OSX booting

Bloke · 2016-10-22 14:17:28

I realise this is probably the wrong type of thing to post here when I could be posting on MacRumors or something (after going through the sign-up-for-an-account dance) but I thought I’d just reach out in case anyone else has seen this.

A couple of nights ago I got an App Store notification from Apple “Would you like to upgrade to Sierra?” I clicked “Not now”. Next day, my MacBook Pro wouldn’t boot. Penance, maybe!

I have verbose boot on and it was scrolling v-e-r-y slowly — teletype style — through a tonne of error messages. I eventually gave up waiting, powered it off then switched it back on again in safe mode. It booted quicker: the same error messages scrolled by at normal rate. Poked around in system logs and dmesg etc, found nothing untoward.

Rebooted fully (not safe mode) and was greeted by pages and pages and pages — we’re probably talking nearly four thousand entries — of errors like the following scrolling by too quick for me to read fully:

Sandbox: launchd(1) System Policy: deny(1) file-write-flags /private/tmp/noticeboard/com.apple.noticeboard.notification.sierrafor10115and6.1.0.bundle/Contents/version.plist
Sandbox: launchd(1) System Policy: deny(1) file-write-unlink /private/tmp/noticeboard/com.apple.noticeboard.notification.sierrafor10115and6.1.0.bundle/Contents/version.plist

Over and over and over again. The filename after sierrafor10115and6.1.0.bundle/ varied, including things like Contents/Resources/en.lproj. It seemed to be cyclical, failing access to every file and then repeating the sequence again and again until it eventually got bored after twenty or thirty seconds or so and continued with the (usual) remaining errors of the same ilk, but with different paths, ultimately booting to the Apple logo progress bar and the desktop.

I’m not familiar enough with the OSX boot process to figure out why it’s repeating this. I’ve had junk like this in the startup ever since I upgraded to El Capitan — and the paths and number of files it can’t unlink vary from day to day — but usually it’s only a hundred or so. This is the first time it’s gone haywire to this extent.

The Internet gives vague assurances that after 24 hours the daily cron job will tidy up /tmp and such warnings go away. So far, two days later, no dice. And there aren’t even that many files in tmp anyway. I have a pair of drives — OS on SSD, data on an HDD — so I could (if I had the installation media, which I don’t) wipe the OS drive and start again, but it seems a bit drastic.

I suppose letting OSX upgrade to Sierra might also be an option, but since upgrading to El Cap added such warnings to my boot process, I’m not convinced this time will be any different. Plus, the new OS offers me no concrete benefits besides a tonne of integration stuff with “other Apple devices” (that I don’t own) and Siri (that I don’t intend to use) so I’m holding off upgrading until (at least) a few point releases have slid by.

I reckon it’s to do with System Integrity Protection. I have toyed with turning off SIP, but once it’s off, what do I look for to fix the warnings? And will I be able to clear the problem, then turn SIP back on and have it work better? In short, how do I get rid of (or severely reduce) these damn things? It’s slowing my boot process down to pre-SSD startup times and it’s annoying me.

I’d be really grateful if anyone has any clues or insight. Thanks.

colak · 2016-10-22 17:44:36

Hi Stef,

Did you try this?

philwareham · 2016-10-22 17:46:03

Do you use Onyx – maybe run its toolset on your system and see if you can repair it.

bici · 2016-10-22 18:11:07

on the app store under Purchased tab you should be able to find earlier versions of OS X. Do a clean install of the last one that worked for you. It should overwrite everything. Then hopefully you have backups of your applications and documents to restore to the “new” older os.

kees-b · 2016-10-22 18:27:36

Do you have a time machine backup? If so start up in recovery mode (command-R) and reinstall an earlier backup.

