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Posted By: plantsower Removing an App - 01/26/15 09:31 PM
Back in 8/07/10, I was having problems getting rid of a coupon installer. I was told by Artie (Hi Artie) first thing I'd try (on a lark) is launching /Apps/Utilities/Disk Utility, selecting the disk image, and clicking on "Unmount" to see if that works.

I'm trying to get rid of an Evernote window that pops up every time I go to print something. I used App Cleaner and still had Evernote stuff on my computer. I then drug everything I could find about Evernote into the trash. I still have the problem. I can't find an uninstaller. I have been in contact with Evernote but so far not so much help.

I went to Disk Utility, but there is nothing talking about dismounting a disk. And if there were, would it be the hard drive? That's all that shows up on Disk Utility.

Any ideas on where else I can look under the hood to get rid of this thing? The DMG image pops up on my desktop. I click eject and it goes away temporarily. Once, when I clicked on reveal in finder and found more stuff, I tried to remove it, and it said I could not put it in the trash because it could not be removed. Today I tried it and it disappeared from Finder but the window (that window that tells you to how to install the app by dragging it to the app folder) showed up again when I tried to print as a test.

I hope all I've said has given someone a clue as to what this could be caused by.

Thanks.

Rita

Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/26/15 09:40 PM
Hi, Rita,

I first ran into Evernote today when my daughter sent me her itinerary for her trip to Spain (which has fallen victim to the snow for a coupl'a days), and I must say that I'm not at all in love with its GUI and have no intention of installing it unless it somehow becomes necessary.

Meantime... Maybe one or more of these uninstall Evernote links will help you.

Good luck. smile
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Removing an App - 01/26/15 10:36 PM
Evernote publishes uninstall instructions here. Personally I love Evernote and if I did not have it I would have to invent something like it. Not only that the cost is right.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/26/15 10:43 PM
Thanks, Artie. I ran this search myself but I will read more of them to get some help. Thanks a bunch.

Rita
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/26/15 10:44 PM
Hi Joemike:

I had previously read this and also contacted Evernote. Nothing is working to get rid of this.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/26/15 10:58 PM
I don't understand why you can't find where the .dmg lives on your Mac. What do you see when you click to reveal it? Can you post a screenshot?
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Removing an App - 01/26/15 11:09 PM
Are you sure it is a disk image that is popping up on your desktop? Unless you somehow have the Evernote installer lying around there should not be an Evernote Disk Image anywhere on your system much less one that pops up when you try to print something. The only Evernote association with the Printing is a Save PDF to Evernote option under the PDF menu in the print dialog.

If you have OnyX, Cocktail, or TinkerTool System you might try rebuilding the Launch Services database. That is seldom needed in recent OS X releases, but in the past a damaged Launch Services database has been known to cause some otherwise inexplicable application launch glitches. In any case it rebuilding the Launch Services database will not do any harm.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 12:46 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
I don't understand why you can't find where the .dmg lives on your Mac. What do you see when you click to reveal it? Can you post a screenshot?


Okay, here are my screen shots.

Evernote in Finder

Desktop
after attempting to print something.


The print dialog box also shows up, but I took it off before I did the screen shot.

Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:04 AM
OK, so what you're seeing is, indeed an open Evernote .dmg.

If you go to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app while it's open and click on the .dmg itself you'll see the path to where it lives down below, (Edit:) and you can delete it and see what happens.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:11 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
OK, so what you're seeing is, indeed an open Evernote .dmg.

If you go to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app while it's open and click on the .dmg itself you'll see the path to where it lives down below, (Edit:) and you can delete it and see what happens.


Okay, wait. If I open disk utility app while it's open (while what is open?) blush Rita
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:19 AM
The .dmg, i.e. while your desktop looks like your screenshot.

You'll see two items in Disk Utility; the bottom one is the open disc, and the top one is the .dmg, itself.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:24 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
The .dmg, i.e. while your desktop looks like your screenshot.

