Weird Mac Problems

[rWatcher]

My mac's been acting weird lately, anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?
- Software update doesn't work - It downloads the file just fine, but then I get a message like: The Update "Name of Update" could not be verified and expanded correctly. Make sure you have permission to write to /private/tmp/501/TemporaryItems/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate, then try again.
- NeoOffice can't open or create files. When trying to open an existing file I get "Error loading document FILENAME.swx: The file could not be created. I can create new documents, when when I try to save them I get "Error saving the document Untitled1: Write Error. The file could not be written." This happens regardless of where the file is being saved to (other programs can save documents just fine).
- Print Preview doesn't work in any application. It just says "Error while printing". Print ->Save as PDF works just fine though.

Suggestions anyone? I'm guessing there's some kind of issue with creating temporary files, but I can't figure out how to fix it. I tried the repair disk permissions button, it found and fixed a few things, but didn't do anything to fix my problems.

 

[yellow]

#1:
Open Terminal.
Type: sudo rm -rf /tmp/501
Hit Return and enter your admin password.
Restart
Try Software Update again.

I suspect this may also fix your NeoOffice problem.

 

[rWatcher]

Just tried it and rebooted the computer - it didn't fix anything. I also tried:
sudo rm -rf /private/tmp/501
also didn't fix anything.

#1:
Open Terminal.
Type: sudo rm -rf /tmp/501
Hit Return and enter your admin password.
Restart
Try Software Update again.

I suspect this may also fix your NeoOffice problem.

 

[yellow]

Software Update is still complaining?
Was /tmp/501 actually removed?

Perhaps this will help:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-32255.html

 

[rWatcher]

Software Update, NeoOffice and the Print Preview button are all still complaining.
The 501 folder was removed although it reappeared after the system was rebooted.

The solution in that link seems to be reinstalling XCode, which I never had installed to begin with, so I don't really see how that could be my problem :-\

Software Update is still complaining?
Was /tmp/501 actually removed?

Perhaps this will help:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-32255.html

 

[5683565]

This may be a little obvious, but try repairing your permissions.

 

[rWatcher]

This may be a little obvious, but try repairing your permissions.

I tried the repair disk permissions button, it found and fixed a few things, but didn't do anything to fix my problems.

Um... Yea, that is an obvious idea, which is why I said in my first post that I already tried that. I just tried it again though, in the off chance that it might help - still having the same problems.

 

[5683565]

oops sorry. Your first post was a little mushed together for me... plus I was in a hurry which didn't help.

My bad.

 

[rWatcher]

No problem, I've done that a couple times before too.

oops sorry. Your first post was a little mushed together for me... plus I was in a hurry which didn't help.

My bad.

 

[frankblundt]

In his absence,
Mad Jew Standard Responses to General Unexplained Weirdness™ include:

Is there at least 8GB of free space on the hard drive?

Maybe give zapping the PRAM a try. 🙂

Have you tried dragging com.apple.appname.plist (in Users > youraccount > Library > Preferences) to the Desktop whilst the app is closed? 🙂

have you created a new user account (in the System Preferences > Accounts) to see if the problems carry through? 🙂

You can't repair the disk you start up from so you can either use Disk Utility on the OSX system disks by putting them in the optical drive and pressing C as you boot up, selecting Disk Utility from one of the menus and repairing the disk.
Or even better, you can run fsck. 🙂

 

[yellow]

Which version of OS X is this?

I am curious what the permissions on /tmp/501 are. Can you please post the results of:

ls -laF /tmp/501

(note that /tmp and /private/tmp are the same thing. /tmp is a symlink to /private/tmp)

I don't think a PRAM zap will help in this situation.

The appropriate .plist is /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist

(note that the .plist is in the ROOT /Library, not the USER ~/Library).

 

[rWatcher]

In his absence,
Is there at least 8GB of free space on the hard drive?

Nope, 5.35 GB right now. I've been around 5 - 6 GB of free space for over a year though, so I doubt that would suddenly be a problem now :-\

In his absence,
Maybe give zapping the PRAM a try.

Tried it, nothing's changed.

