Safari uninstall woes
June 14, 2007 12:44 AM   Subscribe

My beloved Mac broke after an attempt to uninstall a buggy Safari with AppDelete. Do I need to reformat or might there be hope for this severely confused n00b?

I'm running MacBook Pro 10.4.9 and I use Firefox as my default web browser. I attempted to open Safari on a whim and my computer froze (like a PC where you have to manually restart with the exterior button). Used AppDelete to delete Safari and all associated files.

My trash is full and when I attempt to empty it (secure or regular) finder and programs are unresponsive. and the hard drive whirs. Restart is required and the computer works fine until I try to empty the trash again.

Do I need to reformat the computer? Send it back to Mac to fix (which I don't want to do)?
posted by thehmmhmm to Computers & Internet (19 answers total)
 
Best answer: Try an archive and install. You don't need to reformat a Mac to reinstall the operating system.
posted by edd at 1:13 AM on June 14, 2007


Safari is a pretty integral part of the operating system. Removing it isn't a good idea. You really don't need to use AppDelete unless you have a very full hard disk, or you're having problems that might be caused by file detritus. Both instances are pretty rare nowadays.

Can you download the beta of Safari 3 and install that? That might at least get your system in a working state again if you're in a hurry. Otherwise do what edd says and reinstall.
posted by humblepigeon at 2:16 AM on June 14, 2007


"All associated files", in Safari's case, may include WebKit. Safari, iTunes, the Dashboard, and Help use WebKit. So do many third-party apps. Deleting it will damage many things. You can't empty your trash because you are running applications that depend on files in the trash.

Replacing a known-good version of Safari with a known-flawed Safari 3 is a bad idea.

I second edd: pull out your system CD and use Archive & Install. Then run Software Update from the Apple menu over and over until it doesn't find anything more to update.
posted by ardgedee at 2:41 AM on June 14, 2007


It's possible that "all associated files" deleted by AppDelete included library files used by other parts of the system. I see from the AppDelete website that it has an undo option but it may be too late to be sure that everything is restored.

It's also likely that you have some drive corruption if you've been doing a forced hardware restart often. I've only seen OS X that locked-up a few times. Most application crashes can be resolved by force quitting the bad app via command-option-escape.

If you were trying the Safari 3 beta, the proper way to restore the old Safari and associated shared library files is with the Safari 3 installer. Probably too late for that now.

In any case, the integrity of your system is definitely questionable at this point. You need to back-up any personal files. Ideally, all of your documents are tucked away in your user folder and you can just copy that folder. (External hard drives are your friend.) Rinse and repeat if there are multiple user accounts on that computer. Be sure that any apps you care about are available online (Firefox, etc.) or on install disks.

Verify the disk using Disk Utility. It can't repair the current boot (startup) volume so you'll need to start from your OS X install disc and run it from there to repair any corruption.

If Disk Utility is happy with your hard drive, you're likely safe just doing an "archive & install" from the OS X installer rather than actually having to wipe the drive. Bring your system back up to date using Software Update.
posted by D.C. at 2:42 AM on June 14, 2007


Replacing a known-good version of Safari with a known-flawed Safari 3 is a bad idea.

To be fair, I did suggest this be done only if the OP was in a hurry to get a working system again. And I don't think Safari 3 is flawed. I'm using it on both my macs and it's been perfect so far...
posted by humblepigeon at 3:02 AM on June 14, 2007


Two "easy" things before we do it the harder way.

Download the Safari 3 Beta. Try installing it.

If that doesn't work, you can *try* pacifist. Pacifist will permit you to browse your OSX installer and yank out the safari (2) isntaller.

The "hard" way, isn't hard, just lengthy - it's the 'archive' and install option.

You're struggling with the trash, because there's something in there that is integral to the OS. The hope of the installers, is that they'll 'see' that something's missing and reinstall it (or just install their pieces anyway.)
posted by filmgeek at 4:02 AM on June 14, 2007


Try reinstalling Safari again. This seems like your best bet. AppDelete should have made a log of what it erased.

Another idea: You can restore all the files manually, dragging them from the trash to where they belong.

