'You can't open the application because it may be damaged or incomplete'

beng77 wrote:

Hi, virtually ALL applications…!

Old issue, new issue, what changed...?

You can always restore your system/user data from one of your backups previous to the issue.

 Restore your Mac from a backup

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981

beng77 wrote:

Hi

I had a problem (see my original question at bottom of this) and received a helpful reply from judysings...

The last part of her advice (I have tried to work through the steps she advised) was to try in safe mode and say if the problem still persists - unfortunately it does! I still can't open any of my applications - they are now showing as question mark icons and I can only look at documents and downloads in Finder (although I can't open anything)

Any further help/ advice would be hugely appreciated

Thanks

Ben

Hi there beng77,

From what we can tell, you're unable to open any apps on your Mac because an alert appears indicating the app may be damaged or incomplete. We're glad you've joined us in Apple Support Communities, and we can provide some guidance. 

Let's start by testing this behavior in another user account on your Mac. "Login items are apps that open automatically when you start up or log in to your Mac. Occasionally, a login item may cause a blank blue screen at startup or other problems. You can test your login items to see if any are causing startup issues on your Mac." You'll want to test the login items for your user accounts to see if they could be contributing to the issue you're experiencing opening apps. Learn how here:

Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

Remove login items to resolve startup problems on your Mac

Also, you may want to take a look at your preferences for each user account. Find out more here:

Change Users & Groups Login Items preferences on Mac

If that doesn't seem to help, boot up in safe mode, and let us know if the issue persists there:

Start up your Mac in safe mode

Cheers.

My original question:

Q: 'You can't open the application ".........." because it may be damaged or incomplete'

Hi, I can't open any of my applications, 'You can't open the application "........." because it may be damaged or incomplete'...

I have tried to follow some advice I have found online: On Finder, Go > Go to folder > /var/folders, find folders labeled with O, C, and T. Clear the contents of each of the O, C, T folders.

However, when I try to delete contents, I get another message 'The Operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)', which also comes up when I am trying to empty trash...

Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

What Application?