re: Disk Utility is failing (!)

Something's definitely wrong with my computer -- several months ago I was plagued by Spinning Beach Balls of Death while in internet sessions. The problem would freeze up all internet browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox) and Console would give the following message:

## Component Manager: attempting to find symbols in a component alias of type (regR/carP/x!bt)

After trashing all items related to Norton Firewall, the problem went away. Today, it came back with a vengeance and a new twist: When I tried to Repair Permissions on my Macintosh HD, Disk Utility comes up with an error barely 1/8 of the way through:

Disk Utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility.

I ran Disk Utility again, same problem. A restart and then a power-down-and-restart did not help.
I opened up Console and saw a new message:

*** malloc[416]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x130a610; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug
: for architecture i386 object: ./Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes malformed object (unknown flavor for flavor number 0 in LC_UNIXTHREAD command 27 can't byte swap it)

Seeing the last item, I thought my iPod had something to do with it, so I dismounted and then unplugged it, but Disk Utility still wouldn't function.

I'm thinking I might need to re-install OS or at least run some diagnostics in Safe Mode, but I wanted to get some experienced feedback before I proceed. What do you see as the logical next step? I restarted the computer twice and it does boot up OK, but obviously having Disk Utility crippled is a dangerous thing.

Do you have a copy of Cocktail or MacJanitor floating around?

Try repairing permissions with that first. If Cocktail or MacJanitor can repair permissions, then consider trashing Disk Utility and reinstalling it from the disk.

Then the next thing to try would be the safe mode boot from the install DVD and run the diagnostics. (I'm not sure which ones, 'cos knock on wood, I've not needed to do that on OSX yet...anyone?)

For good measure, running Disk Warrior after that might not be a bad plan.

(Actually, I'd probably back up everything first, then I'd try Cocktail. I'm sure you've already thought of that!)

Start there...let us know what happens!

Just downloaded MacJanitor and performed all the tasks. I don't think it helped (though thanks for the suggestion) -- aside from the fact that I do leave my computer on at night (so theoretically speaking it should be performing these tasks on its own), Disk Utility is still screwed up, won't run Verify or Repair Permissions.

Though I could be wrong, I think the failing Disk Utility may be a symptom, not the disease.

Back when I brought up the Spinning Beach Ball/internet crash problem, Koz told me that the Beach Ball usually means something wrong with a drive. The error I got in Disk Utility seems to suggest that the drive with something wrong is -- horrors -- the bootup drive.

I have a factory Backup HD set up on my computer courtesy of Promax. I tried copying Disk Utility from that drive to the Utilities folder of Macintosh HD, and put the defective Disk Utility into the Trash (not emptied), but when I launch that, Macintosh HD doesn't show up as a drive in the list. I considered changing the Startup Disk to that temporarily, but decided against it for now because I haven't tried that, ever.

I'm doing a backup of destructible items in my internal drives right now. Once that's done, I will attempt to reinstall Disk Utility with my OS disk. Hopefully I wouldn't have to reinstall OS, but if I do, I hope the people in here (John Foley, are you around?) can help me avoid pitfalls -- I haven't had to reinstall OS myself, either.

Hey Derek - are you using iTunes 6.0.2? Try this

Drag iTunes 6.02 out of the Applications folder onto the desktop, then run Disk Utility. Then drag iTunes back into Applications folder.
Apparently it's an iTunes problem for people running Panther. Update expected soon.

Extra: "Go to HD>Library>Receipts and trash all iTunes .pkg files EXCEPT for iTunesX.pkg and iTunesPhoneDriver.pkg Unquote"
This is supposed to let you run the new iTunes without further trouble.

Are you running any other Nortons stuff?

NEVER run Nortons on Mac OS X either their useless firewall (as Mac os X has a perfectly good one built in) or their awful System Utilities

A couple of years ago Norton's Utilities nearly lost all the data on my HDDs (yes it was the "correct" version for the OS) and I spent a very long time sorting it out with Tech Tool Pro - Disk Utility and Cocktail.

In my experience

Nortons=bad

Techtool=good


Don't use their AntiVirus either - I haven't every had a single virus - even if I found 1 I'd probably wait for someone else to provide the solution because Norton's have gone to the DO NOT USE pile due to their Microsoft like ability to supply buggy and damaging software!


One option is to run Disk Utility Repair from another Mac and boot yours in Target mode via firewire. You could also run Disk Warrior too

But Derek - you may want to backup the apps and documents you have and any prefs as it sounds more and more like a reinstall should be performed at least to be absolutely sure.

Oh yeah - don't install Norton's again if you do a complete reinstall or remove them all if you get your mac working properly.

Good luck


Ben





For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Well, I just went through my system and napalmed everything with the words "Norton" and "Symantec" in it, and I believe the downloading problem from Yahoo did go away. I hadn't expected that dormant Norton items would muck with an internet download, but the evidence is there -- I had made six attempts to download the same file from the same e-mail from Yahoo last night and this morning, and all of them resulted in a freeze. Right after ditching Norton and Symantec, the download succeeded.

Thanks for the tip, Ben.

No problemo matey - glad to be of help - I would recommend running your HDD as Target mode and running a full diagnostics with the latest techtool though!

Ben





For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Derek,

I am having the same disk utility problem as well...Apple care's suggestion was to do an archieve and reinstall the OS which i have not done yet since i'm planning on upgrading to Tiger in few month.