You'll see two items in Disk Utility; the bottom one is the open disc, and the top one is the .dmg, itself.


Here is a shot of my disk utility. Do I click unmount?

Disk Utility Shot
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:27 AM
You've selected the wrong item.

Click on the top one...it's the .dmg, itself, and you'll see the path to where it lives down below.

Post a shot of that Disk Utility screen.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:34 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
You've selected the wrong item.

Click on the top one...it's the .dmg, itself, and you'll see the path to where it lives down below.

Post a shot of that Disk Utility screen.


It says it's in the trash!! But it's still showing up.

Evernote Path
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 01:41 AM
OK, what happens if you now select the bottom item, click on "Unmount", and then try to empty the trash?

I don't know the mechanics, but something is obviously connecting with that .dmg, so trashing it may solve your problem.

Let's see.

Edit: I'm gonna guess that there's still some aspect of Evernote left on your Mac that's smart enough to recognize that the .dmg is still there and ask you to install the app so it can use it.
Posted By: MacManiac Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 02:38 AM
I know this is gonna sound a little silly, but, have you tried to empty the trash?

I'm sure you know that when you throw something into the trash, it still remains on your hard drive (in the Trash) until you actually click on "Empty" (in the upper right-hand corner of the Trash window when it is open in Finder) or select "Empty Trash" when you hover over it in the Dock.....but sometimes it's the obvious things that go right past us.

If as Artie has suggested you were to unmount the popped up Evernote disk image, then all that should remain is the .dmg file that contains that image (in the trash)....it would no longer be in use, so you should be able to Empty the Trash without any issue at that point.

Let us know what happens.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 03:23 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
OK, what happens if you now select the bottom item, click on "Unmount", and then try to empty the trash?

I don't know the mechanics, but something is obviously connecting with that .dmg, so trashing it may solve your problem.

Let's see.

Edit: I'm gonna guess that there's still some aspect of Evernote left on your Mac that's smart enough to recognize that the .dmg is still there and ask you to install the app so it can use it.


I unmounted the disk in disk utility. It then disappeared off my desktop. I emptied the trash. I clicked Command+Print and it all returned!!
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 03:24 AM
Mac Maniac: Please see my answer to Artie above. What a mystery! Thanks.

Rita
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 03:33 AM
Huh? Try again, and this time empty the trash with your trash window open, and let's see exactly what happens.

I can't imagine why it won't go away without even a pop-up.

Have you tried looking in /Applications/Utilities/Console > Console Messages to see if there are any "Evernote" messages?

I've heard of persistent cookies, but persistent .dmgs??? confused

Edit: After you empty the trash, but before you do anything else, look in Disk Utility to see if Evernote is present. and if you see it, make a note of its path.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 03:43 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
Huh? Try again, and this time empty the trash with your trash window open, and let's see exactly what happens.

I can't imagine why it won't go away without even a pop-up.

Have you tried looking in /Applications/Utilities/Console > Console Messages to see if there are any "Evernote" messages?

I've heard of persistent cookies, but persistent .dmgs??? confused


Is this what you mean? I didn't see any Console "messages" so I just clicked on the Console App and got what you see. I just emptied the trash with the window open even though there was no Evernote in it anymore from the last emptying.

Console
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 03:53 AM
I see that they changed Console somewhere between Snowy and Mounty, Rita; your screen is different than what I see, but you did look in the right place.

> I just emptied the trash with the window open even though there was no Evernote in it anymore from the last emptying.

And it still pops up when you try to print?

Try looking in Disk Utility; it may show up there. And if you've got EasyFind, search with it, including invisibles.

You might also try shutting down your MBP and starting it up again.

This is getting more aggravating than the snow!

(I've recently found Flash .dmgs hanging around after installation in an invisible "tmp" file, and I just wonder...)
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 04:04 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
I see that they changed Console somewhere between Snowy and Mounty, Rita; your screen is different than what I see, but you did look in the right place.

