High Sierra: qmasterd/opendirectoryd: Too many corpses being created

I offer this that you all might want to have a look at.

I have always said the best way of updating is from a freshly formatted disk. As it seems updating is not removing old kext files

After a little more research I came across an article by Justin Silver (link below) that suggest a solution by removing out of date extension kexts in the System/Library/Extensions.

After looking at my own extensions I notices three extensions; two had old extension dates; two seemed to be duplicates with the usual added figure added to its name.

One file had a date of 2016 and the other 2017 and two files are duplicates (last three files on pictured list).

I have since removed the two out of date files and now wait to see if I have any further corpse issues.

https://www.justinsilver.com/technology/os-x-el-capitan-10-11-1-hanging-on-boot- fixed/

I have heard of that problem before. I don't know its root cause. The only apparent resolution was to completely erase the drive.

Here are the relevant Discussions:

45min Boot Screen

crashed: too many corpses being created

Too many corpses being created

In case it helps anyone else, here's how I resolved the issue of a stuck progress bar on boot after 10.13.3 update, without wiping drive or losing data. (Based on a fusion of several of the links above). My Time Machine backup was stale and configured weirdly, so I wanted to avoid going back to that. I also didn't want to wipe the hard drive if I didn't have to.

1. Hold down power button to shut down

2. Boot in verbose mode (hold down ⌘V, press power)

3. Confirmed that boot gets stuck with repeated "too many corpses being created" messages

4. Hold down power button to shut down

5. Boot in recovery mode (About macOS Recovery - Apple Support)

6. [Optional] From Recovery mode, Saved a backup image of Macintosh HD to an external drive using Disk Utility

7. From Recovery mode, using terminal, renamed all folders at the root level of Macintosh HD, except those with data I wanted to preserve, i.e. "Applications" and "Users"

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

ls -al (to see what's there)

mv System _System

mv Library _Library

...

I didn't bother renaming the files at the root level.

8. From Recovery mode, selected Reinstall macOS and installed on "Macintosh HD"

9. When asked to create a user, ensured that the short name (account name) matched my existing account name so that this user "inherits" the existing files in "Users".

10. Back in business! (I guess I'll go in and delete the old OS folders using terminal).

Hi, I have exactly the same problem!

Suddendly my iMac didn't boot cause is stuck with the progress bar at 100%. Starting in Verbose mode show the same error as yours (opendirectoryd too many corpses being created).

I've already reinstalled in all known ways without success :-(

We all should report this High Sierra bug to the Apple support contacts! Post a tweet to @AppleSupport (so they cannot deny anymore there's a real problem), then write a direct message to open a case number and ask them to send you the "Capture Data" software to create a full diagnostic (it can be run on another partition of the same drive which is not booting). Then submit a bug on this page: Feedback - macOS - Apple

Glad it worked for you.

To delete the old system folders, I booted into Recovery and used rm in terminal. (They're protected by System Integrity Protection About System Integrity Protection on your Mac - Apple Support but this isn't enforced in Recovery mode).

Be careful! Some of the folders are actually symbolic links (e.g. /etc links to /private/etc) so you should be sure you are removing the obsolete link and not the contents of the linked folder. In this case, I believe that rm -rf /etc would just remove the link but rm -rf /etc/ [with trailing slash] would remove the contents of /private/etc as well.

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

Isnt this for Apple to put the foot down to find the cause?

Until some other cause is found, sure, but you wrote that you used a "virus scanner". That's a popular way of ruining perfectly good Macs. Apple has zero interest in Macs affected by such garbage and neither do I.

Why can't use boot Safe Mode? Did your "virus scanner" disable that ability?

Can the virus scanner be the original cause? I doubt it.

So do I, but Rule 1 of using Macs is don't install junk. If you already installed it, Rule 2 is to uninstall it. Non-Apple "anti-virus" software is categorically worthless, can't possibly help, and its continued presence or potential latent effects of having used it will only complicate troubleshooting. Continued discourse regarding that subject will just be a waste of your time and mine.

I wish I knew what caused that lugubrious message. It's not very common. Other than the few reports I cited I know of no others, and at least one of them was reportedly solved by erasing the disk and reinstalling macOS. Presumably that was a permanent fix.

That's not as drastic a solution as it might seem, as long as you create a backup first (Time Machine or the equivalent).

I have had the same problem twice in the last four months and have tried everything you have. The only way I have been able to correct this problem is to keep a flash pen with a installation of as in my case High Sierra on it. All I do at present is to run the Mac from the flash pen which updates the current system correcting the error. I can then run system checks using a few programs but have never found anything wrong and then running Apple Updates to make sure everything is up to date before backing up with Time Machine to a external hard drive.

I confirm John Galt's post.

The solution for mine was to erase the disk and reinstall the OS. It did not work to reinstall the OS without erasing the disk. I also tried many simpler suggestions found in the web, but nothing worked. As I had a backup made using Time Machine, I did not lost data. But I lost MANY hours of work: looking for solutions and downloading the time machine (many hours to recover the backup...).

With regards to how I created the usb flash drive with the High Sierra Installer I followed the OSXDaily link below:-

http://osxdaily.com/2017/09/27/create-macos-high-sierra-bootable-installer-usb/

Running from the USB drive worked for me, twice now. Reinstalling takes a long time!

Hi, I have exactly the same problem!

Suddendly my iMac doesn't boot cause is stuck with the progress bar at 100%. Starting in Verbose mode show the same error as yours (opendirectoryd too many corpses being created).

I've already reinstalled in all known ways without success :-(

We all should report this High Sierra bug to the Apple support contacts! I will open a bug case cause I think it's not acceptable one has to format the HDD for this kind of error!