Random Applications Disappear

Yeah, what is the deal with this? Why are applications disappearing? This seems like a pretty serious problem. I have had it happen once so far, but am worried that after all the work to restore it is going to happen again, so I am making copies of the missing apps and putting them in folders. So far, it has affected Safari, Mail, iChat and FireFox.

Running 10.6.1. Suddenly, one by one, the folders and applications in my Applications folder started disappearing. I shut down just before it could completely delete iWeb. Restarting, I ran fsck, no problems found, and booted into safe mode. Over 50 GB of apps were gone! I'll restore from Time Machine tomorrow, but... ***? It occured just after I installed Keyword Manager for iPhoto, but I doubt it's related. Any logs I can look at, Applescript activity, running processes, etc? Google search didn't find much so... um, help!

A friend of mine has a similar problem.

Running 10.5.8, mail, safari, firefox disappeared....very weird...
Not sure if it help shed light on this but he did not have an administrative password on machine. it was left blank...

Any help most welcome!

As I was browsing google with 'mac os disappering applications", I fell upon this few posts.

So this post will be a "me too" kind, with apps that I'm sure I installed that are nowhere to be found. Seems completely random, but a lot are missing (SongBird, IWork, NetNewsWire, Omnifocus, what next ?). This is completely crazy ! As I just noticed it, I can't tell if they all disappeared at once, or progressively.

Did any of yours found an answer ?

Yves

Anyone ever find an answer to this? I somehow lost iPhoto and the basic mac picture viewing program overnight somehow and was very disappointed this morning upon discovering their disappearance! I've managed to re-install iPhoto but I don't know how to get the other picture viewing program back. I'm worried about losing other applications randomly in the future!

This is another "me too" post. Yesterday I noticed that my Adobe Acrobat Pro was gone, today Delicious Library, too. Not sure if I'm missing anything else, but to make the situation worse these programs are also missing from my apps folder in Time Machine, no matter how far back I go.

There's definitely something going on here, and it's getting me verrrrrrry concerned.

Here's another "me too" post. My dad's new 27" iMac running Snow Leopard has just done this too. A couple days ago, he found an app (I forget which one) in the trash, and today the iChat app simply disappeared. A couple days ago I had him launch Disk Utility and verify the disk as well as repair permissions, and the disk verified just fine.

Me too! Two days ago iPhoto disappeared from my MacBook (10.6), along with three albums of photos. Fortunately I was able to restore them from a Time Machine backup. Today the Keynote application disappeared from a different machine (10.5)! They weren't in the trash (which contained other items, so it hadn't been emptied.) Very disturbing indeed! Has there been any response from Apple about this?

I Just lost MindMap Pro. No idea where it went but this issue is not acceptable. Seems like Apple should be looking into it. Anyone figure out what this is all about?

Last week I lost Firefox, and yesterday I lost the Adobe Creative Suite and EndNotes. I realize this is a 10.6 discussion thread, and I'm running 10.5.8, but the problem seems identical. I verified my start up volume with Disk Utilities and everything appears to be fine. Since I've had the computer for almost a year, and the problem just arose, I thought maybe it came about after a recent software update to the OS, but I see that the original poster wrote last September... A virus?

Message was edited by: M Arc

I have no idea what is causing this problem. It sounds like some sort of exploit or trojan; hard to say for sure.

But I suspect that everyone experiencing this problem has been doing all of their day-to-day work in an admin account. DON'T do that. It is an unnecessary security risk that makes one more vulnerable to exploits - such as a theoretical trojan that randomly deletes things from the /Applications folder. Such a trojan would be stopped dead in its tracks had it been running in a non-admin account.

Always use a non-admin account for everyday use. Admin and even root tasks can be done from a non-admin account simply by authenticating with the admin username and password when prompted. Only log in to an admin account to do things that cannot be accomplished by authenticating as admin in a non-admin account. Apple says to never even check e-mail or browse the internet while logged in to an admin account.

Our school has purchased quite a few MacBooks running a 10.5 OS. One of them has recently started exhibiting the random App disappearing trick. Occasionally the laptop runs in an Admin account but only for updates or installs. All day-to-day work is done in accounts with parental restrictions enforced.

Concerning... Anyone have any ideas?

Just got off the phone with Apple Support and since the MacBook was imaged (cloned) from another MacBook the rep suspected something may have gone wrong in the imaging process. They suggested erasing and installing system from original install disc and then loading software to see if the problem is with the imaging or the system.