Uninstall where AppCleaner fails

[Rover110]

I am in the process of upgrading from a 2012 Mac Mini running Mojave to an M1 Mini.
The system brought over various applications that won't run, including TextWrangler, MalwareBytes and ClamXAV.
I can't seem to drag them from the Applications folder to the bin the way I used to do.

Trying a fresh install of MalwareBytes, it deleted the package contents of MalwareBytes.App, but can't delete the App itself so the installation fails.
And I can't remove ClamXAV.App from the Applications folder either. (I have managed to delete the contents with rm -rF).

AppCleaner says e.g. "You do not have permission to move the file \"TextWrangler\" to the trash"

typically they appear in Applications as
drwxrx-rx-r@ 2 root wheel
I can't chown them "you do not have permission"

Interestingly, app store also failed to upgrade Numbers, Keynote, Pages and iMovie recently; maybe it's the same problem.

I don't want to have to wipe my new M1 and manually move over the things I want, but maybe that's the only way.

Any idea what else I might try?

 

[sgtaylor5]

I think you might have to wipe and reinstall. Here's why and how to stop that from happening again.

Why:

With Catalina, the APFS container has been split into two APFS volumes: System and Data. To you, the System is Read Only and Data is Read Write. They appear as one volume to the user, due to a new kind of symbolic link called a firmlink. This is macOS specific.
With Big Sur, Monterey and above, the System Read Only volume has been cryptographically signed and locked, then an APFS snapshot of that System volume is mounted, and that's what you see when you boot.

The only way to see which applications are where is to use the Terminal.
(I'm running Monterey now and I came from Catalina.)
This is where my Books application is (came with the OS): "/System/Applications/Books.app" ; can't be touched at all.
This is where my Corona app is (I installed it): "/Applications/Corona.app" ; this can be manipulated by me.

Then there is the 32 bit problem. Catalina is the first macOS that completely deleted all trace of any support for 32 bit apps. Catalina and above are 64 bit only.
TextWrangler is a 32 bit app, and can't be run on any macOS later than Mojave; BareBones has reworked BBEdit to run in free mode for those who only need the capabilities of TextWrangler. Perhaps your older copies of MalwareBytes and ClamXAV have 32 bit components. Both apps run in Catalina and later with the latest versions; I've tested both, personally. (As an aside, I'd run one or the other, not both.)

... and how to stop that from happening again:

Any app that's 32 bit, or that has any 32 bit component, needs to leave your source system before upgrading.
Any app that is an antivirus or cleaner or has a system kext needs to leave your source system before upgrading.
The cleaner and more minimal the source system, the better success you will have in upgrading.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Before you wipe and reinstall, get help first. I don't have an M1 myself, so I can't help you here. But...

Understand what is going on with your new system; M1 Macs are very different from your 2012 system. M1s have a very different hardware architecture, especially regarding security and recovery. They are not the same as your system at all. There are very many good articles here to help you sort it all out.

Do your M1 research first and work slowly only after you understand what you've read.

 

[Rover110]

Thanks for letting me know. I shall start afresh and install current applications. But I don't know where/how to do M1 research other than trial-and-error! Suggestions welcome.

I was staying with Mojave because I still use one Windows application (Lotus Approach) which ran under wine on the old Mini. But I worry that without recent updates, it's dangerous to use the same machine e.g. to browse the web.

Approach won't run on the M1 under Rosetta2 (e.g. Codeweavers Crossover); I've been told that's because Approach made use of the 16-bit x86 instruction-set.
The M1 looks to be sufficiently fast to run Approach under qemu - if I can get file-sharing sorted out.

I'd love to make it as seamless as wine but I doubt that's possible. (I have seen mention of seamless windows apps on the Raspberry-Pi platform using Exagear but other people claim it is discontinued).

- Rover

 

[sgtaylor5]

M1 research; here on MacRumors Forum. Look for threads where people are having problems restoring their M1 systems. Look in the Apple Silicon, M1 and Monterey threads.

Also, you can try EclecticLight, a very technical site run by Howard Oakley, who is a gem and an absolute treasure of original research on the internals of Mac hardware and software.

I can see where you'd be in trouble with Lotus Approach, which is really old in terms of software. I haven't heard of any macOS app using 16 bit for a long time.

I found WorkMap, which is an online solution that reads Lotus Approach files. There might be other solutions.

 

[greyeyezz]

Also, you can try EclecticLight, a very technical site run by Howard Oakley, who is a gem and an absolute treasure of original research on the internals of Mac hardware and software.

That guys geeked to the max, good stuff.

 

[Rover110]

Thanks very much for your comments.
I suppose the problem stems from the fact that I use Approach for my company accounts, and have done for many years. It is a database where sales, invoices and corresponding payments are stored. And yes it started on Windows but I much prefer using Macs.

And the reason I have stuck with Approach is that accounts packages and many databases have moved to a subscription model - where I would need to pay every month for the privilege of even looking at *my* data.

The data itself is in dbase format so most database programs should be able to read the old data. I have struggled with OpenOffice Base to see if I can put together something similar.
It's only a small company, with me and my single employee who enter accounts transactions (on the same mac) so there's no desire for distributed or simultaneous access to the data. But I do want "bomb-proof" data storage; I don't want a crash to trash all the transactions for a year even if the current entry will have to be re-done. Everything I see seems to be aimed at having the data held on a remote server.

- Rover

 

[KALLT]

How did you migrate the system from one Mac to the other?

You can configure Migration Assistant so that it won’t migrate the app bundles in /Applications, but still migrate the user data in the libraries. Then you’d only have to install the applications and should be able to use them as before.

As for what the cause might be, there is nothing here so far that points at the problem. It might be a lack of admin permissions (though the failed App Store updates imply otherwise, since those are installed by a privileged helper tool).

 

[Rover110]

Hi Kallt,

I used default Migration Assistant options - assuming Apple would be clever enough not to try to migrate incompatible apps, or that I'd be able to uninstall them by dragging them to the trash. I'm sure many people would take the same path (although usually step-by-step through Catalina...).

As regards lack of admin permissions, I'm used to "please enter an administrator username/password" type of permission requests. And they didn't work. Neither (more significantly) did "sudo rm ..." work from /Applications using an administrator account.
Following sgtaylor's explanation, and have now done a complete wipe, restoring user-data from Time Machine backups. It was only the annoyance of having those unusable items wasting launchpad screen-space that made me not like the idea of leaving the debris of the incompatible applications in /Applications.

Regards,
Rover

 

[Ruggy]

Malwarebytes comes with an uninstaller as far as I know you can't just delete it.
If you can't find the uninstaller that came with it re-install it and then check in the installation directory. It might mention it in the help files too and it's certainly on their FAQ

 

[Rover110]

Thanks for your interest Ruggy. As I said, I've now wiped the disk. So the problem is solved.
However I should point out that your plan - use an uninstaller - wouldn't work for any app that simply won't run on the new machine (because they date back to 32-bit OSX; I was sticking with Mojave on the old machine for that precise reason). And it was an attempted reinstall of MalwareBytes that left _that_ app as an empty, non-removeable, directory.

 

[flowrider]

There is another way. If you have another startup disk, restart on that, go to the new disk and you will be able to throw the app in the trash and delete it.

Lou

 

[Solomon Oppenheimer]

AppCleaner says e.g. "You do not have permission to move the file \"TextWrangler\" to the trash"
Any idea what else I might try?

Have you tried settings in AppCleaner, where you can dis-/enable to protect certain stuff?
You might also try 'AppDelete', 'AppZapper', 'App Cleaner & Uninstaller'.