I'd be Lion if I said it was going well
February 17, 2012 8:41 AM Subscribe
What is "brtool" and why is it (or a lack of it) killing my Lion upgrade?
Apple won't help me upgrade from Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server beyond "try installing to another partition" (unless I pay for enterprise support at $695 a pop), so I thought I'd see if you folks have any ideas.
Basically, I download and run the Lion installer, and it gets to the point at which it will restart...but the restart fails, with a crash related to "brtool". Google has failed me on what "brtool" might actually be, on a Mac or just generally.
Here's the crash report header:
Any ideas? Oh, and a manual restart of the machine does NOT boot into Lion; it still boots in Snow Leopard Server.
Apple won't help me upgrade from Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server beyond "try installing to another partition" (unless I pay for enterprise support at $695 a pop), so I thought I'd see if you folks have any ideas.
Basically, I download and run the Lion installer, and it gets to the point at which it will restart...but the restart fails, with a crash related to "brtool". Google has failed me on what "brtool" might actually be, on a Mac or just generally.
Here's the crash report header:
Process: brtool [8720]
Path: /Applications/Install Mac OS X Lion.app/Contents/Resources/brtool
Identifier: brtool
Version: ??? (???)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: InstallAssistantTool [8625]
Date/Time: 2012-02-17 07:28:06.748 -0800
OS Version: Mac OS X Server 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version: 6
Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Dyld Error Message:
can't resolve symbol _EFILoginCopyInterfaceGraphics in /Applications/Install Mac OS X Lion.app/Contents/Resources/brtool because dependent dylib #1 could not be loaded
Any ideas? Oh, and a manual restart of the machine does NOT boot into Lion; it still boots in Snow Leopard Server.
Response by poster: Nothing non-standard about my Applications folder, I'm a boring person with a boring configuration. I tried running it from my desktop, but haven't tried running it from an external drive -- I'll give it a go.
Other suggestions still appreciated!
posted by davejay at 9:40 AM on February 17, 2012
Other suggestions still appreciated!
posted by davejay at 9:40 AM on February 17, 2012
Looks like "brtool" is a sub-program inside of the Lion installer app. It isn't some general-purpose part of the OS, which is probably why you can't find any information about it.
Have you tried re-downloading the Lion installer? Seems unlikely, but maybe yours got corrupted somehow.
posted by xil at 9:43 AM on February 17, 2012
Have you tried re-downloading the Lion installer? Seems unlikely, but maybe yours got corrupted somehow.
posted by xil at 9:43 AM on February 17, 2012
Are you the same person who posted this question on the Apple discussion boards today? That person is having an issue due to a RAID; I don't think you can run a server upgrade if that's the case, I think you have to do a clean install.
posted by bcwinters at 9:48 AM on February 17, 2012
posted by bcwinters at 9:48 AM on February 17, 2012
Response by poster: Yep, did that, too. For time's sake, I should probably list the things I've tried:
1. installed onto an external drive (didn't work)
2. resized the external drive partition slightly smaller and tried again (it worked)
3. installed onto the internal RAID array from the application folder (didn't work)
4. resized my RAID array slightly smaller and tried again (didn't work)
5. installed onto the internal RAID array from the desktop (didn't work)
6. zapped the PRAM and cleared the dyld cache (didn't work)
And yep, that's my post! I'm working three angles: apple discussion board, here, and phone tech support. The phone tech is the one having me create a partition just for the installation and migrate my configuration over to it (which required a RAID rebuild, which is taking a few hours to do) -- I believe that counts as a clean install.
I'm still convinced one of you has the answer. Because I am an optimist. :D
posted by davejay at 9:52 AM on February 17, 2012
1. installed onto an external drive (didn't work)
2. resized the external drive partition slightly smaller and tried again (it worked)
3. installed onto the internal RAID array from the application folder (didn't work)
4. resized my RAID array slightly smaller and tried again (didn't work)
5. installed onto the internal RAID array from the desktop (didn't work)
6. zapped the PRAM and cleared the dyld cache (didn't work)
And yep, that's my post! I'm working three angles: apple discussion board, here, and phone tech support. The phone tech is the one having me create a partition just for the installation and migrate my configuration over to it (which required a RAID rebuild, which is taking a few hours to do) -- I believe that counts as a clean install.
I'm still convinced one of you has the answer. Because I am an optimist. :D
posted by davejay at 9:52 AM on February 17, 2012
Response by poster: Oh, and the tech support guy said it being RAID shouldn't be a problem. He leaned towards "something that takes the command line to fix, which requires enterprise support."
posted by davejay at 9:53 AM on February 17, 2012
posted by davejay at 9:53 AM on February 17, 2012
Have you done the standard 'fix permissions' voodoo using Disk Utility?
posted by bottlebrushtree at 10:52 AM on February 17, 2012
posted by bottlebrushtree at 10:52 AM on February 17, 2012
Totally guessing here: run `sudo /usr/bin/update_dyld_shared_cache` ?
posted by germdisco at 11:37 AM on February 17, 2012
posted by germdisco at 11:37 AM on February 17, 2012
What's the output of this command at the terminal?
otool -L "/Applications/Install Mac OS X Lion.app/Contents/Resources/brtool"
posted by vasi at 1:00 PM on February 17, 2012
otool -L "/Applications/Install Mac OS X Lion.app/Contents/Resources/brtool"
posted by vasi at 1:00 PM on February 17, 2012
Response by poster: Ultimately, installing to a separate small OS-only partition didn't help (as the Apple rep said it would), because I couldn't migrate my existing users, etc., without moving them over to the small OS-only partition. Fail.
So, I did what bcwinters said -- I ran the installer from an external drive -- and it worked beautifully. Thank you!
posted by davejay at 5:53 PM on February 18, 2012
So, I did what bcwinters said -- I ran the installer from an external drive -- and it worked beautifully. Thank you!
posted by davejay at 5:53 PM on February 18, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
Can you run the Lion Server installer from a thumb drive (or other external drive) instead of from the Applications folder?
posted by bcwinters at 9:12 AM on February 17, 2012