Some apps won't start after ~/Library move to external drive and back again.

[O r c]

On my 2013 Trashcan MacPro I had problems with Safari not remebering settings on Catalina for a week or two. I decided it would be time to upgrade to Big Sur. The problem was lack of space (less than 10 GB left on my tiny 256 GB SSD shared between Bootcamp and mac stuff).
In an overly bold move I copied my (rather huge) user Library to an external spinning drive, made a symbolic link and verified that things worked as usual (albeit slower), deleted the original user Library and installed Big Sur. Afterwards I copied my user Library back.

Now the things got worse and I can't figure out where the problem lies in order to fix it.

Some, but not all, applications won't start anymore. Deleting them and supporting files/settings and reinstalling them from scratch does not help. Many common applications will not start and all give the error message "<application_name> quit unexpectedly".

Some working applications does not remember their settings but act as if it's the first time they run. As an example Firefox starts in a default state with Google as search engine no matter if I change it to another before quitting. Bartender shows the startup message for it's first run etc.

Another user account still left on the internal drive works as before so I assume it has to do with my copying of the ~/Library or user settings, file privileges but I can't figure out what.

Any suggestions?

 

[gilby101]

Restore from backup taken before you did any of this.

Rather than move just ~/Library (which is not supported in any way), you would do better to move your whole ~/ to another disk. But use System Preferences > Users and Groups > right click a user > Advanced options. Best done by creating a second admin user, login to it, and use that to move your main user.

 

[O r c]

Supported or not (I think the key phrase here rather is "recommended for standard users") - moving+linking individual directories in your home directory works excellent.

However that is less of an issue since my ~/Library move was a temporary one while installing Big Sur (which required at least 35 GB free space in order to install correctly).

Unfortunately my backup won't work anymore so a regular restore is not an option until I've gotten it up and running again. There seem to be no pattern to which applications works and who doesn't. The syslog fills up with SIGILL messages and even when only logged in to another account (where most of the apps work) the error messages keeps accumulating which makes me think that the errors has more to do with the actual Big Sur upgrade than my temporary move of the user library of one of the users. Then again I might be wrong.

I also get interesting messages saying:
NotificationCenter[11395]: objc[11395]: Class NCCAFenceWrapper is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/NotificationCenterUI.framework/Versions/A/NotificationCenterUI and /System/Library/CoreServices/NotificationCenter.app/Contents/MacOS/NotificationCenter. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

The above does not seem normal and it's obviously part of macOS and nothing to do with the ~/Library. I'm puzzled.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I would think that Big Sur would be writing its own versions of files, visible or hidden, in the ~/Library file and that it's not a static folder that can be moved from one macOS version to another…which is what it sounds like you're attempting.

 

[O r c]

Library folders are very much folders that propagates from one OS version to another but you are right in that they are accessible to the operating system for reading and writing as they contain settings for applications installed exclusively for a certain user etc. The macOS updates mainly targets the /System (including (/System/Library) though.

I have already successfully moved my user's library folder to another drive while installing Big Sur. After the installation I removed the link and moved it back to the home folder with unchanged owner+groups/access rights/date info. Afterwards some - but not all - applications won't start and I get the error messages in the syslog as mentioned above.

The only thing I am attempting now is getting my apps in working order again

I'm leaning towards trying to free up even more space (might have to delete the bootcamp partition) and do a re-install of Big Sur. It would just be nicer not having to go through that hustle.

 

[gilby101]

moving+linking individual directories in your home directory works excellent.

Not any more. With BS, some folders (e.g. Documents, Desktop, Library) get special treatment that makes moving and linking problematic.

I'm leaning towards trying to free up even more space (might have to delete the bootcamp partition) and do a re-install of Big Sur.

That is what I would do. Cut your losses. Make a backup of your data, erase, reinstall everything and recover your data. Short term pain for long term stability.