My OS X 10.9.1 seems compromised, help please.

[ranger1]

Yesterday, my iMac Model 10,1 running OS X 10.9.1 operated as usual. Today my OS X 10.9.1 will not recognise many programs in the "Applications" folder. Their icons have been replaced with a generic icon, such as appears when installing a downloaded software program, during the installation/agree procedure. The applications whose patented icons have been replaced, upon double clicking to open, display a window showing Mac OS symbol and saying "The application 'Adobe Photoshop Elements' can't be opened and displaying a fault (?) number -10810 with the "OK" button active.

I have screen capture images to illustrate the problem (see below).

Having detected the System anomaly, I inserted "Disk Warrior” Ver. 4.4 disc containing Mac OS X 10.6.7 and selected the DVD as a start up disc.

The system was rebuilt and, after restarting, back on the internal OS X 10.9.1 system, the application files are still replaced with a generic icon AND those applications will not open.

Can anyone help, please?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Which apps are playing up?

Try restarting Finder from the  in the upper left of your desktop and choose Force Quit then choose Finder.

Otherwise, if the apps that won't launch are all 3rd Party such as Adobe PSE, boot in Safe Mode by pressing the Shift Key immediately after hearing the Startup Chime and run like this for a while to see how things go.

Read all about Safe Boot/Mode here.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

To add to SD hints, I have a sneaky feeling not 100% sure that this error can occur when your computer reaches the maximum amount of threads. To find out what is causing the problem, quit an open program and immediately open activity monitor, closing an open app should free up some threads. Organise the list by number of threads. Be sure to list all processes. Whatever is at the top of the list is probably what is causing the problem.

 

[ranger1]

Dear Spawn Dooley and oldscribe,

Thank you for your generous advice. Some of the apps playing up include "4Media DVD Creator", "Firefox", "Google Earth", Adobe Photoshop Elements 8", "Gimp", Canon Quick Menu, "Aimersoft DVD Creator", Avidemux 2.6", "4Media Video Editor 2" and iMovie HD (isn't this an Apple software program?).

I have an external 500GB HD which has never had a Mac OS X installed on it. I copied/pasted all files onto the Mac HD and erased/formatted the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). With phone assistance from a chap at Apple Support, I restarted (from the compromised OS X 10.9.1 on Mac HD) holding down 'Command' and 'R' to bring up a menu enabling me to install OS Mavericks on the external HD. After OS X 10.9.2 completed, I then selected it as the Startup disc and rebooted, holding down 'Command' and 'R' again to allow me to reinstall Mavericks of the Mac HD.

After the clean Mavericks installation on the Mac HD, I chose the Mac HD as Startup disc, using the newly installed "System Prefs" on the external HD and rebooted. After these 2 clean MAC OS X 10.9.2 were installed and the internal Mac HD was the active System, the above apps were still not recognised.

Despite all your kind and selfless advice, I remain in the same difficulties which sent me to seek your help initially. With generous forbearance, can you continue to help me at this point, please?

Is there a setting in the ‘System Prefs’ that I can set to allow 3rd party software to be installed (or recognised/opened, if already installed) that might help solve this problem.

With appreciation for your welcome advice, I remain

Yours sincerely, ranger1.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Looking at your attached image, PSE needs to be re-installed. This is how you remedy that error message. Do you have the original PSE discs? If that error message is repeated for each app then you would need to reinstall each from scratch.

Is this error the same one each time?

Have you tried uninstalling Firefox then re-downloading it again? Those apps are all 3rd party except iMovie. What error message, if any, do you see when you launch iMovie?

We will have to deal with each app I feel, is everything okay besides this? Does Mail/Safari/iTunes/iPhoto etc all work without error?

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Follow SD hints first, and if no luck you could try this, but I am no programmer just looking at possibilities.

1) Delete these two files (from your home Folder)

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEvents

2) Then delete these two files from your boot drive

/Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices-0230.csstore
/Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices-023501.csstore

3) Then reboot and empty the Trash.

Good Luck.

 

[ranger1]

Hello again Spawn Dooley, old scribe et al,

Following numerous 'walk through', phone sessions with Apple Support ending yesterday, I copied what (non System) files I needed from my Mac HD to my 500GB G-DRIVE external HD and, using the newly installed OS X 10.9.2 on that G-DRIVE as my 'startup' disc/system, I erased and formatted the internal Mac HD. I then clean installed OS X 10.9.2 on the Mac HD, selected it as 'Startup disc' and rebooted.

