#112 Applejack won't run

[Leslie]

At the run prompt, command applejack auto restart returns the message

:/root# man applejack

and doesn't run. Tips?

Thanks.

[Kristofer Widholm]

I'm confused. What's the command you are trying to run? Are you trying to view the documentation for applejack, or run the command?

To view the documentation, run this:

man applejack

To actually run applejack, do this;

applejack

or

applejack auto restart

When you say "it doesn't run" (again, not sure what it refers to here), what actually happens? Nothing? Do you get an error message?

What version Mac OS X are you on, and what is your applejack version?

[Leslie]

The attempt is to actually run the command. I'm entering this on behalf of a friend who has whatever the absolute opposite of tech-fu is; all her technology tends to malfunction in strange ways.

I recommended Applejack to her and she installed it; the first time she tried to run it, with the command "applejack auto restart," it refused to run and instead responded with :/root# man applejack. It confused me too, which is why I posted it here.

[Leslie]

I will try to find out what version of OSX she has; she should have whatever the latest version of applejack is since she just installed it half an hour ago.

[Leslie]

Okay, sorry, I misread her earlier comment to me. This is the original message she got:

Applejack 1.6, Revision: 1.144 : invalid option ‘start’
USAGE: applejack [auto|AUTO [restart|shutdown]]

It then instructed her to type "man applejack" for more info and got the original string I submitted.

[Leslie]

Her OSX version is 10.5.8.

[Kristofer Widholm]

leslie363, I'm guessing you are by now well on your way to seeing the issue and that it has been resolved by now. Your friend clearly type in 'applejack auto start' instead of 'applejack auto restart'

[Leslie]

Oy. I'm at a conference and in the middle of doing a gazillion different things, so in fact I just copied and pasted without thinking about the content of the error message. I'm glad you took the time to point out the obvious, otherwise I might not have seen it. Thanks, and I've let her know to try it again.

[Bill Ryan]

I have what may be a very similar problem. I run OS 10.6.8 and applejack will NOT run. I use it on a second 10.6.8 machine and it works perfectly, and I'm very familiar with it. I'm certain I've installed it correctly from the DMG. When I’m in single-user mode and I type applejack, it tells me

-sh: applejack: command not found

[Kristofer Widholm]

When I’m in single-user mode and I type applejack, it tells me
-sh: applejack: command not found

This indicates applejack has either not correctly been installed, or, if it has been installed, something happened later which broke it.

You can check if it is installed correctly by opening your terminal and running this command:

$ sudo ls -al /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh
You should see a file listing. If not, applejack is not installed, or something removed it later.

The second part of the installation that must be in place is that if you do:
$ sudo grep applejack /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh

you should see output with this in it:
alias applejack='/var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh

You should also have files in the following locations:
/usr/share/man/man8/applejack.8 /Library/Documentation/AppleJack

If everything is properly installed and you stil are getting the "command not found" error, perhaps your root user in single user mode is not set up to use the right shell (I believe it's zsh). In single user mode you can do echo $SHELL to see what shell your root user is using.

If you shell is not properly set up, and thus not able to read your alias in the .profile, you can execute applejack like so instead: /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh

Hope that helps.

[Bill Ryan]

Thank you so much!

Okay...

$ sudo ls -al /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh

—> command not found

$ sudo grep applejack /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh

—> command not found

/usr/share/man/man8/applejack.8

Yes, that's there.

/Library/Documentation/Applejack

And that's there, too.

echo $SHELL

—> /bin/sh

/var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh

... and that WORKED. (Yay!) Applejack ran in the terminal exactly as it
should.

I can use that workaround from here on out, of course. But any idea what's
happened here? Is it a shell error?

Thank you so much, once again. Cheers ~ Bill

[Kristofer Widholm]

This is wrong. You should not be getting 'command not found' on these:

sudo ls -al /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh
—> command not found
sudo grep applejack /var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh
—> command not found

I would be amazed if you didn't have ls or grep installed.

Also, did you run echo $SHELL when you were in single user mode or just in terminal? In single user mode you should have seen /bin/zsh, not /bin/sh.

But most importantly, it looks like the shell alias that applejack installs in /var/root/Library/Scripts/.profile is blown. I would reinstall applejack. Or I would manually edit /var/root/Library/Scripts/.profile and add these lines to the file:

alias applejack='/var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh     #AppleJack Installer
echo "" #AppleJack Installer
echo "For troubleshooting assistance, just type 'applejack' at the prompt"  #AppleJack Installer

But just re-install. Closing this out again.

[Bill Ryan]

Thanks again —

1) I ran echo $SHELL in Single User Mode. I got /bin/sh. (I took a photo of
it! I get that every time.)

2) I've reinstalled applejack numerous times, including making sure all
applications were closed... always the same (non-)result.

You wrote

Or I would manually edit /var/root/Library/Scripts/.profile and add these
lines to the file:

alias applejack='/var/root/Library/Scripts/applejack.sh #AppleJack
Installer echo "" #AppleJack Installer echo "For troubleshooting
assistance, just type 'applejack' at the prompt" #AppleJack Installer

Before I do the wrong thing here, do you mean edit it in the Terminal?