Q: OSX 10.11.3 Update - All Applications Gone - Safe boot as well
Installed 10.11.3 from the Mac Store this morning, this is my story if someone else is searching for a similar situation.
MacBook Pro Retina 15in - Late 2013, 1TB SSD, 16GB Ram , 2.3 i7
I'm running FileVault and was running Clam AV.
I believe the important issue is the Claim AV based on comments I found in a few news articles.
Apparently some AV suites have fought this update on install.
I can't even open the console app right now to review my console logs to verify AV took action.
After install/reboot, I was able to login to my local account just fine.
But then everything was slow.
GeekTool didn't load
Dock came up minutes later vs. normal 30-60 seconds.
All dock icons had the missing application image.
I was able to open Finder after a beach ball of death waiting period.
There i only saw mail.app with a bad icon image.
The utilities folder but no applications listed.
My home folder however, dropbox, ect still showed as populated...so at least my files are intact.
After reading a few other comments I booted into safe bootdownloaded the patch manually...
And tried to do a manual install with AV off... it's not launching... b/c all applications are dead...
Still no love on reboot.
I may have a bricked machine here, just wanted to share my story.
Posting images in one second.
Posted on Jan 27, 2016 7:53 AM
remove ALL external devices except keyboard and mouse
reset SMC as per this Apple Computer article and proceed with resting the PRAM/NVRAM at the bottom of the same article
Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
boot into safe mode with all devices still disconnected
Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support
if your computer is still "bricked" you have three options.
1) try and find what the cause is and step by step hope you can remedy it.
2) If you have a time machine backup use it to restore your system to a previous state by booting into recovery mode and restoring that backup
Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support
and 3) if this is not possible and you have no other option use system restore or internet restore to bring your computer back to a factory state.
your current OS and it's data will be destroyed unless you can perform this on another HD or another partition which is clean/empty.
Posted on Jan 27, 2016 8:04 AM