Also, the Safari Beta came with an uninstaller you probably should have used to uninstall it.
posted by chunking express at 6:24 AM on June 14, 2007


I attempted to open Safari on a whim and my computer froze (like a PC where you have to manually restart with the exterior button). Used AppDelete to delete Safari and all associated files.
Yeh, the other day I decided to make some toast on a whim, and the toaster burnt the bread. Used a sledgehammer to destroy it and all associated appliances in the kitchen. Now am hungry.

Damn boo, that wasn't smart. There are other ways to repair it, but just do an archive and reinstall like edd says, and then stop deleting system shit.

Also: Hey, everybody, we don't know if this was the Beta.
posted by bonaldi at 8:01 AM on June 14, 2007


Love bonaldi's answer.

Get the mac booklet out, use your utility disk and, for the nth time, archive and reinstall.
posted by misha at 8:19 AM on June 14, 2007


And then learn just a little bit about how your computer works. If you don't know the difference between the model of your computer and the version of the operating system, bonaldi is right: you should not be deleting or removing big chunks of software. Slow down, back up, etc.

I'd recommend you back up your own files in the user folder, save copies of your bookmarks if you haven't trashed the bookmarks file (it might be in that trash that won't empty), and do a clean system reinstall at this point, then reinstall your applications and restore your user folder. I'm hoping your machine still functions well enough to back up from. Another option would be to boot it in firewire target disk mode, which might make it easier to copy what you need before wiping and reinstalling the whole thing.

In the end, this approach usually saves time and agony caused by endlessly recursive problems. And it returns you to a pristine state. It's worth doing every year or two anyway.
posted by spitbull at 9:39 AM on June 14, 2007


Caution: you may have personal files in locations other than the user folder (which includes your desktop, iPhoto and iTunes libraries, browser settings, app preferences, etc.). Check your hard drive carefully for things you may have saved in other locations, such as your applications folder.

After the reinstall (which again, I recommend be clean), you will need to go through a number of cycles of software updating, which should be done before restoring your personal files and applications.
posted by spitbull at 9:43 AM on June 14, 2007


Next time you want to throw something away, don't bother with stuff like AppDelete; just drag the app into the trash. The few applications that need a more complex uninstall process than that will always come with their own uninstallers.

Sure, a stray preferences file or two may get left behind. That is not really a problem; they're tiny and don't interfere with other programs the way Windows registry entries can.
posted by ook at 10:39 AM on June 14, 2007


(Also, ignore the people haranguing you for 'deleting system shit'. It's not visible that Safari is more closely tied to the system than any other app, so your decision to throw it away isn't as dumb as they're making it out to be. I mean, you definitely shouldn't throw it away, but there's no way you could've known that ahead of time.

The real fault here isn't yours, it's the developers of AppDelete for (first) offering such an utterly unnecessary product, and (second) not building any safeguards into it to prevent exactly this situation.)
posted by ook at 10:46 AM on June 14, 2007


Response by poster: Okay, okay, I get it. This was the dumbest idea of all ideas ever in the entire universe.

To be clear, I was trying to uninstall then reinstall and I figured it was like all other applications where this is easily doable. Then I tried to empty the trash and I freaked out a tad bit. So yes, I will absolutely reinstall Safari and never again try to delete it ever.

Thanks for the help dear geek-a-trons.
posted by thehmmhmm at 12:27 PM on June 14, 2007


If you want to delete Safari you can just drag it to the trash. I'm not sure how useful an application like AppDelete is. I mean, I guess those preference files might take up a couple k of space on your computer, but I don't think it's the end of the world if you leave them laying around.
posted by chunking express at 12:44 PM on June 14, 2007


Didn't mean to sound harsh in my first comment. Good luck.
posted by spitbull at 1:15 PM on June 14, 2007


Are "archive and install" and "reinstall" the same thing in this context?
posted by tristeza at 1:24 PM on June 14, 2007


"reinstall" would be installing safari again.

"archive and install" would be installing OS X again.
posted by chunking express at 1:42 PM on June 14, 2007


OK, I think it'll probably be useful to post a bit about how OS X applications are supposed to be installed, and how sometimes they end up actually being installed, and how these affect how you're supposed to uninstall them.

