Install problems after OS X 10.8.5 supplemental upgrade

[HCR93]

I've been having some really strange issues on my computer the last few days and the only thing I can think that has changed has been the SMC update for a 2012 cMBP 15" that came a few days ago and the OS X supplemental update.

Yesterday it popped up I needed a flash update, so I went ahead and it failed. I tried again and same result, so after googling I decided to remove it and reinstall from scratch. However now it is still a problem, same installation error. So I try and do it through terminal as recommended, but still no good. I gave up, used Chrome (as flash is embedded) and decided to wait until there is a new flash version, assuming it was an Adobe bug.

Now, today Office asks to upgrade, I do the same thing as ever and update. When I comes to the installation program, I cannot select a drive and it says it cannot see an OS X version over 10.5 available. This is why I think it may be OS X that's now gone weird, how can two applications have the same install problem?

I've done the usual, tried using my Admin account, tried disk permission check (it found lot's of iTunes problems, but nothing obviously related to what I'm seeing). I'm kinda stuck on what to do next really... a clean install wouldn't be too fun (saving that up in me for Mavericks when it hits 10.9.2 probably).

Basically, any ideas? Thanks everyone!

 

[HCR93]

No ideas anyone? It's really becoming a problem now with these installs... there must be something I can try before going all out with a full OS X rebuild?

Here's a screenshot of the office updater. Really weird.

 

[chrfr]

No ideas anyone? It's really becoming a problem now with these installs... there must be something I can try before going all out with a full OS X rebuild?

Here's a screenshot of the office updater. Really weird.

Try downloading the 10.8.5 Combo update and installing that. If that doesn't work, boot into recovery and reinstall that way. You won't lose your data if you do not format the disk first, but definitely do a backup first.

 

[Bear]

No ideas anyone? It's really becoming a problem now with these installs... there must be something I can try before going all out with a full OS X rebuild?

You can try installing the 10.8.5 Combo Updater and then applying whatever software updates pop up after installing that.

 

[HCR93]

Thanks for the suggestion... just gave it a shot and was greeted with another different warning related to JavaScript as in the screenshot. Any idea if this could narrow down the problem without a recovery?

Also, never reinstalled from recovery. Will everything be preserved if I do? Right down to iTunes activations, Adobe licenses, etc? Mid-project and don't have the time to go round tweaking all the things that end up changing around...

Thanks again everyone!

 

[imejh]

Did you delete the mach_kernel file when it became unhidden after the supplemental update?

 

[HCR93]

What and where is the mach_kernel file? I took a look at the root of my drive where it sometimes dumps things after updates and can't see anything.

 

[imejh]

It's a kernel file that showed up on the root of the HD. I had a co-worker that deleted it and when he tried doing the flash update today it failed to install. We tried everything I could think of to get it to install, fix permissions, reboots, re downloads, older versions, uninstall, etc. Then we restored the kernel file from a backup and presto flash player installed correctly.