Disk Utility: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)
Hello, Disk Utility. You’re usually a great tool. Not today. All I wanted to do was Verify Disk Permissions and you would immediately spit back at me:
Error detected while verifying/repairing permissions on disk4s2 Server HD: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)
There were no physical disk errors reported and I just had a gut feeling that there was something else going on.
Turns out, there was. /Library/Receipts. This directory is incredibly hard to find documentation on, which is why I’m writing about it here.
The problem:
Permissions for the entire Disk Utility receipts directory structure was wrong causing it to error immediately upon check.
ls -l /Library/Receipts
drwxr-xr-x 31 axl admin 1054 Nov 23 13:41 boms
drwxr-xr-x 3 axl admin 102 Jan 12 16:50 db
The fix:
Recursively give the boms & db folders the right permissions.
chown -R _installer:wheel /Library/Receipts/boms
chown -R _installer:admin /Library/Receipts/dbls -l /Library/Receipts
drwxr-xr-x 31 _installer wheel 1054 Nov 23 13:41 boms
drwxr-xr-x 3 _installer admin 102 Jan 13 10:46 db
My top ten jailbroken iPhone applications
I jumped on the iPhone jailbreaking bandwagon very early when it was actually hard to do. Nowadays, it’s so easy you’d be silly not to. But for those of you that still haven’t (or have but aren’t sure what to install), these ten applications extend the iPhone beyond what Apple allows and upgrade the experience of owning an iPhone ten-fold.
- Music Controls – Play Pandora and many other music applications in the background. Popup controls work when you double tap the home button. I use this every single day and it’s the only jailbroken application I’ve ever purchased.
- Categories – Eliminates clutter on your screen by creating a new application and moving apps you choose (like games) into it.
- Five Icon Dock – Believe it or not, 5 icons fit perfectly into your dock. If you’re like me and text message all the time this is indispensable.
- Flashlight – The brightest possible flashlight you can get. Apps from the app store don’t even begin to compare to this sucker!
- Lock Calendar – Put a calendar on your lock screen. If you’re like me and forget things, like birthdays, this will help!
- PrivaCy – Eliminate anonymous usage stats from being sent.
- SBSettings – Quick settings screen that allows you to swap services on/off, kill processes, free up memory, etc.
- SpotBright – Show recently launched applications under the spotlight search menu.
- xGPS – A free GPS tool that, while not as accurate as TomTom, is light years ahead when it comes to usability.
- iHulu – Watch certain Hulu episodes right on your iphone. Streams over 3g. Totally cool when you’re stuck somewhere you don’t want to be and need something to occupy your time.
I have three passions: Dancing, climbing, and technology.