Now back on the Mac HD as operating drive, I attempted to enter the old Sys Prefs Internet Account settings (I took a screen dump of various Sys Prefs settings before erasing) into the newly installed System Prefs panel. Mail 7.2 could not connect to (nor receive emails from) my ISP Southernphone. Mail had worked fine with those same settings under OS X 10.9.1. When I called a Southernphone internet technician for assistance, she assured me that the settings I read out to her were correct. After she asked, I explained that the internet connected to my iMac just fine as I was using Safari (to download all the software licences I had purchased prior to erasing Mac HD) so the 'internet-to-Mac' was not the issue.

She said that 'Mail' within Mavericks could not send/receive mail from many servers e.g. hotmail. This also happens under Windows 8 but not Windows 7. She said that I should install "Windows (YUK!) Live Mail" which she said would work on Mac OS X. Every download site I 'googled' tried to install 'newspaper style bulletin' software which prevented me trialing the Windows Live Mail as I cancelled the deceptive download before completing..

Are you aware of other Mavericks users who are experiencing the "non connectivity" issues with Mail 7.2 (1874)? Can you suggest another Mac-operable Email program I can try, please?

Thanks again fellow "Mac-ers" for your generous assistance.

P.S. I lost the majority of the music I had purchased through iTunes in OS X 10.9.1, but that's another story.

P.P.S. As my 'Mail' won't connect to my ISP, I'll check back here using Safari as it will connect.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Good to hear there's been progress, you could try mozilla thunderbird … it's free and reputable.

What server do you need to retrieve your mail from? Gmail? It's true there has been problems with Mail in Mavericks but there could be fixes available too. I'm still using 10.7 (Lion) so i have to google this issue.

If you log into the iTunes Store you should be able to access & download previous purchases …

 

[ranger1]

Good to hear there's been progress, you could try mozilla thunderbird … it's free and reputable.

What server do you need to retrieve your mail from? Gmail? It's true there has been problems with Mail in Mavericks but there could be fixes available too. I'm still using 10.7 (Lion) so i have to google this issue.

If you log into the iTunes Store you should be able to access & download previous purchases …

Tanks Spawn Dooley for your kind assistance. I downloaded mozilla thunderbird and set it up and eventually received a torrent (no pun intended) of delayed delivery emails. The work screen looks quite different from 'Mail's' and will take a little time to become familiar with.

The ISP server is a local, government supported Australian ISP (Southernphone), set up to provide regional and country internet users with the same ISP service capabilities as city users expect and of course get.
I'm about to clip your iTunes 'download previous purchases' link and I'll report back how successly I managed that exercise.

Thanks again guys.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

You're most welcome. We often get a Southernphone flyer but I always discard it as I moved from Telstra to internet calls with my ISP, didn't know it was gov supported. Next time I might actually read the flyer!

 

[ranger1]

You're most welcome. We often get a Southernphone flyer but I always discard it as I moved from Telstra to internet calls with my ISP, didn't know it was gov supported. Next time I might actually read the flyer!

G'day Spawn,

Thanks for your continuing advice and reassurance. I've been with Southernphone for my land line and internet ISP services for nearly 4 years. Their deals include a variety of mobile phone costing from free to a small payment each month to cover sets with additional features.

I purchased Stellar Data Recovery as saved the image to the external G-DRIVE. I might be able to use the data to recover missing video downloads etc.

I performed the 'iTunes Recovery of Purchased items' procedure BUT the huge majority of purchased mp3s and a few purchased .mkv downloads did not appear on the list of items available for recovery. Additionally, many video downloads I had stored in the Mac HD for later burning to DVD simply disappeared. Perhaps the Data Recovery software I just purchased might help in this area.

Compounding the delineation of purchased .mp3 items issue is that I search YouTube for songs/artists I wish to add to my iTems (new playlist), download the YouTube .mp4 file and convert it to .mp3 before dragging it into iTunes purchases list.

Thank you again, Spawn

Sincerely, Ranger 1.

P.S. I live in the Blue Mountains area of NSW. Following my 12 year search to establish who my parents were, I discovered that both sides of my family originated in Tasmania. Mum's mum came from Rokeby and Dad's people came from Launceston. It's a small world !

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

You are more than welcome!

You can only recover past purchases for as long as they remain available in the iTunes Store unfortunately … Love the Blue Mtns btw. It is certainly a small world!