symbolic links get corrupted by system process?

This is just an update. I replaced my drives, and as I installed new software, I would periodically check for broken soft links.

Summary

===

* Wrote a busted link detector; runs much faster than the script versions. It reports all links that don't link to a file or directory.

* So far, no corrupted links have been detected: however there are broken links. I haven't looked into the broken links to determine if they are expected behavior or not.

* All Applications were installed via App Store

* HomeBrew and packages were installed without sudo

* No browser plugins were installed (flash, silverlight, etc.)

* No drivers were installed

* sudo was only used to detect broken links

Steps

===

Rebuilt my machine:

* MacPro Mid 2012; 2 x 2.4 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon; 32 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC; ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB

* Replaced all 4 drives with WD Red 3TB

* Configured raid 0/1 striped pairs, and then mirror

* Install 10.8.3

Broken links:

Missing link target: /Library/Frameworks/AEProfiling.framework->../../Applications/Motion.app/Contents/Frameworks/AEProfiling.framework

Missing link target: /usr/share/java/Tools/Java VisualVM.app/Contents/Resources/VisualVM.icns->/System/Library/Java/Support/VisualVM.bundle/Contents/Resources/VisualVM.icns

* Install xcode via App Store

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/PlugIns->Versions/Current/PlugIns

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/System.framework/Versions/B/Resources/BridgeSupport/System.bridgesupport->../../../../../../BridgeSupport/libSystem.bridgesupport

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk/usr/lib/python2.5->../../System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk/usr/libexec/SmartCardServices/drivers/ifd-ccid.bundle/Contents/MacOS/libccid.dylib->libccid.dylib.1.3.11

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Resources->Versions/Current/Resources

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/System.framework/Versions/B/Resources/BridgeSupport/System.bridgesupport->../../../../../../BridgeSupport/libSystem.bridgesupport

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk/usr/lib/python2.5->../../System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk/usr/libexec/SmartCardServices/drivers/ifd-ccid.bundle/Contents/MacOS/libccid.dylib->libccid.dylib.1.3.11

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator6.1.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServices.framework/Headers->Versions/Current/Headers

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator6.1.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/WebServicesCore.framework/Headers->Versions/Current/Headers

Missing link target: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator6.1.sdk/usr/include/c++/4.2.1/4.2.1->4.2.1

Missing link target: /Library/Frameworks/AEProfiling.framework->../../Applications/Motion.app/Contents/Frameworks/AEProfiling.framework

Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.ShareKitHelper/Data/Documents/iChats->../../../../../Documents/iChats

Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.ShareKitHelper/Data/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.ShareKitHelper->../../../../../Application Scripts/com.apple.ShareKitHelper

Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.ShareKitHelper/Data/Library/ColorSync->../../../../ColorSync

Missing link target: /usr/share/java/Tools/Java VisualVM.app/Contents/Resources/VisualVM.icns->/System/Library/Java/Support/VisualVM.bundle/Contents/Resources/VisualVM.icns

* Install HomeBrew (does not require sudo)

<no new busted links>

* Install system updates

1 new busted link:

> Missing link target: /System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari/WebKit.framework/Frameworks->Versions/Current/Frameworks

* Install some HomeBrew packages, (go, fishfish, tree, git, mercurial)

< no new busted links>

* Install dozens of apps via App Store

< no new busted links>

* Install dozen more apps via App Store

< no new busted links>

* Configure settings via System Preferences (turn on photo stream, among other things), install font "SourceCodePro", customize terminal.app, configure prompt to show git status

New busted links:

> Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService/Data/Documents/iChats->../../../../../Documents/iChats

> Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService/Data/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService->../../../../../Application Scripts/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService

> Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.ImageKit.RecentPictureService/Data/Library/ColorSync->../../../../ColorSync

> Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.photostream-agent/Data/Documents/iChats->../../../../../Documents/iChats

> Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.photostream-agent/Data/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.photostream-agent->../../../../../Application Scripts/com.apple.photostream-agent

> Missing link target: /Users/hans/Library/Containers/com.apple.photostream-agent/Data/Library/ColorSync->../../../../ColorSync

I heard that the fixes were made in Mac OSX 10.8.5 and 10.9. Check out the fixes when the releases become available.

Bumping the thread to see if the concensus is that this problem is fixed. My bug report was marked as a duplicate of 12133587 and now this duplicate bug is listed as closed. I've not changed any of the hardware and I've not experienced any symlink corruption in months but I can't say when exactly the problem went away. There have been no mention of the issue in the relase notes unless I missed them.

Is anyone else from this post still experiencing a problem? If not perhaps we can get the thread closed for others that stumble upon it.

Jeff

Likewise not seen this issue for some time. Believe it was around 10.9 that this stopped occurring.

I’m still getting it occasionally at home (usually after a big series of updates), but I don’t really count 🙂 because I’m stuck on 10.7 until I get a new machine (planned sometime this year).

Nigel.

I haven't noticed any corruption lately, but then when this was going on before, I repartitioned my drives so my boot drive is smaller than 2 TB, which seemed to be the concensus on how to resolve it at the time. I'll run a link check and report back.

I ran a check and found 49 corrupt symlinks on my system. They seem to be concentrated in the Homebrew tree, an old XCode 5 preview tree. I seldom use either (and in fact need to delete the old XCode tree), so hadn't noticed.

I figure by now everyone has moved on, and Lion is officially no longer supported, but I do have one 10.7.5 server still running, and recently saw this bug appear again. This time though, I have solid evidence of what triggered it, and it was Carbon Copy Cloner (pre-pay version). I don't know that it contains the bug, but more likely something it calls triggers the bug under certain circumstances.

I was backing up an active mail server, and at the very time that it was reading /var, the symlink /var/spool/postfix became garbled. Around the same time /usr/libexec/dovecot/deliver suffered the same fate. I could see the mail literally stop flowing.

I had a weekly (midnight Saturday) backup process using CCC going for a couple of years without incident. What changed recently was converting from RAID6 to RAID10, a significantly faster file system, and that I started using CCC nightly. My best guess is it's probably some combination of a specific mechanism being invoked in combination with a very busy file system. I've ceased using CCC on this system, and in time it will be upgraded to 10.10.x.

I thought people that wrestled with this might be interested in this finding.