Multiple Apple Apps Suddenly Not Working.

Question

-mcs Author

Level 1

1 points

Multiple Apple Apps Suddenly Not Working.

General Problem: Several apps (iTunes, Mac App Store, Safari) are suddenly not working properly or at all.

Specific, repeatable Symptoms:

On launch, iTunes gives warning of an “expired certificate” for init.itunes.apple.com and xp.apple.com
The App Store application will launch, but no information will load, regardless of what section I select.
In Safari, the Apple Support menu layout is severely messed up. While all other sites seem to be working fine, the fact this appeared at the same time as the other symptoms seems a little more than coincidental, especially considering that the same section works fine in Chrome and Firefox on the same account.

Troubleshooting Attempts and other Data.

Mac Pro (2013), 10.9.5 with all updates. (Yosemite is not an option at this time)
All software is up to date for this OS version.
These symptoms do not appear on other Macs on the same network.
These symptoms do not appear on another account on the same Mac
Repaired permissions from the Recovery Partition - no change in behavior
Reset Safari - no change in behavior
Ensured Date/Time is correct - no change in behavior.
Reset caches in iTunes - no change in behavior.
Ran through both "Can't connect to the iTunes Store" (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1368) and "iTunes: Advanced iTunes Store troubleshooting" (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3297) - no change in behavior.
Ensured all certificates in Keychain access were set to system default - no change in behavior.

From the above symptoms, it would seem that the trouble is most likely a preference problem (or series of them). The thread at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5050632 also seems to indicate at least one of the problems lies in a preference issue.

Does anybody have any guesses as to which files need to be rebuilt in order to restore proper behavior again?

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), Late 2013

Posted on Apr 10, 2015 10:03 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Apr 10, 2015 10:51 AM in response to -mcs

Try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear and again when you log in. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don’t do them all at once.

Safe Mode - Mavericks also Yosemite

Safe Mode - About

You can also try checking the preference files. Do a backup and quit all e applications.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Preferences. Move the following to your Desktop.

com.apple.iTunes.plist

com.apple.appstore.plist

com.apple.Safari.plist

Restart the computer, open the applications and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the applications are the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 2

-mcs Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 10, 2015 2:42 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks for the info. I admit I hadn't thought about Safe Mode, as the aberrant behavior wasn't consistent along ALL apps; just the ones mentioned.

Alas, the results for Safe Mode were the same - no change in behavior.

And since we were going old-school, figured a PRAM zap wouldn't hurt anything either - still no luck.

Same with removing the plist files mentioned - still no change.

So it's either a different preference file somewhere else (perhaps ~/Library/Application Support/ or something like that) or I'm looking in completely the wrong direction.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Apr 11, 2015 10:32 AM in response to -mcs

You are welcome. try running the combo update.

10.9.5 Combo Update

If that doesn't work, do a backup, preferable 2 separate ones on 2 drives. Boot to the Recovery Volume (command - R on a restart or hold down the option/alt key during a restart and select Recovery Volume). Run Disk Utility Verify/Repair and Repair Permissions until you get no errors. Then re-install the OS.

OS X Recovery

OS X Recovery (2)

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Answer 4

Apr 11, 2015 10:20 PM in response to Eric Root

I have the same problem immediately after installing the last security/Tunes/Safari update on iMac with Mavericks

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Answer 5

Apr 12, 2015 12:46 AM in response to -mcs

I'm having the exact same issue. Will keep searching for results.

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Answer 6

Apr 13, 2015 10:38 AM in response to Priyankmg

Have restored from time machine backup from just before I installed the security update and everything now works again.

The same problem appears in another Thread

Security Update 2015-004 broke VeriSign SSL certificates system wide

And perhaps others.

However the solution does not seem clear (other than don't reapply the security update).

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Answer 7

-mcs Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 13, 2015 10:43 AM in response to graememoad

Checking through the thread graememoad linked to, I found ANOTHER one that had the solution (at least for me).

The solution for the thread Re: app store unavailable following security update 2015-004 (Mavericks): actually deleting the Verisign and Apple certificates, rather than setting them to System Defaults seems to have worked for me.

What that means, security-wise, I'm not particularly sure, but due to the limited-use nature of this machine, I'm not particularly fussed about it for now.

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Answer 8

May 4, 2015 8:03 PM in response to -mcs

Solved! At last!

I cannot say exactly which step was the key, so here are most of the steps I took. Hopefully this helps someone.

1. Took the steps in Invalid or incorrect Certificates including reboot.
2. Took the steps in Edit your Keychain including reboot.
3. Downloaded and manually reinstalled Security Update 2015-004.

4. Repaired permissions and directories with Recovery reboot.

5. Took the steps in Invalid or incorrect Certificates including reboot.

6. Took the steps in Edit your Keychain including reboot.

I've gone through some of these steps multiple times, just hoping it would work that time...

Today -- when I went into Mail.app, it whined about the certs for me.com servers -- so I made *that* always trusted. And this time, iTunes.app didn't complain about any certs! And this time, Software Update.app didn't complain about any certs! And it successfully applied the three-week delayed updates!

So I'm hoping it's all done and done. OMG, frustrating along the way!

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