In an ideal world every OS X application would be an application bundle. These are the clickable icons in your application directory, and they're actually entire directories in themselves with the real executable hidden within along with anything else the application needs to run. They have a special layout with certain files inside that tell the OS they're actually bundles and should be shown to the user as just one file.

These should be installed by drag-and-drop of the icon into the Application directory or wherever else you want to put it, and you'll often download such apps in a .dmg disk image, which when opened will probably just have the app bundle, maybe a readme and maybe a big arrow pointing to the app bundle saying 'put this in your Applications folder!' or something.

Now, not every application can in practice be bundled up - it might need a kernel extension for instance, and sometimes developers just get lazy porting across from a, shall we say, less disciplined OS, and an application will depend on files in a different location. Apple's preferred way for these to be installed is with their .pkg format (another kind of bundle, but not an application bundle). These appear with icons resembling orange cardboard boxes, and when activated they run 'Installer' in your Utilities folder within Applications. This may ask for higher permissions if necessary, and can put files where they're needed, run scripts at installation time and other things.

Lastly, some developers think it's a good idea to do something completely different and use some other method of installing. In some cases (e.g. when you're porting unix software) there are good reasons to do this, sometimes there aren't.

So, how does this affect uninstalling? Well, an application bundle will usually only write out a few preference files and support files in a few places, and not take much space doing this. So uninstalling a bundle means dragging it to the trash. OS X will notice you've done this to an app and do a bit of behind the scenes clearing of settings too, and once done the application is gone. There'll still be preference files left, but they're tiny, and you might as well leave them as if you reinstall the application it will find them again. If you do want to get rid of them they'll be in your /Users/username/Library/Preferences folder or in the main system /Library/Preferences folder too perhaps, and they'll have an obvious name. For example, I've got a file 'com.adobe.Photoshop.Elements.plist' in my Preferences folder and it is fairly obvious what application that's for. There may be other support files, and the place they should go is Library/Application Support/ - again as an example I have a folder in there called 'Google Earth', and it's fairly obvious which application that belongs to. You may find other obvious stuff in your Library folder belonging to this or that app.

Now, if you want to uninstall an app that came in a .pkg that's can be a little bit harder. Mainly because it's not something you're supposed to be doing. Every time a .pkg is installed it leaves a 'receipt' in /Library/Receipts, and the .pkg bundle contains an Archive.bom file. If you brave the Terminal and do
cd /Library/Receipts
ls

(just to see what receipts are there)
lsbom packagename.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom
you'll see a list of the files that got installed. You can also see these by opening the package, at install time or the Receipt version, and selecting 'Show Files' in the menu.

If you're comfortable deleting those, you can do so. It's somewhat risky though as
a) the package might conceivably have done something else
b) it might have been a file that got overwritten in a patch (you'll see your security updates there, and you wouldn't want to go deleting patched system files for instance). By the way, these receipts are used by the OS to track what is installed, especially for Software Update, so don't go removing them willy nilly, but you'll perhaps want to remove them after you've uninstalled an app, as otherwise you may have issues reinstalling it at a later date.

There's probably apps that automate the finding of the list of installed files and will delete them, along with any preference files it can identify (I suspect this is what AppDelete does, but I've never tried it) but, as you've discovered, this is a bit risky.

If it did happen to just produce an application bundle you're probably best off pretending it was just an app bundle and dragging that to the trash and not worrying about anything else that might have been installed.

Finally, if your app came through a third party installation routine dig around your Applications folder for an uninstaller, or the original installation program. Some third party installers are probably better than others in that they'll make uninstalling easy, so if you come across one just dig around for the option. If you can't find one, email the developer.

So, to summarise:
  • drag and drop apps - drag and drop to the trash
  • pkg files leave a list of what they've installed - mess around with this at your own risk however
  • third party installers will hopefully uninstall for you
  • if you find yourself wanting to delete things in /Library or /System then take care and back up first just in case
  • diskspace is cheap. If you're not sure, don't touch.

posted by edd at 3:53 AM on June 15, 2007


« Older Fall in love with sound   |   First Pass/Kiss jitters Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.