GaryK

OK OS X has been happily running for some time now. Although this morning the screen just went black and I had my mouse pointer but that was it. Waited a while could not recover so had to power off.

Now when I run up any M$ office app I get the error message (although no office apps were running) ;

Application Launch Failure
The application "Excel" could not be launched because of a shared library error: "<Microsoft Excel><CarbonLib><CFMPriv_Print><>"

Even more worringly when I go to system preferences and Software Update I always get a;

Preferences Error
Could not load Software Update preference pane

I have re-booted a couple of times and still get these errors. OS X seems to run apart from this but Im busy backing stuff up because its making me very nervous and not sure what to do, help!

Thanks


Gary

Markus

Is this an Intel Mac and have you recently installed the QuickTime 7.2 update? If so then there is a now issue whereby it breaks all CFM (Code Fragment Mananger) apps, which would include the Office Suite, on some machines. It may also cause other problems.

The issue is with the prebinding part of the installer, if you don't leave the machine totally alone, and have no other applications running then the prebind (bit in the installer where is says "Optimizing System Performance") may not execute correctly, causing issues.

So what to do? well, getting prebinding to update is what's needed. There's a few ways to do this:

1) Download the Mac OS X 10.4.10 combo updater (one assumes you're on 10.4.10 if not then download the latest combo updater for the OS version you're on). Reboot into safe mode (reboot and as soon as you hear the startup chime hold down the shift key and keep it held down until you see the login dialog, it should say "safe boot" on it). Enter the username and password on the dialog and hold down **** and then click on the Login buttton, keep the shift key held down until the Finder and Desktop are fully loaded.
Make sure no other applications at all are running, then run the Updater and do not do a single thing on the machine once the updater is running. Once it's complete, reboot and see if the issue is still there.

2) As above, reboot into safe mode, login with the shift key held down. Make sure no other apps are running, then launch terminal and execute the following command:

sudo update_prebinding

Press return and when prompted for a password, enter your admin password and press return again. Do not do anything until the Terminal window shows the normal prompt. At which point, reboot and see if the problem is still there.

GaryK

Markus,

As always your help is most appreciated and your expertise is superb. I owe you a virtual beer or five thats for sure!

However this really seems foobar! First off, if I hold down the shift key when I hear the chime after a few seconds the machine just powers off. Secondly if I boot up normally I cant event mount the disk image which contains the 10.4.10 combo update. I cant run disk utility to repair permissions. If (as seems the case) an *itunes* which is an application not an inherent part of the OS update has completely screwed the OS I am tempted to phone apple UK and enquire as to why I wasted £1600 on an imac which gets brought to its knees by an application patch.

As I cant boot into safe mode or install the combo update I dont see what else I can do apart from re-install the OS?

Thanks for your help and time!

Gary

Markus

Yikes! Does sound like it's a tad upset.

Try this...

Turn on the machine and as soon as it chimes hold down Command + S and keep it held down. That will boot into single user mode. Enter the following commands:

/sbin/fsck -fy (then press return)

That will check the disk, and it should come back ok, of not then it should, I think, pick up any errors and fix them.

Once it's run through, enter the following command:

/sbin/mount -uw / (press return)

Ther is a space between the -uw and the slash. This mounts the drive read/write so we can modify it. We'll give the prebinding another shot to see if that helps any, so enter the following at the prompt

update_prebinding (press return)

We don't need the sudo bit as we're all ready running as the root user as we're in single user mode.

Wait until you get the prompt back, reboot and see what happens.

Next step would be to boot from the install DVD. At this point I'd try running diskutility to verify disk/permissions, see what it comes up with and fix any problems, then see how you go.

Worst case scenario, and once you have everything off you need. Run the installer but select the "Archive and Install" option and also make sure you select the "preserve users and netowkr settings), this will import the user and network info as part of the install.

I think this will also keep your applications folder intact, though I could be wrong.

GaryK

OK Marcus,

Ran the fsck and it returns the following;

Checking catalog file
Invalid Sibling Link
(4, 266)
Volume Check Failed

And it doesnt seem to repair it because if I re-run fsck I still get the same error, any ideas?

Cheers

Gary

Markus

Boot from install disk and see if Disk Utility will fix the problem. If you've got Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior it'd be worth letting them have a peek at the disk too.

GaryK

Hi Marcus,

Yep same problem, disk util fails on verify and it cant even repair the problem either!

Markus

Ok, if you've got everything you want backed up from the machine then you could try a complete fresh install of the OS, as that'll reformat the drive. Only other option is if you have TechTool Pro or Disk Warrior as they may be able to fix the problems with the drive, but if you don't have them you'll have to buy them and there isn't a guarentee that they will fix the problem, so you'd have purchased something that's not going to help you now.

I'd try the fresh install step, see if that works, if not then it could be that the drive is actually failing. I had a brand new maxtor drive die on me a few weeks after purchasing it, so it is possible for a new macs drive to die early in it's life.

GaryK

OK its looking like thats my only option.

Couple of questions though;

Is there an easy way to export all my emails from Mail? Ive got quite alot across several folders.
Can I backup my parallels VMs, Ive got 4 I really dont want to rebuild each one!

Many Thanks

Gary

Markus

If you're using the default config for mail then you should find all the mailboxes in:

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/

All attachements should be located in:

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail Downloads/

There does not seem to be an actual export for a mailbox, you can save the messages, but I'd go for finding the Mail folder as mentioned above and copy that off. It should contain all the account information as well as the emails.


As for Parallels. If you are using "files" for disk images then you should find all your VM's wherever you saved them, default location being:

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Parallels/

Think there are ususally two main files for a VM, one is the disk, the other the settings file. Copy both of those and you should preserve the VM.

If you're using Parallels and the BootCamp partition as the "disk" then you'd need to use NetRestore Helper or Winclone to create an image of the BootCamp Partition, then find the relevant settings file, which would probably be in the aforementioned default location for VM's.