El Capitan: You can't open the application 'app name' because it may be damaged or incomplete

Hello,

I followed your instructions and it worked for me but now I can't delete one of the files that I moved to the Trash. I tried renaming the file with '-old' and I tried unlocking permissions for the file and it's subfolders. I've also tried starting in Safe Mode and emptying trash but I always get the same message that the file can't be deleted because the file is in use.

Any ideas on how I can delete these remaining old cache files? See screenshot for the file in the trash.

This just happen to me on OS X 10.13.2

I deleted the folders in /var/folders except zz and everything is back to normal. Thanks again Linc Davis.

In my case I couldn't delete the files from OS X because I was getting the error. "File is used by the system, It couldn't be deleted"

In order to fix this I deleted the files from recovery mode.

Steps to do this:

Put your Mac in recovery mode, here is how.

After you select the language, open Terminal.

Utilities -> Terminal

If your disk is not mounted in Volumes, use this tutorial

See what files you need to delete

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/
ls private/var/folders/

Now you should see the specified folders that you want to backup then delete

Backup the files

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/ReplaceWithYourUser/Downloads/
mkdir backup
cp -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/private/var/folders/  /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/ReplaceWithYourUser/Downloads/backup

Delete the folders

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/private/var/folders/
ls
rm -rf cp
rm -rf dq
rm -rf gh
rm -rf k5
rm -rf sb
ls

Now you should see only the zz folder, if there is another one, just delete it.

That's it

Restart and login

Linc! You are GREAT man. After 2 months fighting I've just repair my system disk with great difficulty recovered after a disk utility fixing it joined this partition with another one from second disk into one raid partition. I tried EasyRecovery without any success, and only r-studio with the subsequent interference diskwarrior allowed again to see the correct partition, although only on a single disk. But system was very slow and I could't run any application. I still have problem with right recovery of second disk with too partitions: one with Lion {now successfuly recovered], and second: with Mountain Lion. R-Studio allow me to see partition I'm looking for with right size, but when I try to make an image of it it's oversized and after dumping to a new disk - it's useless. I can recover more of my data, but not the whole system partition. Any idea?

And one more question. It seems, that only system applications in dock have default icons (brash and pencil in "A"shape symbol). Do you have any advice to resolve this problem?

Unfortunately, the icons in the Applications folder are also default.I have this problem with:
App Store, Automator, Calculator, Calendar, Chess, Contacts, Dashboard, Dictionary, DVD Player, Face Time, Font Book, Game Center, Image Capture, Launchpad, Mail, Maps, Messages, Mission Control, Notes, Photo Booth, Photos, Preview, QuickTime Player, Reminders, Stickles, System Preferences, TextEdit, Time Machine,
and with Ulilities folder:
Activity Monitor,
Some of theme work (i.e. Preferences, Time Machine), some not (Gmail, Activity Monitor)

I copied broken files from another computer and everything looks fine now. But every time I try to open combo 10.11.6 installer, my system slows down very much. Of course, in effect I can't finish this, because of the message that it is not allowed for my disk. When installation is stopped - system is once again healthy.

Linc, may I ask: what happens if that ”zz” folder is deleted? In fact, I deleted the entire ”folders” folder by mistake in order to fix a startup issue on my sister's computer and that solved it (after I manually created a ”folders” folder from another Mac with the problematic one connected via Target Disk Mode), but now after a couple of days of use she started to get this ”You can't open the applicaion…” error for every app.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Linc, thank you so very much for this. I just updated a machine here at work and had this very issue, on my account. Normally, I let our JAMF system do the updates, but there were a few pending and I was restarting for another reason anyway. Kind of embarrassing for the Mac administrator (me!) to be unable to access applications in his own account. Fortunately, there are several other admin accounts I could use to effect the fix.

Again, thanks!

Hi Linc,

My partner is having this issue with his account and I'd like to try doing this method to fix the issue (hopefully), can this be done through my account on the Mac or will it need to be done through his account? Both are administration accounts.

Hello Linc,

This is Michel from Geneva, working on 10.13.2, MacbookPro. I've got the same issue for the 2nd time. Two months ago, I deleted my user account (from admin account), re-create it and the issue was resolved. Today, I'm unable to delete the user account. So, I followed the steps you've proposed but the different folders in : /var/folders can't be deleted ("fichiers utilisés par le système et ne peuvent être supprimés").

My two questions are :

1. Is your answer (01.26. 2016) still up to date with High Sierra ?

2. How could I delete these folders ?

Thanks for your help,

Michel

I followed your response and it has worked. I had a similar problem, all my apps were not working. I created a new user account, deleted the old one, and re-added it. I now can access all my applications, documents are also intact. Thanks!

I can confirm Linc's solution on a machine running High Sierra 10.13.3 supp.

Removed folders in /private/var/folders, leaving zz in-place.

Missing icons in the Applications folder have been restored & an inability to launch 'damaged or incomplete' applications (all of them) is now a thing of the past.

Bravo!

I just had the same problem in the 10.13.3 beta. The /var/folders trick cleared it up. This is an awfully hottible bug to be shipping out to users. Why doesn't the Finder or some other system service have a fallback somewhere to clear those cache directories in this sort of situation?

I've never run into something so horrifying and seemingly random on an otherwise reliable machine.

Wow, this is the only thing that has worked for me so far.

I am running El Capitan on a MacMini (Late 2012). This moring I finished installing the security update 2018-002 (as 001 failed to install everytime due to file not recognised or something like that. Really frustrating and could not find a way to make it work). After the update, the mac was extremely slow and I was not even able to watch any of my apps icons (only the standard app icon) and not even able to start the terminal from my normal boot up, as every time I've received the same message "you can't open the application 'terminal' because it may be damaged or incomplete'.

So, after testing this solution, it was all fixed. Thanks a million!!

According to your solution, I had dragged 'cj' & 'hq' sub-folders to the trash, then I received this error:

2 item's can't be moved to trash because they can't b deleted.

Please show me the way how can I delete these sub-folders

Thank you, Linc Davis, for a good solution.

Actually, I had to open folder by folder and delete file by file once the system was preventing me to delete the subfolders, just because of system using or something, and even that way, some files was just unable to be deleted, and I just let them there... But after delete everything I could and empty the Trash, everything worked fine after a old and good restart.

Thank you once again.