> I just emptied the trash with the window open even though there was no Evernote in it anymore from the last emptying.

And it still pops up when you try to print?

Try looking in Disk Utility; it may show up there. And if you've got EasyFind, search with it, including invisibles.

You might also try shutting down your MBP and starting it up again.

This is getting more aggravating than the snow!

(I've recently found Flash .dmgs hanging around after installation in an invisible "tmp" file, and I just wonder...)


Yep, it still pops up when I print. Weird. Thanks for the Easy Find link. I didn't know such a thing existed. I was about to look for hidden files by using Terminal from watching someone on YouTube do it. Now I don't have to. I am downloading it now.

Evernote is still in Disk Utility. I restarted my machine awhile ago. Still no difference. Maybe Easy Find will find some obscure files for me. Crossing fingers. laugh
Posted By: MacManiac Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 05:03 AM
Hi Rita, you've presented what we like to call in the trades "A Doozy!".....

Reviewing your complete thread (and screen shots - REALLY NICE JOB with those) and trolling through the Evernote forums AND searching Google and Wikipedia for similar issues has been less than telling.

I think I may have a path for you to follow, but it's based more on intuition than fact.

If your original install was from the App Store, it sounds like there may be some history in the Evernote forums of a possible conflict that is reconciled by replacing the App Store installation with a direct download of the latest Evernote version from their website....short of a full nuke and pave reformat and reinstall from scratch for your complete System and User info on your computer, I'm thinking you might want to install Evernote (again) from the direct download and then follow the guidance in this post from the Evernote Forums to remove it and the data completely.

It seems clear to me that your prior piece-meal removal process left some legacy hidden component....the process above should properly overcome that (I hope).

Just remember, that when you go to install from any other source than the App Store, you will have to go into the System Preferences Security prefpane and allow the install.....

Good luck with this one and let us know.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 07:13 AM
Where does Disk Utility now tell you that Evernote lives if it's no longer in the trash? What's the path to it?

Edit: And what other pieces of Evernote does EasyFind find? (Screenshot, please.)

Edit 2: Apropos of my post to MacManiac, will you please switch from list view to column view for Finder and let us see what the root of your HD looks like...that is the column that shows Applications, Library, System, and Users. (Like this .) If there's a "Trash" in there, please click on it so we can see exactly what's in it.

Edit 3: While you're in column view, create a folder on your desktop and then delete it so we can see if it goes to the same place.

I think we may be getting somewhere.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 09:35 AM
The path to Evernote displayed in Rita's screenshot just registered in my head... /Trash/Evernote...

What is /Trash? I can neither find nor create it in Snowy; is it something new?

I'll guess that when Rita reports back with Evernote's current path it'll be the same /Trash path (Edit: and that that's why it didn't go away when she emptied the trash).
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 10:54 AM

Quote:
What is /Trash? I can neither find nor create it in Snowy; is it something new?

Try this: double click a .dmg to mount the disk image. With the image mounted, move the .dmg to the Trash. Now take a look in Disk Utility.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 11:08 AM
Thanks for the idea.

I see /(dot)Trash...; Rita's path hasn't got a dot.

I dunno. confused

Let's see what Rita comes back with.
Posted By: tacit Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 08:18 PM
Okay, let's start from the beginning.

Disk Utility is saying the .dmg is in the trash. If you empty the trash, then look in the trash, is the dmg still there? You won't be able to empty the trash if the file is in use. If the .dmg is mounted on your desktop, it's in use and emptying the trash won't make it go away.

Why is it appearing? Because way back when you installed Evernote, you downloaded the .dmg, you mounted the .dmg on your desktop, and then you double-clicked Evernote from the .dmg. That's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to copy it to your applications folder and then double click it in the applications folder, never from the .dmg. By double-clicking from the .dmg, you told your computer, "do not make this program live in my applications folder. make it live in this .dmg file. Every time I use this program, automatically mount the .dmg and run the application."

