App Files missing after updating to macOS 26 and other Issues

Question

Level 1

4 points

App Files missing after updating to macOS 26 and other Issues

A week after Updating my M4 MacBook Air to macOS 26 Tahoe, suddenly most Apps stopped working and couldn't be opened. Also Apps couldn't be downloaded from the App Store. After a long chat with Apple Support I found that sudo was entirely broken, so I made a backup and reinstalled the OS. That luckily fixed sudo and the App Store, but even after resetting and recovering all User Permissions the Apps didn't open. Now I found out that all Application Files under /Application/<App>.app/Contents/macOS are missing, wich seem to have been damaged by the original macOS update (just my theory). It makes me mad but I will now start reinstalling all Apps. Please let me know if anyone else had similar problems :)

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Oct 6, 2025 1:49 PM

Reply

Answer 1

iamshivam

Level 2

350 points

Oct 6, 2025 11:13 PM in response to Arminius_

The cleanest fix is exactly what you’re doing, reinstall the affected apps from their original sources or the App Store. For future safety, running a full Time Machine backup before any major change can save a lot of headaches.

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 6, 2025 6:27 PM in response to Arminius_

Arminius_ wrote:

After a long chat with Apple Support I found that sudo was entirely broken, so I made a backup and reinstalled the OS. That luckily fixed sudo and the App Store,

So you fixed the problem.

but even after resetting and recovering all User Permissions the Apps didn't open.

And with this you brought the problem back again, so don't reset & recover all User Permissions.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this anyway, but obviously this caused the issue to return.

Reply