In his absence,
Have you tried dragging com.apple.appname.plist (in Users > youraccount > Library > Preferences) to the Desktop whilst the app is closed?

Tried it, reran software update afterwards - same error

 

[rWatcher]

In his absence,
have you created a new user account (in the System Preferences > Accounts) to see if the problems carry through?

Problem carries through

In his absence,
You can't repair the disk you start up from so you can either use Disk Utility on the OSX system disks by putting them in the optical drive and pressing C as you boot up, selecting Disk Utility from one of the menus and repairing the disk.
Or even better, you can run fsck.

No change.

 

[rWatcher]

Which version of OS X is this?

OS X Version 10.3.9

I am curious what the permissions on /tmp/501 are. Can you please post the results of:

ls -laF /tmp/501

(note that /tmp and /private/tmp are the same thing. /tmp is a symlink to /private/tmp)

Erm... It looks like /tmp/501 no longer exists (probably because I deleted it)...
Erics-Powerbook:/tmp eric$ ls -laF /tmp/501
ls: /tmp/501: No such file or directory
Erics-Powerbook:/tmp eric$ ls -laF /private/tmp/
total 0
drwxrwxrwt 4 root wheel 136 10 Mar 22:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 10 Mar 22:36 ../
drwx------ 3 eric wheel 102 10 Mar 22:39 501/
Erics-Powerbook:/tmp eric$ ls -laF /private/tmp/501
total 0
drwx------ 3 eric wheel 102 10 Mar 22:43 ./
drwxrwxrwt 4 root wheel 136 10 Mar 22:43 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 eric wheel 68 10 Mar 22:43 TemporaryItems/

I don't think a PRAM zap will help in this situation.

The appropriate .plist is /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist

(note that the .plist is in the ROOT /Library, not the USER ~/Library).

Tried the PRAM thing anyway - didn't effect anything. Tried delete the plist from both /Library and ~/Library - also didn't effect anything.

 

[yellow]

I find it odd that your /tmp is not pointing at your /private/tmp.

[null:/private/tmp] yellow% pwd
/private/tmp
[null:/private/tmp] yellow% cd /tmp
[null:/tmp] yellow% pwd
/private/tmp

[perrolle:/] yellow% lf /tmp
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  11 Oct 13 10:40 /tmp@ -> private/tmp

Can you please show us the results of ls -laF /tmp

From your post it looks like you're still having the problem because /private/tmp/501/ still exists.

Try:

sudo rm -rf /private/tmp/501

And restart and try Software Update again.

 

[simie]

Try the suggestions here - this appears to be a well known problem.

http://www.cybmed.com/macinblog/2004/02/software_update.html

The following is the manual way of doing the same job as Yellow describes by using terminal.

Use finder under the GO menu use Go (Shift Apple key G) to folder and type in private.

Using Getinfo you can view the details of the tmp folder.

Owner & Permissions:

You can: Read & Write

Details
Owner: System
Access: Read & Write
Group: Wheel
Access: Read & Write
Others: Read & Write

If your permissions are different, then clicking on the padlock in Getinfo will allow you to change them to the above.

Double Clicking on the TMP folder should now reveal the contents of the folder.
You could Drag all the contents of this folder in to the trash or just to the desktop. To delete these you need to enter your admin password.

My TMP folder has 4 files they are

cs_cahe_lock_92
objc_sharing_ppc_92
objc_sharing_ppc_501
objc_sharing_ppc_4294967294
and any other file and folder

Reboot the mac and OS X will recreate new versions of

cs_cahe_lock_92
objc_sharing_ppc_92
objc_sharing_ppc_501
objc_sharing_ppc_4294967294

Now try software update

 

[rWatcher]

Can you please show us the results of ls -laF /tmp

Sure...