Generally speaking, unless you have a clear reason to do otherwise, you shouldn't double-click anything in a .dmg.

Okay, moving on. Why is the .dmg popping up every time you print?

Evernote has a feature that lets you save a note by using the Print command in a program, and choosing "Print to Evernote." Whatever is in that window becomes a note.

So, here's what happened. You double-clicked the Evernote icon inside the DMG. That told your computer, "Evernote lives inside this DMG. Automatically mount the DMG when I want to use Evernote."

Every time you use the Print command, your computer says "Oh, print to Evernote is installed! I need to start Evernote. Okay, I have been told to mount this DMG and run Evernote from the DMG whenever I need to use Evernote. Okay, now mounting DMG...

To stop this from happening, you must do two things.

1. Remove Print to Evernote.
2. Delete the DMG.

1. Open the Library folder inside your Home folder. (Note: there are actually two Library folders. You do not want the one that lives on the top level of your hard drive. You want the one that lives inside your Home folder.)

If you're using OS X 10.7 ("Lion") or later, this folder is hidden. To get to it on Lion or later, click on the Go menu in the Finder, choose the Go To Folder command, and type

~/Library

Once you are there, look for a folder called PDF Services. Open it and look for Evernote. Move it to the trash. That will stop Evernote from running every time you use the Print command.

2. Make sure the DMG file is not mounted on your Desktop (you can restart the computer to be sure), then choose Empty Trash.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 08:34 PM
Rita has already emptied the trash with the .dmg not mounted, but it somehow persists, and Disk Utility says that it lives in /Trash, which shouldn't even exist.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 08:48 PM
Originally Posted By: MacManiac
Hi Rita, you've presented what we like to call in the trades "A Doozy!".....

Reviewing your complete thread (and screen shots - REALLY NICE JOB with those) and trolling through the Evernote forums AND searching Google and Wikipedia for similar issues has been less than telling.

I think I may have a path for you to follow, but it's based more on intuition than fact.

If your original install was from the App Store, it sounds like there may be some history in the Evernote forums of a possible conflict that is reconciled by replacing the App Store installation with a direct download of the latest Evernote version from their website....short of a full nuke and pave reformat and reinstall from scratch for your complete System and User info on your computer, I'm thinking you might want to install Evernote (again) from the direct download and then follow the guidance in this post from the Evernote Forums to remove it and the data completely.

It seems clear to me that your prior piece-meal removal process left some legacy hidden component....the process above should properly overcome that (I hope).

Just remember, that when you go to install from any other source than the App Store, you will have to go into the System Preferences Security prefpane and allow the install.....

Good luck with this one and let us know.


Thanks so much for all the work you put into this, and I will use that info should I decide to ever download Evernote again. But guess what? EasyFind got rid of it! I used it last night, then emptied the Trash. Rebooted this a.m. and still no problems when I "Command Print."

I think you are right about how I got rid of it piecemeal. It caused a problem. I'll be more careful next time.
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 08:50 PM
Originally Posted By: tacit
Okay, let's start from the beginning.

Disk Utility is saying the .dmg is in the trash. If you empty the trash, then look in the trash, is the dmg still there? You won't be able to empty the trash if the file is in use. If the .dmg is mounted on your desktop, it's in use and emptying the trash won't make it go away.

Why is it appearing? Because way back when you installed Evernote, you downloaded the .dmg, you mounted the .dmg on your desktop, and then you double-clicked Evernote from the .dmg. That's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to copy it to your applications folder and then double click it in the applications folder, never from the .dmg. By double-clicking from the .dmg, you told your computer, "do not make this program live in my applications folder. make it live in this .dmg file. Every time I use this program, automatically mount the .dmg and run the application."

Generally speaking, unless you have a clear reason to do otherwise, you shouldn't double-click anything in a .dmg.

Okay, moving on. Why is the .dmg popping up every time you print?

