted the folder called "501" then i re-ran software update and it installed everything 100%! yay! lol i feel so proud of myself now... after the restart that 501 folder still didn't appear in the tmp folder, yay!
 
CubaTBird...can you give me a little more detail on how you did that? I had the same problem and have been watching the posts...I love my Mac but I'm a bit of a techno-idiot. Some more details would be extremely helpful. Thanks.
 
DocB said:
CubaTBird...can you give me a little more detail on how you did that? I had the same problem and have been watching the posts...I love my Mac but I'm a bit of a techno-idiot. Some more details would be extremely helpful. Thanks.
Okay...

Here's how it's done:

From Finder's Go menu, choose Go To Folder...

In the Go To Folder dialog, type "/tmp" (without the "quotes")

A new window will open showing the contents of the /tmp directory.

Delete the 501 folder the same way you would delete any other folder.

Close the window when you're done.
 
Thank you...that worked great. Now for a little education - how did that problem materialize? What was the purpose of that folder? Etc.? Thanks for your help.
 
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