Trouble Installing a Myriad of Apps in Lion

[Brutalbrutus]

Hello. I am having trouble installing certain applications on Mac OS X 10.7.3, and I wonder if one of you clever people can help.

I’ve tried to install icefloor (a GUI for the otherwise Terminal-only firewall) and Cryptor (a slim file encryption app). Placing these in the Applications folder and then clicking on them causes the appropriate program icon to appear in the dock and throb for a long time. But when I click on the icon (throbbing) in the dock, it then vanishes. (I’m not wedded to icefloor—that’s just for playing around, but I do need Cryptor.)

I am also having trouble installing Fantastical, a great program that makes it easy to write new appointments in iCal. No matter how many times I download the app (from the official Flexibits Web site as well as from other places) pretty much the same thing happens: the program icon appears on the desktop. When double-clicked, or when put in the Applications folder and double-clicked, nothing happens.

I have restarted, safe-booted, and repaired System permissions from both the desktop and from holding down cmd-S at boot. Whenever I repair the permissions, I always get the same result (reproduced below):


* * * * * * * * * *
Started verify/repair permissions on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root"
Repaired "private/var/root"
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library"
Repaired "private/var/root/Library"
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library/Preferences"
Repaired "private/var/root/Library/Preferences"
Permissions differ on "usr/lib/ruby"; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x
Repaired "usr/lib/ruby"
Finished verify/repair permissions on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
* * * * * * * * * *

Does this tell anyone anything?

Another point: When I thought to look at the Startup Items, I found an entry for Fantastical. It didn’t have the correct icon, though, so I clicked “Repair Startup Items,” at which point the computer removed that Fantastical entry.

Other things install fine (including updates to Alfred, iPhoto, and MacPilot.)

Some research on the Web tells me that the Fantastical issue may have something to do with a .menu file located in /System/Library/CoreServices, but I’m unwilling to muck about in there because I don’t know what I’m doing.

Finally, I have tried uninstalling the programs that have given me trouble with AppCleaner. This got rid of a lot of old Fantastical stuff earlier today, but since then, it hasn’t had anything to uninstall.

Please let me know if I can provide further information.

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

—BrutalBrutus

[benwiggy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brutalbrutus Placing these in the Applications folder and then clicking on them causes the appropriate program icon to appear in the dock and throb for a long time. But when I click on the icon (throbbing) in the dock, it then vanishes. (I’m not wedded to icefloor—that’s just for playing around, but I do need Cryptor.)

I get similar results with applications that have been unzipped by The UnArchiver, a third-party decompression utility. There seems to be some problem with OS X's sandbox, and I see "Operation not permitted" in the Console logs.
Using a different unzipper works without problem.

The Repair Permissions report you get is standard, and a long standing bug. RP doesn't work on third-party apps anyway.

[Makoto]

If you're using version 3.0 of The Unarchiver, try the more recent 3.1(.1) versions. Or, grab version 2.7.1 and see if that one works, instead.

Of course, other archivers should work, too, as benwiggy noted. I'm using both keka and, for the time being, v.2.7.1 of The Unarchiver.

[benwiggy]

Further research reveals that this is not a problem with The UnArchiver, but a possible bug in OS X itself, relating to sandboxed apps and Apple's quarantine framework.

What response do you get from the following Terminal command:
defaults read com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine

??

[njyo]

I opened the downloaded Zip files (Last.fm.app and Chocolat.app) with the Archive Utility rather than with The Unarchiver 3.1 and suddenly my apps would open. Irrespective of the defaults com.apple.LaunchAgent LSQuarantine settings.

[Brutalbrutus]

Thanks for that hint. I uninstalled Unarchiver and am now using Keka instead. It was a good move because Keka's interface is a lot slicker.

[Brutalbrutus]

To Benwiggy:

0 (just that single numeral) is the response to the Terminal command
defaults read com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine.

[Brutalbrutus]

Well, everyone, thanks for your thoughts. I did replace Unarchiver, as noted above.

I also strongly suspect that a person who doesn't like me remoted into my computer when I had the software firewall down last Saturday. He has done this before--to a PC--and I could see from the connections window produced by LittleSnitch that there was a connection to "MacBookPro.local.XXXXX".

I moved the couple of key files I wanted to preserve to an external hard drive and restored the system from a TM backup on March 28 of this year.

That seems to have resolved things.

If you have further thoughts, I'd love to hear them; again, thanks for your help.

BrutalB.