I also had Norton anti-virus before and gave me a lot of problems with the beachball when on the web and using FCP. One thing that i did find was that trashing all norton files manually wasn't enough (i first just searched my HD for norton and trashed it). I still noticed traces of norton poping up. I found a norton uninstall program on the web which seem to have clean up everything...except the disk utlity problem.


did you try the Itune suggestion yet? Please let me know if you find an answer to this problem.

thanks,
James

well, looks like the ITUNE was the problem. I drag it out of the APP folder on to the desktop and the Disk Utility worked!!! but...when i drag it back into the app folder...it doesn't work again so looks like we'll have to this everytime we want to run Disk Util. till we get an update from Apple.

thanks Jude!

Looks like my previous rant about the latest iTunes update should have been much more harsh!

In my case, Jay, Jude and Ben's suggestions combined actually managed to get rid of the problem, at least temporarily until I see symptoms again. (Will be getting Techtools once I get a chance.) Moving iTunes to the desktop allowed me to use Disk Utility, and ditching all Norton files solved my problem with not being able to access the exact same download file that had previously refused to download and had frozen all my internet browsers. And I've already moved iTunes back to the applications folder and tried Disk Utility again just now, and it's working as normal. But I did initially do a few extra steps you may not have:

1. I repaired permissions the minute I got Disk Utility working;
2. I ditched iTunes preferences as well as all internet preferences (pain in the butt...);
3. I disengage all of iTunes' annoying "automatic" features such as "Use track numbers in naming", "Organize your iTunes library", "Copy items to iTunes library", "Show links to iTunes Music Store", "Check for podcasts", etc. I normally organize my music collection manually, so I have those off anyway so iTunes wouldn't fill my system drive with freakin' MP3 and AIFF files that don't belong there, or bury my music exports eight levels deep into the computer. Still an application for consumers much more than power users, and getting worse with every update.
4. I did a system search for "Symantec" on top of "Norton" and I dumped all Symantec files as well;
5. I ran DiskWarrior on all internal drives.

Have you tried any of the above? Hopefully one of these might help with your problem.

Jude, do you know if this iTunes problem just crops up irregularly or can be worked around in one fell swoop? I know that when my problem started, it had been a while since I'd downloaded the update and I didn't zero in on any recent operations of mine that might have triggered it.

Derek, don't forget to "napalm" invisible files from Norton, (I guess you did)

>>Jude, do you know if this iTunes problem just crops up irregularly or can be worked around in one fell swoop?<<

Sorry, no idea. I just got a warning about the problem coming up for people running iTunes 6.0.2, especially on Panther.

Did you try the addendum about removing receipts?

"Go to HD>Library>Receipts and trash all iTunes .pkg files EXCEPT for iTunesX.pkg and iTunesPhoneDriver.pkg

This is supposed to let you run the new iTunes without further trouble."

I've got one laptop here on iTunes 6.0.2 with no trouble, but it's on Tiger.

You know what, that was also a step that I did follow on your advice. Forgot to include it on my checklist. Thanks.

Further to the 'iTunes' problem - it seems like this might be a nasty start for Universal binaries. Check this (from one of my lists)
__________________________________________________________

"The following article on MacFixIt might help and TrimTheFat the program
mentioned is available at
[www.versiontracker.com]

Stripping Universal Binaries of Intel code -- a potential troubleshooting
procedure for PowerPC Macs

It seems that the presence of Intel code in Universal binaries can cause
some troubleshooting issues. For instance, a problem we've been covering
where the presence of iTunes 6.0.2 causes Disk Utility to be unable to run
can be solved by stripping the application of its Intel-based code.

This workaround may be especially applicable for Mac OS X 10.3.9 systems.

A new application called TrimTheFat is is a simple, silent drop-launch
utility to strip the code for the architecture(s) you're not using from a
Universal application

Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader Frank Kittie offers a terminal based series of
commands, with iTunes as the example application:

* sudo ditto --rsrc /Applications/iTunes.app /tmp/iTunes.app
* sudo rm -rf /Applications/iTunes.app
* sudo ditto --arch ppc --rsrc /tmp/iTunes.app /Applications/iTunes.app
* sudo rm -rf /tmp/iTunes.app

Frank writes:

"This should replace the iTunes application with a copy of itself, the copy
containing only PowerPC code. The "--arch ppc" strips all code for other
architectures.

"For me the resulting application ran fine (in a quick cursory test) and a
repair permissions no longer gave me the 'Disk Utility lost connection with
Disk Management Tool and cannot continue.'
___________________________________________________________

Blech. I'm not looking forward to this stuff coming up all over the place!

Thanks everyone - I was getting the same error. Running OS 10.3.9 Panther and iTunes 6.02. I was about to reinstall my system, but found this forum and gave it a try. I was getting the "disk utlity has lost connection with the disk management tool and cannot continue" message. I then moved itunes to the desktop and ran disk utility and it worked! The only reason why I was running disk utility was because I couldn't burn CDs all of a sudden. Thanks again!

Hi everyone

If you're on 10.3.9 or earlier and have recentlu updated to iTunes 6.02 then you you're one of THOUSANDS of people who've been bugged by this Apple cock up! The Apple Discussion forums are heaving over this issue. Anyway, it's a problem that's got a dead easy fix.

The generally accepted permanent fix is the one mentioned above, already, ie

Go to HD>Library>Receipts and trash all iTunes .pkg files EXCEPT for iTunesX.pkg and iTunesPhoneDriver.pkg

This lets you fix permissions via DU, AND keep iTunes 6.02 i your Apps folder.

ATB
Ian Waterston