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Level 4

2,286 points

How to "uninstall" Rosetta manually installed into Lion (or Mt. Lion)

Some users of Final Cut Studio 2 (and some users of Logic Pro 8) discovered that they could not use the installer app for these programs in Lion.

Some on this forum (and others) have suggested that Rosetta be installed from a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD into Lion or Mt. Lion. Although that technique does work for FCS2 (and perhaps Logic Pro 8), the better and SAFER approach is to use Pacifist.

In any event, I am beginning to see anecdotal reports that some of these "Rosetta-installed" Lion Mac are experiencing problems "down the road." I am also receiving requests from those who did install Rosetta on instructions on how to remove it.

In an attempt to get Rosetta out of these machines BEFORE it can corrupt any other files, we would appreciate a detailed instruction on how to remove Rosetta from Lion (and to the extent that the instructions would be different, on Mt. Lion).

I post this on behalf of those who installed Rosetta; I am not one of them...

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.5), 2011 - 10.6.8 running in Parallels

Posted on May 13, 2013 8:52 AM

26 replies

time18

Level 1

9 points

May 15, 2013 3:02 AM in response to MlchaelLAX

Morning,

I had updated my first post where I said nothing came up in the search, I changed the pop up menu under the eyeglass symbol (top right corner of Easy find) to 'All volumes' and got a list as you would have expected me to.

I have read all of the responses, not being a whizz or anywhere near the technical level of you guys, am I correct to think I can just select the translate file (/usr/libexec/oah) delete it and leave everything else alone?

For a little education, does this mean that in future of I try to install a PPC application Rosetta will not function without the translate file?

Many thnaks for the information so far.

MlchaelLAX Author

Level 4

2,286 points

May 15, 2013 3:46 AM in response to time18

I think our educated guess is that, yes, you can just delete the translate file (/usr/libexec/oah/translate), and just leave everything else alone.

You NEVER had the ability to install or run a PPC application by installing Rosetta into Lion. It just does NOT function that way, pure and simple. It makes no sense that Rosetta would function to allow a FCS2 (or FCE 3.5) powerpc installer application to function, but yet NONE of the other of hundreds of PowerPC apps will work with Rosetta installed into Lion.

My thesis is that the FCS2 (and FCE 3.5) installer is NOT PPC and it has a "bug" in it that only appears in Lion or Mt. Lion and comes up as a "PowerPC" problem; and that further installing Rosetta just coincidentally sidesteps this bug just enough to allow the installer to function.

We all now know that using Pacifist is the safer and more correct method to install this Final Cut Studio 2 (and your Final Cut Express 3.5).

I will repeat again, you CANNOT run PowerPC applications in Lion. If you have the need to run older, PowerPC programs, then you need to install Snow Leopard Server into Parallels and run the PPC apps in there, concurrently with your system running Lion.

Thank YOU for the tip about EasyFind: I now see the 2MB translate file on my Snow Leopard Mac Mini, as well as many other irrelevant files containing the word translate.

time18

Level 1

9 points

May 15, 2013 3:58 AM in response to MlchaelLAX

This is great new thanks, I had delved into the history of FCE 3.5 and it is a Universal application and should run on Intel Macs, I think it was just the installer that was programmed to run on PPC processors.

Again, many thanks for the help, fingers crossed my system will behave in the future.

Jun 20, 2013 4:00 PM in response to time18

Hi,

I just bought a MacMini 2.6 i7 SSD with ML 10.8.4 installed . I tried 3 or 4 times to load FCE 3.5.1 on it with PACIFIST and it failed to launch. I even installed an older version of QT 7.6 incase it needed that . Pacifist installed all the files from the 4 discs and FCE was in the applications folder . I launcehed it and it starts loading the required files for about 2 or 3 secs then closes .

I am VERY KEEN to try ROSETTA , update FCE and then uninstall ROSETTA . As a final effort to avoid FCP X ...

Just FYI that Pacifist didn't work for me with a clean instal onto ML .

Chris

MlchaelLAX Author

Level 4

2,286 points

Jun 20, 2013 7:58 PM in response to The Druid

Try Jeremy Johnstone's Terminal method to do this install:

http://www.jeremyjohnstone.com/blog/2012-03-11-installing-final-cut-pro-studio-2 -0-on-mac-os-x-10-7-lion.html

Jun 21, 2013 9:45 AM in response to MlchaelLAX

Hi Michael ,

Would I change the sudo command to ...final/cut/express... then ?

I went ahead and installed Rosetta and re-installed FCE 3.5 . All worked beautifully .

I cannot update to 3.5.1 though .

Also ...

I think our educated guess is that, yes, you can just delete the translate file (/usr/libexec/oah/translate), and just leave everything else alone.

I cannot find this file in my ML folders, looking in the user library and system library . I also tried editing the InstallHistory.plist in textedit and it was locked and said "You do not own this file and cannot modify it" .

I changed to the root user and still didn't allow me to edit the file and delete the Rosetta script in there .

Is there another way for me to unlock this .plist file ?

I will use FCE on my system as long as I can, if I experience issues from Rosetta instal , I will reformat and try the install with the sudo command .

Jun 21, 2013 9:47 AM in response to The Druid

...... and maybe try TimeMachine back to before Rosetta installation .

MlchaelLAX Author

Level 4

2,286 points

Jun 21, 2013 9:56 AM in response to The Druid

I have never found a reason to upgrade from Lion to Mt. Lion, so I cannot determine why you cannot find the "translate" Rosetta file (indicated in the earlier Kurt Lang post) on your system.

Did you do a search with EasyFind?

What happens when you attempt to upgrade to v3.5.1?

Using Time Machine would eliminate FCE as well as Rosetta.

Jun 21, 2013 10:03 AM in response to MlchaelLAX

No, I didn't use EasyFind it seemed like it wasn't any better than spotlight or finder in the previous posts .But I can try that too and update .

Software Update just says "No Updates Available " . I re-booted , open FCE and tried again . I deleted the Update files in the Library folder and still nothing popped up . I also searched for a downloadable .mpg package as i seem to remember 1 floating around on the net about 3 years ago . No such happiness .

I am happy to lose the FCE install and Rosetta with Time Machine as this will give me opportunity to try the sudo command workaround , fresh .

MlchaelLAX Author

Level 4

2,286 points

Jun 21, 2013 10:06 AM in response to The Druid

I think you are BEST OFF to get rid of Rosetta with a Time Machine restore and move forward without it.

One of the "comments" to Jeremy Johnstone's post has a detailed discussion of installing all of the discs in the FCS2 package. Maybe there is some clues to changing the commands for FCE.

Jun 21, 2013 10:14 AM in response to MlchaelLAX

Yes, I would feel better without Rosetta .......... I will try the sudo command and update the success thereof !

THANKS so much Michael . You are a champ of note !

How to "uninstall" Rosetta manually installed into Lion (or Mt. Lion)