mdaily733
Level 1
(0 points)
Q: Applications don't work after update!
Last night I had a notification from the App Store that my MacBook needs to restart to finish installing updates. This is fairly common, so I clicked restart and let it do its thing. A little while later, I noticed it starting back up and go to my desktop. It was late, so I just closed my screen and went to sleep. This morning I woke up and went to use it, and when I tried to open Mail from the dock I got the error "You can't open "Mail" because it may be damaged or incomplete" and the icon changed to that little pencil "A" symbol. I tried some other apps, and the same thing happened. It looks as though there is not one app I can open. Every single app gives me this error message. When I open Finder (the only thing I can open) and go to the Applications folder, the only two things that are there is a Mail icon (changed to the little pencil symbol) and a folder called "Utilities".
To make things worse, TimeMachine has not worked right for about a month, so I don't have a recent backup. I keep meaning to fix it or find a better backup program, but I haven't had the time. My main concern is that all my music files (from iTunes) are still there. When I navigate to it in Finder, it looks like all the files are still there. It spears it is only my apps That don't work...but it's literally every single one! Is there anything I can do about this? Please let me know if anyone has a clue what's going on!
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)
Linc Davis
Level 10
(207,963 points)
A
If you want to preserve the data on the startup drive, and it's not already backed up, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive or other storage device to hold the data.
1. Start up from the Recovery partition, from Internet Recovery, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
If you use FileVault 2, then you must first unlock the startup volume. Select its icon ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another disk icon, usually with the same name. Select Unlock from the File menu. Enter your login password when prompted.
2. If Method 1 fails because of disk errors, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
3. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. A Retina MacBook (from 2015 or later) with a USB-C port can also be started in target disk mode and connected to another Mac using a USB cable and an adapter.
Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive.
This technique won't work with USB (except on a Retina MacBook), Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth. Note that a Retina MacBook Pro (with Thunderbolt) is different from a Retina MacBook, and it can't be connected to another Mac via USB in target disk mode.
4. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
B
This procedure will delete certain temporary and cache files. The files are automatically generated and don't contain any of your data. Occasionally they can become corrupt and cause problems such as yours.
Please back up all data.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
/var/folders
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Open
from the contextual menu.* A folder with the odd name "folders" should open.
Inside "folders" are several subfolders, each with a two-character name. Drag all the subfolders except the one named "zz" to the Trash. Don't delete the subfolder named "zz". You'll be prompted for your administrator login credentials.
Restart the computer and empty the Trash.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.
