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Level 1

9 points

System unusable post 2016-001 security update

So I updated my system from the App Store with the El Capitan 2016-001 security update, and now my system is pretty well hosed...

To summarize the issues:

Finder windows take forever to update/refresh (spinning beach ball and gears forever)
For example, when I clicked on "Applications", the applications list was incomplete and most had generic icons
I get the following error message when trying to launch any application, including System Preferences:
"The application is damaged or incomplete"

Those are the most salient and obvious issues. I can't launch Terminal, Disk Utility, System Logs, nothing, from my primary user ID, which is an admin ID.

Steps I've taken:

I logged in using a test account and no issues.
I booted into Safe Mode with the affected ID, same issues as when booting normally.
I've run Disk Utility First Aid from the test account, and it reports the disk is fine, but I'm not sure if it's looking at the affected user account.
I've run the unified installer from the test account

I'm kind of at a total standstill. Does anyone have any ideas how I might proceed? I'm hoping Linc or Barney F15E have some ideas...

Help!

Thanks - Dave

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Jan 26, 2016 12:11 PM

21 replies

mortarman Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 28, 2016 10:02 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

I'm very concerned that's what I might have to do...

Do you know where the user account specific data is maintained in OS X? I used to know back in the days of the classic OS, but don't have a clue now...

My principal concerns are my Outlook data, (where I have a number of archived emails that I can't afford to lose [since I had that happen to me early last year]), my personal email data, music, pictures, videos, etc. I also have Windows in a Parallel environment, along with Office 2013, that I'd hate to lose also.

My concern is that I create a disk image, migrate my application data, etc., from that image, and replicate the corrupted environment in my new day-to-day user account...

Thanks again Jimmy - very much appreciate the help!

mortarman Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 28, 2016 10:11 AM in response to MrHoffman

Hi MrHoffman - here are the results. Not sure how useful they'll be as they report on the working account, rather than the account with the issues and I a Unix ignoramus so I didn't know how to insert a path statement that would report on the affected account.

Just FYI, I manually segmented the id report for readability

Last login: Thu Jan 28 09:34:39 on console

MacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ id

uid=503(Test)

gid=20(staff)

groups=20(staff),

701(com.apple.sharepoint.group.3),

12(everyone),

61(localaccounts),

79(_appserverusr),

80(admin),

81(_appserveradm),

98(_lpadmin),

402(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),

33(_appstore),

100(_lpoperator),

204(_developer),

395(com.apple.access_ftp),

398(com.apple.access_screensharing),

399(com.apple.access_ssh

MacBook-Pro-3:~ MacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ lsMacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ ls -aled@ ~/DoMacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ ls -aled@ ~/DocumeMacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ ls -aled@ ~/Documents MacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ ls -alMacBook-Pro-3:~ TestMacBook-Pro-3:~ TestMacBook-MacBook-Pro-3:~ MacBook-Pro-3:~ MacBook-Pro-3:~ MacBook-Pro-3:~ MacBook-Pro-MacBook-Pro-MacBook-Pro-MacBook-Pro-MacBook-MacBook-MacBook-MacBMac BMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBook-Mac BMacBMacBMacBMacBMacBook-MacBMacBMacBook-MacBMacBook-Pro-MacBook-MacB

MacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$ ls -aled@ ~/Documents ~/Library ~/Library/Preferences ~/Music

drwx------+ 3 Test staff 102 Nov 23 11:10 /Users/Test/Documents

0: group:everyone deny delete

drwx------@ 48 Test staff 1632 Jan 28 09:54 /Users/Test/Library

com.apple.FinderInfo 32

0: group:everyone deny delete

drwx------+ 114 Test staff 3876 Jan 28 10:39 /Users/Test/Library/Preferences

0: group:everyone deny delete

drwx------+ 3 Test staff 102 Nov 23 11:10 /Users/Test/Music

0: group:everyone deny delete

MacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$

[Restored Jan 28, 2016, 12:16:07 PM]

Last login: Thu Jan 28 12:16:01 on console

MacBook-Pro-3:~ Test$

Thanks again for weighing in to help!

Jan 28, 2016 10:27 AM in response to mortarman

While I'd leave FileVault on (that either works or it doesn't, and given that the test user is working...), and I'd tend to punt and reinstall here, looking at that list of installed pieces and parts.

Get a backup or two, and then nuke and pave with a fresh distro, and migrate in just your documents and files, but not your applications or related.

Your VMs are a straight file export.

Your Outlook mail? Follow Microsoft's recommendation for archiving that.

But if you want to try to untangle this — still, have backups — start with Little Snitch and the Wacom bits (due to the crashes) and any of the various other add-ons here that you're not currently using.

The ownerships of the test user files and directories look correct. Hopefully your problematic user looks similar.

User-specific application data is maintained under ~/Library, in any of several different areas depending on the applications involved.

mortarman Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 28, 2016 10:35 AM in response to MrHoffman

Very much appreciated - thank you!

Mario MG

Level 1

57 points

Sep 2, 2016 10:39 AM in response to mortarman

FYI, same here on a 2012 iMac. But on mine... The dock never comes up (maybe on a day or 2). So slow it looks like noting is responding. Mostly vanilla, none of the apps mentioned are on my machine. I use Superduper all the time before an update so I just reformatted and restored. Look around, we are not the only ones. This update is a bad one.

Sep 2, 2016 3:09 PM in response to mortarman

You might take a look at this thread: Security Update Causes Apps To Be Damaged . It seems to describe your problem, and one proposal is to delete the contents of /private/var/folders .

System unusable post 2016-001 security update