Mac OS X on my desktop computer (a newish 27” iMac, using a Promise Thunderbolt disk array for the root filesystem) seems to be having filesystem troubles. I notice it through symlinks going awry, though I’m sure they’re not the only victim. I tidied all the errant symlinks up two weeks ago, hoping it was a temporary glitch, but they’re back again today. Here’s an example:
> find -L /System -type l -print0 |xargs -0 ls -l
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:42 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Headers -> >File</string>????<key>L
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:42 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Headers -> ?6?s?A??]h?_?:d9?r?
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:42 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Headers -> >File</string>????<key>L
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:42 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Headers -> ?6?s?A??]h?_?:d9?r?
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:42 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/Current/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Headers -> >File</string>????<key>L
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:42 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/Current/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Headers -> ?6?s?A??]h?_?:d9?r?
Each of those symlinks are pointing to some garbage. (Interestingly, the garbage quite often looks like the partial contents of a plist file.)
Here’s another example, and this is one I remember fixing last time:
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27 12 Nov 19:06 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Frameworks -> Versions/Current/Frameworks
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 15 Jan 09:43 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Headers -> Versions/Current/Headers
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 23 12 Nov 19:06 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/JavaVM -> Versions/Current/JavaVM
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 26 15 Jan 09:45 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Resources -> Versions/Current/Resources
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 8 Jan 14:57 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current -> c
The problem here isn’t the first four symlinks – they’re all pointing to the right places – but the last one (which they’re all pointing through) which is pointing to ‘c’, not ‘A’ like it should.
The symlink targets all seem to be the right length, just the wrong characters.
How do I go about communicating with Apple about the problem so I can get it resolved? It doesn’t really seem the sort of thing I can take to a Genius Bar…