Evernote has a feature that lets you save a note by using the Print command in a program, and choosing "Print to Evernote." Whatever is in that window becomes a note.

So, here's what happened. You double-clicked the Evernote icon inside the DMG. That told your computer, "Evernote lives inside this DMG. Automatically mount the DMG when I want to use Evernote."

Every time you use the Print command, your computer says "Oh, print to Evernote is installed! I need to start Evernote. Okay, I have been told to mount this DMG and run Evernote from the DMG whenever I need to use Evernote. Okay, now mounting DMG...

To stop this from happening, you must do two things.

1. Remove Print to Evernote.
2. Delete the DMG.

1. Open the Library folder inside your Home folder. (Note: there are actually two Library folders. You do not want the one that lives on the top level of your hard drive. You want the one that lives inside your Home folder.)

If you're using OS X 10.7 ("Lion") or later, this folder is hidden. To get to it on Lion or later, click on the Go menu in the Finder, choose the Go To Folder command, and type

~/Library

Once you are there, look for a folder called PDF Services. Open it and look for Evernote. Move it to the trash. That will stop Evernote from running every time you use the Print command.

2. Make sure the DMG file is not mounted on your Desktop (you can restart the computer to be sure), then choose Empty Trash.


Thank you. Trust me I will keep this in mind should it happen again. But, EasyFind got rid of the problems!!! Who knew?

Rita
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 08:51 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
Rita has already emptied the trash with the .dmg not mounted, but it somehow persists, and Disk Utility says that it lives in /Trash, which shouldn't even exist.


Artie, guess what? EasyFind did it!!!! It took over where AppCleaner and other measures left off!! Thanks a million times over!

Rita
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 08:56 PM
Tacit:

I finally read all thought your instructions and got the red flag into my head. NEVER double click on a dmg! The way you explained what happened made it so clear and took away the big mystery. Thanks again. You're a good teacher!

Rita
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 09:01 PM
On the one hand, that's wonderful! But on the other hand, now we'll never know what /Trash was all about. cool frown

I'd love to have seen your EasyFind screen before you deleted everything.

At any rate, Rita, I'm happy to have helped. smile
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 09:04 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
On the one hand, that's wonderful! But on the other hand, now we'll never know what /Trash was all about. cool frown

I'd love to have seen your EasyFind screen before you deleted everything.

At any rate, Rita, I'm happy to have helped. smile


Yeah, I should have taken another screen shot. I gave it a cursory glance, and a lot of it was just Evernote screen shots. The stuff I didn't understand I dismissed. Next time, screen shots all around. My treat!! smile
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 09:06 PM
Is it possible that OS X created /Trash to accommodate the .dmg when Rita originally trashed it because it knew that she didn't really want to trash it?
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 09:08 PM
I'll take mine straight-up; we've already had enough rockiness around here! grin
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 09:15 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
I'll take mine straight-up; we've already had enough rockiness around here! grin


Done!! smirk
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Removing an App - 01/27/15 11:49 PM

Quote:
On the one hand, that's wonderful! But on the other hand, now we'll never know what /Trash was all about.

As was implied by my earlier post, when I experimented by moving the Evernote installer .dmg to the Trash with the disk image already mounted, I saw exactly what was displayed in Rita's screen shot. I've confirmed that this isn't some anomaly specific to Evernote by producing the same result by dragging other .dmgs to the Trash while their disk images are mounted.

Furthermore, when I unmount such a disk image and then go to empty the Trash, I get the Finder icon bouncing in the Dock, alerting me to the presence of a The operation can’t be completed because the item “whatever.dmg” is in use alert. This really should be a modal alert: that is, it should be displayed in front of all windows so you can't miss it.

Instead, it only comes to the front if you're already in Finder when it's generated. If you empty the Trash by right-clicking or control-clicking the Trash icon in the Dock, the alert is layered behind the active app's windows. Even worse, if you respond to the bouncing Finder icon in the Dock by clicking on that icon, the alert is immediately hidden by the new Finder window generated by that click! (If you've already got one or more Finder windows open, the alert is layered behind that or those window(s).)