Or, start up from another system on a disk or another mac in target disk mode (command-T) and let your mac boot from that disk. After booting up run an El Capitan combo updater on your mac. Might help to clean up…

-k

Bloke · 2016-10-22 19:12:57

Thanks for the input, guys.

colak DiskUtiltity didn’t report anything out of the ordinary and, of course, El Cap and above doesn’t do permissions repair, which would have been my first port of call otherwise :-(

philwareham Forgot to mention that I ran pretty much every troubleshooting tool that Onyx had to offer, including blatting .DS_Store and all caches. I thought for sure it would fix things as I’ve had good results with it in the past, but sadly not in this case.

bici Good call, didn’t know I could do that, thanks for the tip. If it comes down to a fresh reinstall I’ll do that or maybe factor in kees-b’s idea about the ComboUpdate if I can get hold of another Mac somehow. Unfortunately I have 95GB of music software and sample libraries to store somewhere in the meantime… plus my other apps (which don’t total that much combined).

I do have a TimeMachine backup, but it’s from before I did the dual disk setup so it’s a combined OS+Data backup from the old HDD. My new SSD won’t take the backup as OSX assures me it “won’t fit” despite the actual volume of data being way less than the capacity of the drive. I need to figure out what to do with the old backup probably delete it) and use the old time machine partition for the new dual disk configuration instead. Not sure how Time Machine would handle hardware changes like I did.

I still think there has to be a reason this suddenly started, but I’m damned if I can find the cause, let alone a command-line (or otherwise) solution. Grrrrrr.

phiw13 · 2016-10-23 00:18:39

Sierra is actually automatically downloaded in the background, which is what you might have seen that prompt to upgrade.
Do you actually have a Sierra installer in your /Applications folder (it should be named “Install macOS Sierra” or something) ? If so, my first step(s) would be:

delete that installer, empty the trash
System Preferences > App Store – uncheck “Download newly available updates in the background” (to prevent the OS from downloading again)
Quit Apps Store.app if it is running
Clear App Store.app caches: in Terminal: open $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/ That folder will open in the Finder, delete the content of the folder
restart you Mac.

If that doesn’t help, then proceed as bici suggested – reinstall the OS (10.11).

Bloke · 2016-10-23 08:34:50

phiw13 wrote #302401:

Sierra is actually automatically downloaded in the background

Eeeegads, you’re right. Thanks for the info. I’m on a low-bandwidth capped connection so that’s 5GB of my allowance zapped without my explicit authorization (I never ticked that option, so it must have been turned on by default for me in some past upgrade. Thanks, Apple).

System Preferences > App Store – uncheck “Download newly available updates in the background”

Hmm, that option doesn’t seem very customisable. If I turn it off, the other two options to Install app updates and install OSX updates are then greyed out. Will I still get notifications about app updates and interim (point release) OSX updates if I don’t have them downloaded automatically? I don’t want anything downloaded without my consent, but I like receiving the notifications so I can choose to visit the app store and download stuff at my leisure. Ignore me. I didn’t see the checkbox above.

Last edited by Bloke (2016-10-23 08:53:12)

phiw13 · 2016-10-23 08:46:40

Bloke wrote #302407:

Hmm, that option doesn’t seem very customisable. If I turn it off, the other two options to Install app updates and install OSX updates are then greyed out. Will I still get notifications about app updates and interim (point release) OSX updates if I don’t have them downloaded automatically? I don’t want anything downloaded without my consent, but I like receiving the notifications so I can choose to visit the app store and download stuff at my leisure.

Yes, you will receive notifications, as long as the top checkbox “Automatically check for updates” is checked. Oh — and leave the last checkbox “Install system data files and security updates” turned ON (checked). That controls the Virus/Malware protection tool (XProtect), a daemon that works daily behind the scenes.

Bloke · 2016-10-23 08:52:43

phiw13 wrote #302408:

Yes, you will receive notifications, as long as the top checkbox “Automatically check for updates” is checked.

