crashed: too many corpses being created

The following didn't work for me, but creating/fixing the file rc.server has worked for many others with a similar problem. To do this, boot up your Mac in Single User mode (hold Cmd+S immediately as you hear the Apple chime).

Once the initial verbose script has finished loading, enter the following two lines:

mount -uw /

/usr/bin/nano /etc/rc.server

The first line allows your Mac's system files to be written to. The second line opens/creates rc.server as a file, using the nano process. Once the file opens, delete any script that already exists (don't worry if it's empty) and then enter the following two lines:

#!/bin/sh

/usr/sbin/BootCacheControl jettison

Once finished, save your changes with Ctrl+O and then exit nano with Ctrl+X. Your Mac may then automatically reboot, but if it returns you to Single User mode, enter the following line:

reboot

Credit to Chris Hotte (a.k.a NightFlight) for originally discovering this fix

Hope this works for you!

Note: if you're using a UK-type keyboard like myself, you might have a hard time creating the # hash symbol required for the rc.server script. UK input requires Alt+3 to create #, but Alt seems to have no effect within Single User mode. To get around this, I used Recovery Mode (boot up and hold Cmd+R) and changed my input to a US keyboard, then rebooted. US input uses Shift+3 to get #, which works fine in Single User mode

I'm a very experienced Mac tech support consultant, yet I've been grappling with the "too many corpses" problem since yesterday. I tried a number of approaches, but was confident that a simple solution existed. YOU MAY NOT HAVE TO ERASE YOUR HARD DRIVE, or reinstall Mac OS. I found a couple of postings that explain this surprisingly quick solution. If you're able to get into Recovery Mode utilizing CMD-R, and you're not afraid to work in the Terminal program, THIS WORKS! If you follow these steps EXACTLY, a bad file named "mbr_cache" will be rebuilt and your Mac will reboot successfully (slowly the first time as the rebuild happens, then normal speed after that). This solution worked on my 2011-vintage 21-inch iMac (iMac 12,1) with Mac OS High Sierra. Someone should tell the Apple Geniuses and Tech Support Specialists about this. Or, better yet, they should be able to find these types of solutions themselves. Good luck!

The two articles where I found this solution are:

macos - Opendirectoryd too many corpses being created - Ask Different

https://mrsystems.co.uk/blogs/news/too-many-corpses-being-created

Steps from the articles:

1. Boot and hold CMD-R to start up from macOS Recovery
2. If Filevault is on, mount the disk with Disk Utility and enter password
3. Enter these two commands in Terminal

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

5. mv ./mbr_cache ./mbr_cache-old

6. Exit from Terminal
7. Restart the computer

Hi. Since the code didn't worked for me and I needed the iMac working I restored the last time machine system backup. It took about 2 hours but the imac got to work all the day with no new issues so far.

This is how I fixed it. I called apple support and they did jack for me. Told me to trouble shoot everything I already did.

safe boot, pram/nvram reset, recoverymode, yada yada yada. So after wasting time with them I realized I had to do it on my own. The stakes were high because I have no back ups or Time Machine stuff. I have a 2012 13" mac book pro.

So here is what I did. I made a partition on my hard drive with the disk utility on recovery mode. Only big enough to install a base operating system on the partition. "5gbs" Restarted the computer and back to recovery mode / disk utility. I then installed the operating system on my external hard drive. After the install, I started a new account on my external hard drive. I merged all my information from my old hard drive using migration assistant on to my external hard drive. After I had all my files and accounts that I still wanted, I then wiped and restored my old hard drive with my external hard drive. Basically returning my hard drive back to how it was before the dreaded "too many corpses being created" Boom, and thats how I saved my files with no back up.

-Good luck everyone. Took me like a day to figure out. Hopefully this will speed up the process for you.

-Maxx

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 ........

I solved it 🙂, thanks to all who contributed to this thread, it really helped me, especially that I hate dealing with computer issues, and that I switched from PC to Mac mostly because I did not want to lose my time with blue screens and system failures.

I have a late 2009 iMac. For 8 years it has worked properly, and I am always updating quickly to new OS and patches. Last saturday, the computer was stuck on the grey/white screen with the Apple logo, with a bar progressing very slowly... and never completing. I tried everything I could find on the web, including this list (reset NVRAM, recovery mode, etc.). Safe boot never worked, and I sat like a fool pressing the key forever because I was not sure.

