OS X.. Broken. Fixed.
Posted by Stephen Waits Sat, 03 Jun 2006 23:02:30 GMT
Last weekend I all but bricked my OS X. Actually, I didn’t do anything. I’d just finished up some things and decided it was finally a good time to run that Restart Requiring Software Update that I’d wanted to install for about a week. This included The latest Security Update (2006, #3 IIRC), iWeb, iDVD, Quicktime 7.1, and that’s about all I remember.
So, I shut down all of my apps, ran Software Update. It did its thing and then prompted me to restart, which I did.
Now to install that Xcode update that I’d also wanted to install for some time. Installed it before even trying to run any of my other apps. Can’t remember if I rebooted at this point - probably not. But this is where all hell broke loose…
I started Mail. It started, but the instant it tried to render a message in the preview pane it crashed. Hmm.. Adium, similar behavior. Started fine, but as soon as I popped open an IM window, crash.
At this point I ran Repair Permissions and Verify Disk. Two things that you really don’t ever need to do, but Mac Lore ignorantly says they’re to be done, so I did. They were both fine.
I fired up Console.app to watch what was happening at some point, and could see the crash dumps happening. So, I ran all the crashing apps again, and compared all of the crash logs. Yep, they were all crashing on the exact same thing. Some code in JavascriptCore, which along with WebCore forms the WebKit framework (think shared library, like the IE component in Windows). I found some (apparently) non-WebKit apps that ran just fine. So now I know, my WebKit got hosed in the update.
Ahhh.. I just need to reinstall the latest updates. I’ll run Software Update.. wait, WTF!?!? Yes, Software Update uses WebKit too.
Ok ok.. I’ll download the updates myself and just install them manually by double-clicking on the mpkg files. Wait.. WTF?!?! That’s right, the Installer needs WebKit too.
Shit.. I asked a guy at work for some advice. He said maybe I could run the CLI installer. Ahh yes, that has to be it! I get home and anxiously give it a shot.. and wait.. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! You guessed it, even /usr/sbin/installer needs WebKit.
The moral of the story is that OS X is basically bricked without WebKit. I’ll say it: That’s fucking dumb! There’s no way apps like Software Update and installer should have such dependencies! Not in a sane world anyway.
The guy at work, and several on the Apple Support Forums, suggested that if I couldn’t get my WebKit fixed, I’d have to do Archive & Install. So, I took that task on today.
First, I backed up my critical stuff to a few network shares on my Windows box. Then stuck the DVD in. But wait.. my Mini rejects it. I’d noticed it was rejecting some DVDs lately, so I took out my DVR-K05 drive and replaced it with the original factory installed drive.
Ok, now it takes the disk. I stick it in, click on whatever, whatever, whatever, it detects I’m installing an old version and autoselects Archive and Install, and Save User Stuff, click go. And how’d that work? FUCKING BRILLIANTLY! Here I am, with basically all of my stuff still exactly in place and working great, minus a few installed things like the MS keyboard driver and subversion.
Shame on Apple for the wonky Software Update and Installer dependencies. Kudos to Apple on implementing Archive and Install!