Just spotted that and was amending my post, sorry! Option blindness…

gaekwad · 2016-10-23 13:41:13

I decided to flatten my MacBook Pro and install Sierra with a view to using it for working at my second desk when I’m hiding away from the noise of the world (yay for quiet time, etc). I lasted a week before I ended up reverting to El Capitan.

Some things just niggled me with my setup:

Gatekeeper lost the ‘Anywhere’ option, which seriously affects my workflow
Adobe CS 5.5 installer doesn’t work, is labeled as corrupt despite working on El Capitan and checksums validating
…plus some other stuff that I didn’t fully understand why it was changed

There’s also the inevitable catch-up from the various non-App Store macOS apps that I use as the developers make them Sierra- friendly. I think Coriolis took 6 months to make iDefrag play nicely with Yosemite/El Capitan. Sigh.

That said, there are a few things that I can offer: DiskMakerX is excellent. Stef: I can bring installers/updaters for the past 3 macOS versions to our meet if you can wait that long, or can post you a USB drive. I’m one of those insufferable people that flattens a computer once a year and rebuilds from scratch, so I’m quite familiar with the process.

Bloke · 2016-10-23 16:24:43

gaekwad wrote #302416:

I lasted a week before I ended up reverting to El Capitan.

Hehe. I’m sure Sierra is great for people who have bought into the Apple universe, but for me with my one (inherited) device that I use for coding, email and a word processing, it offers absolutely nothing for me. Siri? No need. Auto-login via AppleWatch: don’t have one. Universal clipboard: I only have one device. Offloading “unused” documents to iCloud: no thanks, I like control of my docs. Apple Pay: useless for me. Picture-in-picture and Memories: don’t use the laptop for photos. Optional new filesystem: I have no issues with the current FS, aside from this daft booting issue that cropped up the other day.

DiskMakerX is excellent.

Not tried that, I’ll check it out thanks.

I can bring installers/updaters for the past 3 macOS versions to our meet if you can wait that long

That’d be grand, thank you. In the meantime I might see if I can roll back and do a fresh install of El Capitan like bici suggested. I’ll see if it’s available for download from the App Store and stash the installer if possible so I can go back to it in future.

It seems the Apple upgrade path isn’t as robust as it ought to be and the people that have fewest problems are those like yourself who rebuild regularly or buy fresh. I might have to adopt the rebuild mindset now I have two drives, as the reinstall pain is less (notwithstanding the Native Instruments apps which I’d probably have to store on the data drive temporarily unless Time Machine could restore them).

On that note, I’m not sure how good Time Machine is for recovering apps only, or on multi-disk setups. I imagine it takes snapshots (equivalent to Windows Restore points) using deltas to store differences(?) But whether it does it across all drives I’m not sure. If it can be set up to keep two parallel backup streams — one for data drive, one for OS drive — that’d be cool. At the moment, if I back everything up to Time Machine, flatten the SSD and reinstall, will Time Machine then just restore the “old” version of the OS in its entirety when I try to put the apps back on? I’ve never used it to restore anything before.

Last edited by Bloke (2016-10-23 16:29:03)

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2016-10-22 14:17:28

OSX booting

#2 2016-10-22 17:44:36

Re: OSX booting

#3 2016-10-22 17:46:03

Re: OSX booting

#4 2016-10-22 18:11:07

Re: OSX booting

#5 2016-10-22 18:27:36

Re: OSX booting

#6 2016-10-22 19:12:57

Re: OSX booting

#7 2016-10-23 00:18:39

Re: OSX booting

#8 2016-10-23 08:34:50

Re: OSX booting

phiw13 wrote #302401:

#9 2016-10-23 08:46:40

Re: OSX booting

Bloke wrote #302407:

#10 2016-10-23 08:52:43

Re: OSX booting

phiw13 wrote #302408:

#11 2016-10-23 13:41:13

Re: OSX booting

#12 2016-10-23 16:24:43

Re: OSX booting

gaekwad wrote #302416:

Board footer