"Too many corpses being created" looping in the Verbose mode. I thought my hard drive was dead - an 8 year old mac could be obsolete right? But this was not a hardware issue.

I've been backing up with Time Machine on an external hard drive since 8 years, and never had to actually use Time Machine. So my last chance was to restore a backup from Time Machine.

CMD+R (with a bluetooth keyboard, wait for the Apple Chimes, press CMD+R and you can check it is working because the green led on the keyboard is flashing)

Interesting enough, I noticed in my time machine backup list that I updated to 10.13.2 in the night between Jan 4th and Jan 5th. I had forgotten - updates always working seamlessly.

I then found out I used the computer on the 5th, shut it down and all my issues came when I tried to open it again.

So I REALISED 10.13.2 WAS ACTUALLY THE ISSUE. For sure.

Recovered to my last time Machine backup under 10.13.1... and everything works perfectly fine again.

I kissed myself for using time machine, and promised myself to wait 6 months before updating my iMac in the future.

This is how I fixed it. I called apple support and they did jack for me. Told me to trouble shoot everything I already did.

safe boot, pram/nvram reset, recoverymode, yada yada yada. So after wasting time with them I realized I had to do it on my own. The stakes were high because I have no back ups or Time Machine stuff. I have a 2012 13" mac book pro.

So here is what I did. I made a partition on my hard drive with the disk utility on recovery mode. Only big enough to install a base operating system on the partition. "5gbs" Restarted the computer and back to recovery mode / disk utility. I then installed the operating system on my external hard drive. After the install, I started a new account on my external hard drive. I merged all my information from my old hard drive using migration assistant on to my external hard drive. After I had all my files and accounts that I still wanted, I then wiped and restored my old hard drive with my external hard drive. Basically returning my hard drive back to how it was before the dreaded "too many corpses being created" Boom, and thats how I saved my files with no back up.

-Good luck everyone. Took me like a day to figure out. Hopefully this will speed up the process for you.

-Maxx

It's not about installing the OS again, even if it's an old one (a friend of mine had the same problem with El Capitan a few days ago, while I had it with High Sierra). It's about ERASING the HD and then installing the OS. That's what fixes it. All the other processes that are described by various users of this forum are just to recover the info, but if you don't mind that, then just delete the drive on recovery mode (cmd+r at startup) and install the OS again.

edit: I called apple and they helped me fix the problem. after reinstalling the operating system I restarted the Mac and held down the shift key and then set up the Mac. after that I restarted the Mac and it started fine again

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!

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.

Hi Claudio,

after some attempts, some found in this topic others elsewhere, I could not solve the problem by myself and I brought my macbook in assistance: the hardisk was broken and I had to replace it. I hope it's not the same for you and that the problem can be solved more easily.

by

Federica

I have the same problem on my iMac 5K mid-2015 and a boot disk on external USB3 Seagate drive (new).

I've read many, many forums full of people reporting the same bug, and I've been in contact with Apple "assistance" for the last 3 weeks without an official solution!

It appears, comparing some users ideas, that creating a new user with the same short name as the buggy one in another partition with a fresh installation and importing the old data could solve the boot problem.

Now what really upsets me is Apple doing nothing to fix that bug! Or even denying... I'm an Apple user since 1985 and I'm so deceived.

Anyway my suggestion for everybody is to write a public tweet to the Apple Support, then a DM to open a case number and ask to send you the "Capture Data" software to send them a full diagnostic. Then submit a bug on this page: Feedback - macOS - Apple

It is unacceptable so many Apple customers are having the same boot problem, and no official fix! We must report the bug as much as we can.

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

Thanks for the kind answer Federica,

I also solved my problem, using another more appropriate Thread. There seems to be a general problem with "not so new" iMacs (my one is of 2014) and High Sierra. The iMac was healthy and the disk too, because I run the diagnostic (that part, worked). It was a pure software problem (thanks, Apple).

I restored to my last Time Machine backup (unfortunately 15 days old) and now it works again. But many other people experienced problems like the one that occurred to me.

Regards

Claudio

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8150691?answerId=32666713022#32666713022