Q: CoreTelephony Trace File Error

I also am having the same problem. I am running OS X El Captain using OS X Server. I get the Core Telephony error when trying to login to a network account on the server itself. If I login into the network account on a network machine, the error does not come up.

taylorwrt here again.  I never really solved my problem.  I just punted and wiped by boot disk clean and reinstalled the system.  That fixed the problem, but now a month or so later, the problem came back.    This time, I tried disk utility, disk warrior, resetting the home directory location, even doing a total restore from backup with Super Duper.   Nothing worked.    Then I wiped the boot disk clean with disk utility, THEN restored from backup with Super Duper, and the problem was gone.   It will be back, I am pretty sure.  

I am a bit surprised that a Super Duper restore does not fix the problem unless I first reformat the boot drive (an Apple SSD).    This seems like a bug in El Capitan that has not been fixed by the first El Capitan update.

I had this error appear after migrating a user from a 12" Mabook Air with OSX 10.11 to a 13" Macbook Air with OSX 10.11. All I did was use migration assistant to move the files from one computer to another, and the error appeared right from the beginning. I tried to first fix it with Disk Utility, but that did not work. So I then decided to go and use terminal to see what was going on.

I launched Terminal, then ran the command ( ls -al ) which will show you the permissions for the root folders. I noticed that the /tmp folder has an improper owner and permissions. So I needed to fix this and then restart. I performed the following steps to fix the issue and make the error go away.

1. Launch terminal

2. Type in the command ( sudo chown root:wheel /tmp ) and press ENTER. You will have to enter your password. If you have never used Terminal before, it does not move the cursor when you are inserting your password, so just type it in and press ENTER.

3. Type in the command ( sudo chmod -R 777 /temp ) and press Enter. You may need to enter your password again.

4. Close terminal and restart your computer.

What did you just do?

-In the first step, you change the owner of the /tmp folder to the root account, and wheel group. These are system accounts/group used by the operating system to run operations.

-In the second step, you gave all accounts and groups on the computer access to that folder. This is generally NOT a good idea, but it really depends on what type of data you are providing access to. If you create a folder you want everyone to have access to so they can share files, giving it 777 permissions is not a bad idea. Normally, system files and folders have restricted access. But, considering this is a *temp* folder, what does it hurt to give everyone full access?

Can I change the permission on the folder?

You can try, I did, but it made the error come back after I restarted. If in terminal you run the command ( ls -al ), you will notice the other folders on the root level have permissions of 755 (read/write/execute, read/execute, read/execute). This breaks down to...you have full access, groups can read/execute, and everyone else can read/execute. When I tried changing the /tmp folders permissions to 755, it made the error come back.

So in short, this is a permissions error with the folder that is shown in the message. You need to fix the ownership and permissions for that folder to fix the issue.

Thanks!

Followed the instructions Macspt 2015 provided and it solved the CoreTelephony Trace File Error at startup. Note that there is an typo in step 3, should read ( /tmp ). Fixing the permissions for the tmp folder also solved problems I was having installing updates to Adobe Flash, Acrobat Reader, and TechTool Pro 8.

Thanks for the fix!

Dear All

I had the same error, pls help me

Thank a lot of

I ran into the CoreTelephony error when updating a client’s MacMini with Server from 10.10 to 10.11. Just a standard update, nothing special, then the error on startup. I have three 10.11 Macs including a MacMini Server, none of mine experiencing the CoreTelephony or any other issue. Those Macs provided the clue that resolved the problem.

In the permissions for each admin user’s home directory, Get Info. At the bottom of the info window, look at Sharing & Permissions. In OS 10.10, you will see the individual user (“Me”), wheel and everyone. In OS 10.11, you will see the same EXCEPT “wheel” is now “staff”. The problem is that OS 10.11 does not like "wheel" and demands "staff" in order to function correctly.

Here is the fix for the CoreTelephony error:

1) You need to fully boot the computer. In the case of my client’s problematic MacMini with Server.app, this took about 15-20 minutes for the desktop to populate with icons. Waiting it out was a key issue because I wanted to navigate to the Users folder to check those permissions. Once the drive icon mounted, no problem at all. Normal boot, not Safe Boot although that should work too. Safe Boot just didn't offer any advantages in this case.

2) Get Info on each admin user account. Check those permissions. Any that have “wheel” are problematic.

3) Create a new (I called mine "Tech") admin user account and boot into that for the next step.

4) Now, booted as "Tech", go back and delete each admin user (from OS 10.10). Choose the first option: SAVE the home directory as a .dmg file in the Deleted Users folder that will then be created. (Once created, that can be substituted so nothing is lost.)

5) Create a new Admin user matching the same name as the one you just deleted. Reboot into each new Admin account to confirm that the problem has gone away.

6) Once confirmed, substitute the previous (deleted) home directories to replace the new blank one in the newly-created-but-with-the-old-name admin user’s directory. It’s a drag and drop of the whole user directory. You can then delete the ("Tech") admin account you used to resolve the issue, or just leave it for another day.

I’d run Disk Utility when done, just to clean anything up.

Steps 4 & 5 need to be done for all admin accounts that existed in 10.10. I don't believe this issue affects standard accounts but if it does, the same solution should resolve it.

CoreTelephony Trace File Error on Mac

same message but last part reads 'error opening file/tmp/ct.shutdown,err = no space left on device'

after a look at the drive there is plenty of space. problem occurred after update 10.10.5

believe the computer is looking at the wrong partition on the drive which is possibly the boot segment and very small.

so im guessing Apple need to send a patch to fix the affected code stack overflow and correct the location.

recommend to do a complete backup and restore to factory conditions for a quick fix but don't update to 10.10.5

till Apple confirm they have fixed.

sudo chmod 1777 /tmp

Perfect solution!

For information it solves me for some Adobe problem (for ex. to create a .PS file) too

How do you fix this error

I actually tried all these suggestions with the terminal command and changing permissions and even tried the advanced option of the user account in system preferences but none of them worked.

What did do the trick was an archive and install and run all your software updates afterwards and this resolved the issue. It also solved the problem of PhotoShop crashing. Just make sure to backup your data first before reinstalling OS X 10.11 again and you should be good to go afterwards.

Had the very same problem, tried almost everything that was suggested here, but no success. I´ve got parallels VM on my Macbook 2012, it was the only thing to stop working after the error ocurred. I´ve had no problems with El Capitan bevor that.

Now this is what worked for me:

After a backup I started recovery (cmd R) and choose to Reinstall the latest version of OS X. After restart everything was ok again.

Same here.

Same problem on MacBookPro 13" i7 with SSD and OSX 10.11

First I updated OSX to 10.11.6 but it didn't fix the problem. I tried everything suggested on this thread, but no success.

I have done a recovery (cmd+R on boot). You need an Apple acount. It takes more than 30 minutes to complete all the process (download + install) . The home folder and Application folder still intact.

It fixed the problem.

Yes, diaglog box disappears, but I have been unable to update Word or Adobe since that dialog box first appeared. All my other programs, when I try to install recommended updates, tell me they can't upload. It's messing up my computer.  Any ideas for this bug in your program, Mac?

I had the same problem but, as of 10/10/16, it seems Parallels has published a solution on their site (it worked for me):

http://kb.parallels.com/124001

Perhaps it will help others who have the error message but are not using Parallels VM. They say it is due to 'Incorrect permissions to the /tmp folder on the Mac side'.

1. Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting your computer and holding down Command+R until the Apple logo appears on your screen.
2. Click Utilities > Terminal.
3. In the Terminal window, type in 'csrutil disable' and press Enter.
4. Restart your Mac.