And to top it off, once the alert exists, further attempts to empty the Trash (which you can't then do from Finder's File menu, because the command is, correctly, dimmed) via its Dock icon don't generate any "illegal action" feedback: The Empty Trash command in the contextual menu is not dimmed, which has to be considered a bug, and there's no alert sound produced.

So it's entirely possible that Rita's actions produced such an alert, which she never saw, and that all the various empytings of the Trash in fact did nothing at all.

By the way, you probably should have told her to Eject the mounted disk image in Disk Utility rather than Unmounting it; then emptying the Trash would have worked as expected.
Posted By: MacManiac Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 12:01 AM
TWO pieces of good news in all this.....

First, you got it resolved.

Second, you got an increased understanding of how it occurred in the first place.

Nice work!
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 12:10 AM
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Quote:
On the one hand, that's wonderful! But on the other hand, now we'll never know what /Trash was all about.

As was implied by my earlier post, when I experimented by moving the Evernote installer .dmg to the Trash with the disk image already mounted, I saw exactly what was displayed in Rita's screen shot. I've confirmed that this isn't some anomaly specific to Evernote by producing the same result by dragging other .dmgs to the Trash while their disk images are mounted.

Furthermore, when I unmount such a disk image and then go to empty the Trash, I get the Finder icon bouncing in the Dock, alerting me to the presence of a The operation can’t be completed because the item “whatever.dmg” is in use alert. This really should be a modal alert: that is, it should be displayed in front of all windows so you can't miss it.

Instead, it only comes to the front if you're already in Finder when it's generated. If you empty the Trash by right-clicking or control-clicking the Trash icon in the Dock, the alert is layered behind the active app's windows. Even worse, if you respond to the bouncing Finder icon in the Dock by clicking on that icon, the alert is immediately hidden by the new Finder window generated by that click! (If you've already got one or more Finder windows open, the alert is layered behind that or those window(s).)

And to top it off, once the alert exists, further attempts to empty the Trash (which you can't then do from Finder's File menu, because the command is, correctly, dimmed) via its Dock icon don't generate any "illegal action" feedback: The Empty Trash command in the contextual menu is not dimmed, which has to be considered a bug, and there's no alert sound produced.

So it's entirely possible that Rita's actions produced such an alert, which she never saw, and that all the various empytings of the Trash in fact did nothing at all.

By the way, you probably should have told her to Eject the mounted disk image in Disk Utility rather than Unmounting it; then emptying the Trash would have worked as expected.


WOW!!
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 12:12 AM
Originally Posted By: MacManiac
TWO pieces of good news in all this.....

First, you got it resolved.

Second, you got an increased understanding of how it occurred in the first place.

Nice work!


I know I learned a ton!!


Rita
Posted By: tacit Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 05:15 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
On the one hand, that's wonderful! But on the other hand, now we'll never know what /Trash was all about. cool frown


I tried an experiment. I created a DMG, moounted it, then moved it to the trash and ran Disk Utility. Disk Utility said it was in /Trash even though, in reality, there was no path called /Trash. Bug in Disk Utility, I think.

Rita, you can double-click a .dmg; just don't double-click the things IN the .dmg if they're an application rather than an installer. Drag the application to your Applications folder, then open your Applications folder and run it from there!
Posted By: plantsower Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 05:28 AM
Originally Posted By: tacit
Originally Posted By: artie505
On the one hand, that's wonderful! But on the other hand, now we'll never know what /Trash was all about. cool frown


I tried an experiment. I created a DMG, moounted it, then moved it to the trash and ran Disk Utility. Disk Utility said it was in /Trash even though, in reality, there was no path called /Trash. Bug in Disk Utility, I think.