[erics-powerbook:~] eric% cd /private/tmp
[erics-powerbook:/private/tmp] eric% pwd
/private/tmp
[erics-powerbook:/private/tmp] eric% cd /tmp
[erics-powerbook:/tmp] eric% pwd
/tmp
[erics-powerbook:/tmp] eric% ls -laF /tmp
total 8
drwxr-xr-x   6 root  wheel   204 13 Mar 03:15 ./
drwxrwxr-t  51 root  admin  1734 10 Mar 22:55 ../
srwxrwxrwx   1 eric  staff     0 13 Jun  2005 .modemOnHold=
srw-rw-rw-   1 root  wheel     0 10 Mar 22:57 com.thursby.DAVE.cifsd.API=
srw-------   1 root  wheel     0 10 Mar 22:56 com.thursby.DAVE.cifsd_dns_helper=
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel   644 10 Mar 22:56 mcx_compositor

From your post it looks like you're still having the problem because /private/tmp/501/ still exists.

Try:

sudo rm -rf /private/tmp/501

And restart and try Software Update again.

I've done that a couple of times, it looks like the 501 directory is re-created when I run software update...

[erics-powerbook:/tmp] eric% cd /private/tmp
[erics-powerbook:/private/tmp] eric% ls
501
[erics-powerbook:/private/tmp] eric% sudo rm -rf /private/tmp/501
[erics-powerbook:/private/tmp] eric% ls

And then right after software update gives me the same error as before and quits:

[erics-powerbook:/private/tmp] eric% ls
501

 

[rWatcher]

Try the suggestions here - this appears to be a well known problem.

http://www.cybmed.com/macinblog/2004/02/software_update.html

It's going to take me a while to download XCode to see if installing it helps any... Until then...

The following is the manual way of doing the same job as Yellow describes by using terminal.

Use finder under the GO menu use Go (Shift Apple key G) to folder and type in private.

Using Getinfo you can view the details of the tmp folder.

Owner & Permissions:

You can: Read & Write

Details
Owner: System
Access: Read & Write
Group: Wheel
Access: Read & Write
Others: Read & Write

If your permissions are different, then clicking on the padlock in Getinfo will allow you to change them to the above.

My permissions match those.

Double Clicking on the TMP folder should now reveal the contents of the folder.
You could Drag all the contents of this folder in to the trash or just to the desktop. To delete these you need to enter your admin password.

My TMP folder has 4 files they are

cs_cahe_lock_92
objc_sharing_ppc_92
objc_sharing_ppc_501
objc_sharing_ppc_4294967294
and any other file and folder

Reboot the mac and OS X will recreate new versions of

cs_cahe_lock_92
objc_sharing_ppc_92
objc_sharing_ppc_501
objc_sharing_ppc_4294967294

Now try software update

Nothing appears in finder. From Terminal the only item is the 501 folder. Deleting it, rebooting the computer, and then running software update does not fix the problem.

 

[yellow]

If you create a new admin used and log in as that user and run Software Update, does it break again?

 

[rWatcher]

If you create a new admin used and log in as that user and run Software Update, does it break again?

Yes, software update still breaks under a newly created admin account. Same error as before, except 501 is now 504.

 

[mad jew]

Have you added third party RAM to this machine? Test your RAM by taking individual chips out, one-by-one, if you haven't already. 🙂

 

[simie]

Check that you have not blocked Apples update server either in your router or in your firewall

akamai.net

And try this in terminal ln -s /private/tmp tmp - this has been known to cure the problem.

 

[rWatcher]

Have you added third party RAM to this machine? Test your RAM by taking individual chips out, one-by-one, if you haven't already. 🙂

No third party RAM, just the one chip that it came with.

 

[mad jew]

I've seen bad RAM do this exact same thing to a system, so is there any way you could borrow a stick of RAM from a friend and replace yours momentarily?

 

[rWatcher]

Check that you have not blocked Apples update server either in your router or in your firewall

akamai.net

And try this in terminal ln -s /private/tmp tmp - this has been known to cure the problem.

Um... So this is kinda weird. I think that fixed my problem... except now I can't get on the network or internet from my mac :-\ The exact commands I used where:

cd /tmp
rm *.*
cd /
rmdir /tmp
ln -s /private/tmp /tmp

I was then able to use software update to download the latest version of itunes, but as soon as I rebooted the network (both wired and wireless) stopped working. According to system preferences, I'm being assigned an network IP address, I just can't access anything outside of the computer.