not able to repair permissions ?!?!what!?!?!

[rooter]

Wholey **** -- So I'm in my everything is breaking week + here; but I was simply trying to repair permissions on my Powerbook G4 667, running 10.3.9 ((because Microtwerps Office (10.1.4) won't open files after a while?!!?!) and it says that it’s lost contact and can’t repair them… what is that?!?! What happened:
I booted from the 10.3.7 disk 1, running Disk Utility, I select my (unmounted) hardrive and after about 4 minutes it stops saying: "Disk Utility internal error, Disk Utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility."
So I quit and restarted the app and tried again. No go - same error.
So I restarted and tried again; no go - same error. Then I started to silently panic.
I restarted on TechToll Pro 4.0.5 and ran alllll the tests; everything passed except ‘minor errors in the files, so I repaired them.
5 years later, I restarted in single user mode and fsck'd it --- (what the heck does that do anyway??!)
While holding my breath, I restarted again, with a different 10.3.7 disk 1 (an original – in case my copy had gone bad?!?) opened Disk Utility, selcted my hardrive and clicked repair permissions and got the same error.
While screaming, I quit the app and restarted it, and tried to simply verify my permissions - now it's sitting with that error...
WHAT do I do?!??!
WHAT does that mean - lost it's connection with the Disk Management Tool ????
WHAT is happening??
Is there another way to repair permissions? Do I close my eyes and act like it didn't happen?!?!?
I'm breathing... please help!

 

[Ric]

Hi there and welcome !

From what I understand this is a bug that happened because of iTunes updates...

try this:-

Go to the folder...

Library>Receipts and delete any iTunes pkg file there except the iTunesX.pkg and iTunesPhoneDriver.pkg files.

then reboot and try running Disk Utility again...

On my Mac I would just have to delete "iTunes.pkg" yours may be similar...

regards

Ric

 

[rooter]

Thanks!
deleted and restarting...

I've read a bit about some of it since you keyed me in on the itunes connection...
some people suggest not using the 6.0.2.
Should I go back to itunes 6.0.1?
(how do you do that? delete all itunes and download the 6.0.1 installer?)

What do the receipts do? What are they for?
I'm assuming since you said not to delete them all, we need them?

thanks again!
love knowing there are super smarties out there excited, willing to help out
us in confusion and frustrations!

Hi there and welcome !

From what I understand this is a bug that happened because of iTunes updates...

try this:-

Go to the folder...

Library>Receipts and delete any iTunes pkg file there except the iTunesX.pkg and iTunesPhoneDriver.pkg files.

then reboot and try running Disk Utility again...

On my Mac I would just have to delete "iTunes.pkg" yours may be similar...

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

Yes if you want to delete iTunes then you would need to remove the 'receipts' and the Application...also have a look in User-->yourusername-->Library-->Preferences and delete and preference files with the name iTunes in them...then you could download the older version of iTunes.

What are Receipts ?

The easiest way of describing them...when you go shopping and you buy something you get a receipt...

..it's the same on the Mac.

When you download or install a piece of software from disk...if the Developer has written the software correctly, then a 'receipt' is placed into your 'receipts' folder.

So when Software Update runs, it can check in the 'receipts' to see what software you have...and what version it is...and then can decide whether you need any updates.

You shouldn't delete them unless you are sure that's what needs to be done...sometimes you may download an update via Software Update and it doesn't seem to work...then you could delete the 'receipt' and then relaunch Software Update...it should now allow you to redownload the update...

regards

Ric