Samstag, 1. Dezember 2012

Move an existing Apple Mac Os X Installation from an iMac to White Macbook (Moving installation to different Hardware)

Since we had some hardware related issues with an iMac model 2008 we had to bring it to the Apple customer service. As I knew this take some times after they got it fixed but we needed it at work I tried to migrate the existing iMac Lion installation to a white Macbook, both models from 2008.
I thought this would be easy because both have similar hardware and are both from 2008.
After using Disk Utility to create a complete dump from the existing iMac installation I transferred this image to the Macbook but it did not boot. It brought a "Question Mark folder icon" or the "Stop/Prohibitory sign" at boot up and stopped there. After booting into Single User Mode I learned that it was stuck at the error message:
IOBluetoothHCIController
So I thought maybe the iMac has a bluetooth controller which has been installed into the OS but the white macbook don't so I deleted the kext file but still not booting with the following error message appeared:
'could not find driver for platform AHCI'.
So I thought maybe the kernel extensions are not compatible or the kernel is different...
Messing around with mach_kernels and /System/Library/Extension folder It got me nowhere and I lost a whole business day with no results.
So I tried different things but in the end I found the following solution:
The iMac Lion installation was a very early one 10.7.1 and was never really updated. Also I taught that maybe I have to clean up all the systems caches because the hardware seems to be really different.
So first thing I updated the iMac Lion installation to the latest Mac Os X 10.7.5 and updated all software trough the "Software Updates" program. Then I installed CCleaner and deleted all unnecessary files, languages and repaired the permissions. Then I zeroed out the free space in order to get a smaller dmg. After that I installed Onyx and cleaned out all the system caches (Kernel, Boot, etc). I repaired the permissions with this program once again. After that I created the dmg dump using Disk Utility again and installed it on the white macbook. And it worked! Now it booted up nicely and works 100%.
So in the end I think it was due to some cache files which were still there from the iMac or maybe just the old operating system number.
So what I have learned is if you want to transfer/migrate an existing OS X
installation from one mac to another tidy up the system first!!!

Donnerstag, 22. November 2012

Installation of Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 failed on Mac Os X 10.7 Lion because of Font problems

Today I had to install Adobe Creative Suite CS 5.5 at work for some of my colleague on a Mac Os X 10.7 Lion system . He came to me after trying out the Trial version of CS5 on his own and since our company now has official licences for the full CS5.5, he asked me if I can help him install it because the Installer produced some kind of errors.
I could help him fix those problems and since I haven't found any useful information about this on the net, I write down what I did in case someone finds it useful.
So first thing I tested out was the "Adobe Creative Suite Cleaner Tool" here. The installer dialog said: "Installation failed" and "unknown error occured" or in German "Installation fehlgeschlagen", "Ein unbekannter Installationsfehler ist aufgetreten". It happened for all CS products: PS Photoshop,Illustrator and Indesign.
So I took a look into the log files at "/Library/Logs/Adobe/Installers/" and found these suspicious lines:
 [...]  
 DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf'(Seq 46)  
 DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf" Error 0(Seq 46)  
 DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf'(Seq 31)  
 DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf" Error 0(Seq 31)  
 WARNING: DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf'(Seq 46)  
 ERROR: DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf" Error 0(Seq 46)  
 WARNING: DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf'(Seq 31)  
 ERROR: DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf" Error 0(Seq 31)  
 b110-imac18:src oliverpelz$ grep otf ~/Desktop/Adobe\ Photoshop\ CS5.1\ 12.1\ 11-21-2012   
 DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf'(Seq 46)  
 DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf" Error 0(Seq 46)  
 DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf'(Seq 31)  
 DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf" Error 0(Seq 31)  
 WARNING: DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf'(Seq 46)  
 ERROR: DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Medium.otf" Error 0(Seq 46)  
 WARNING: DF054: Unable to read Adobe file version for file path '/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf'(Seq 31)  
 ERROR: DF024: Unable to preserve original file at "/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-It.otf" Error 0(Seq 31)  
 [..]  
So after some messing around with DiskUtilitys-File Permission repair tool, chmodding /Library/Fonts and single Fonts etc. and moving around those files above I could not get it to install properly.
So in the end the solution was to completely move the Fonts folder around, so it cannot be accessed during installation, then start the installation and after it has installed everything correctly copy all the Fonts back.
!!A word of caution: Be careful with those commands, I will not take responsibility if you wreck your Mac installation, you have to know what you do:
 
 $mkdir ~/Desktop/Fonts-Backup;  
 $sudo mv /Library/Fonts ~/Desktop/Fonts-Backup/  
 # now install adobe ... after installation is done do the following thing:
 $sudo mv /Library/Fonts ~/Desktop/Fonts-Backup-Adobe-fresh-installed 
 $sudo rsync -rav ~/Desktop/Fonts-Backup/Fonts /Library/ 

In the end I think the problem was that the trial version installed the fonts listed above but did something wrong with file permissions. The Adobe deinstaller did not remove those files so that it is fair enough to say that the Deinstaller does not remove 100% of the Adobe installations.