crashed: too many corpses being created

Agree! It is a shame. But we are Apple customers so it’s our problem, not theirs :-/. I had to recover via Time Machine and everything was fine again. Will NEVER NEVER again install a new OS until the next one “super perfect” OS is coming out. THEN I will install the previous one.

The 'corpses' messages never stopped. I gave up after some 400. I restored the last but one backup using Time Machine via a Command-S reboot. OSX restarted okay after some 10 hours. Haven't powered it down and restarted yet though ........

Hello guys,

Is just a cache problem and is very easy to fix.

Is my second time experiencing the same issue, last time I created a new reboot disk and reinstalled all the system from scratch. lose 2 days of work to put my computer back to work.
Now, I just lose a few minutes of my day.

I could not access the /mbr_cache so I delete the entire opendirectory folder. I was prepared to reinstall all the system again but it works very well. I do not know what more was inside that folder and maybe I could have more problems in the future but. My computer did reboot now, is a little bit slower, but i think is the system recovering the cache.

So the steps that I take was.

1 create a reboot disk on a external drive.
2 boot on the external drive (holding option key to choose the disk)
3 open the terminal mode to review hidden files ( just paste the line on terminal: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true ; killall Finder )
4 go to Machintosh HD, /var/db/caches/ and delete the folder opendirectory

5 restart the computer.

I hope that works for you.
Abraço!

Great, that you figured this out!

One may skip step 3 – for those who are frightened about diving into Terminal.

In Finder, simply tap on menu "Go to", item "Go to Folder" (or hit shift-cmd-G) and type

/Volumes/Macintosh HD/var/db/caches/

(substitute "Macintosh HD" with the Startup Volume name)

Voilà - you are inside the hidden folder where you can continue your repair (deleting folder opendirectory).

Instead, you can try to just rename "mbr_cache" inside of opendirectory the way Frank recommended. If you cannot access the folders, check if owner permissions for the volume to repair are deactivated (volume's Information panel at the bottom)

Regards,

Olaf

Hi Olaf,

the problem of "too many corpses being created" is: you do not have access to the finder (without any external bootable device).

So, the most effectively way for all is the way to use the terminal.

Regards,

Frank

Hi Frank,

yes, you are right concerning "Recovery HD". My reply was to jorgelcampos' solution where an external drive was suggested to be used.

Using "Recovery HD" is faster, more direct and the only way if you cannot use or don't want to use an external drive – "creating" an external boot drive when you don't have any working Mac might be impossible. (Haven't try the "createinstallmedia"-thing in this context, wonder if it would still work with High Sierra. It is not recommended since El Capitan, I think - though it might still work.)

Regards,

Olaf

Hi !

Just wanted to say thank you ! After having tried everything but erasing my hard drive completely, I followed your solution Frank, and it worked !

I hope everyone experiencing the same problem will be aware of this solution soon.

Thank you so much ! 😀

This works! this is the one that worked in my system. My macbook pro (late 2011) crashed after SMC reset. I tried many options like reinstalling mac OS, disk repair etc., and nothing worked. Thanks Frankv for this suggestion!

Suggesting, your defective startup volume is named "Macintosh HD" one have to be very sensible with blanks in the command line.

After "cd" a blank is needed and after "Macintosh\", too. so the correct command would be:

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/caches/opendirectory/

The first blank splits the command "cd" from its parameters (the target directory).

The backslash "\" tells the command line that the following blank belongs to the string "Macintosh" and is NOT a delimiter for a parameter or something.

Be careful. Using wrong commands or parameters can be very dangerous in Terminal.

Much luck!

Franv.

Thanks for this. MBP late 2011, issue after updating to latest High Sierra OS, when logging loading bar progressed all the way to the end and stayed that way. I tried every single option posted here and other forums and only this one seems to finally worked for me. Not sure if the solution was just the above option or a combination of all or several of other options but after following the above my MBP is now up. Would be good to know if other than to do a new TM if I should perform some sort of check before a future shut down.

Thanks

Thanks for Sharing this solution @frankv. It worked like a charm ✅ & I was finally able to get my 3 years data back 🙂

I have tried all the other solution before like Resetting PRAM, reinstalling High Sierra, but none worked.

Thanks again !!!!

I have experienced this the second time in a few months today, first time I resorted to a Time Machine reinstall.

Solution posted above fixed it for me second time without a reinstall. See https://mrsystems.co.uk/blogs/news/too-many-corpses-being-created

After saving (Ctrl+O) I do not get the option to exit.

Says "File Name to Write: /etc/rc.server"

options are Ctrl+ G, C, T or M-D, M-M, M-A, M-P or M-B

Hi. I have the same problem. I'm not allowed to overwrite the file

-----edit

Tried a second time and it allowed me to save the file but the system is still stuck at the Apple logo

OP;

great trouble shooting!

1) make backup (targets disk mode if you have a second Mac)

2) Boot cmd+R and reinstall MacOS right over existing system. (do not use disk utility to whip unless data loss is preferred)