Rita, you can double-click a .dmg; just don't double-click the things IN the .dmg if they're an application rather than an installer. Drag the application to your Applications folder, then open your Applications folder and run it from there!


Good to know in case I accidentally click on a dmg. I just hope I remember not to click on it's contents. Better not to click on it at all with my memory or lack thereof. smile

Rita
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 06:22 AM
Thanks for that, tacit.

I've tried the same thing with Applejack and TextWrangler DMGs, and in both instances Disk Utility showed the path to the trashed DMG as /.Trash.

I guess something changed between Snowy and Yosemite.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 07:14 AM
Great, well-researched and documented post, but, unfortunately, it doesn't touch on my question... "What is /Trash all about?" No such file path exists in an OS X installation that isn't either bollixed or modified.

That question is apparently answered by tacit's post #32698 and my response in post #32700.

Thanks for the tip about ejecting v unmounting.
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 11:52 AM

Quote:
Great, well-researched and documented post, but, unfortunately, it doesn't touch on my question... "What is /Trash all about?"

I was only interested in your question to the extent that you seemed to view the existence of /Trash in Rita's screen shoot as potential evidence of some anomaly specific to her issue, which it is not. I found the same /Trash when I conducted the experiment noted earlier, and tacit's subsequent post confirms my experience.

Of far greater interest to me was developing an hypothesis that would explain the observed events.
Posted By: tacit Re: Removing an App - 01/28/15 10:54 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
Thanks for that, tacit.

I've tried the same thing with Applejack and TextWrangler DMGs, and in both instances Disk Utility showed the path to the trashed DMG as /.Trash.

I guess something changed between Snowy and Yosemite.


That's fascinating. In Mavericks, it shows in Disk Utility as /Trash rather than /.Trash too. Weird.

I would definitely call that a bug.
Posted By: Virtual1 Re: Removing an App - 01/29/15 01:10 PM
disk utility is one of the rare examples of an app that has absolutely no issues with opening a "document" that's in the trash.

otherwise, that behavior is discouraged system-wide
Posted By: ganbustein Re: Removing an App - 02/01/15 05:16 AM
Your Trash (that icon on your Dock) is a curious beast. It opens just like it's a folder, but it isn't, not really. It's actually a collection of folders whose contents are logically merged to be displayed as if they were all in a single folder.

It has been this way since the very first Macintosh, back in 1984. The issue is that when you want to trash something, it needs to be moved to the Trash, but files cannot be moved from one disk volume to another. The only way to handle this is to create a separate Trash folder on every disk volume. (They're created as needed, the first time you trash something from that volume.)

With OS X and multiple users, it becomes important for each user to have their own separate Trash. That means there is a trash folder for each user on each disk volume.

Your Trash folder on your home disk volume (the disk volume, normally the boot volume, where your home folder lives) is ~/.Trash. On each other disk volume, your Trash folder is at <path to disk>/.Trashes/userid.

The GUI is trying very hard to make all these folders appear to be a single Trash folder. So, what name should this single virtual folder have? Why, it should be called "Trash", of course.

When Disk Utility is showing you the path to a disk image, if the actual image file is in any of your Trash folders, Disk Utility simply tells you it's in /Trash. It's trying to maintain the illusion that you have only a single Trash, not a slew of trash folders scattered across multiple volumes.

Finder is the main instigator in this deception, showing all the folders as a single folder, but relents somewhat if you Get Info on one of the items in your Trash. If it's in ~/.Trash (and your home folder is in its usual place), Finder says it's in BootDiskName ▸ Users ▸ username ▸ Trash. (Notice how it hid the period in .Trash—you aren't meant to see names beginning with period.) If it's in one of the trash folders on another disk, it says DiskName ▸ .Trashes ▸ Trash. (This time it shows the period in .Trashes, but hides the userid, and invents the final Trash out of nowhere.) Also notice that Finder is using ▸ as the path separator, which is probably just as well considering that these are not actual POSIX file paths.

All of these "paths to Trash" end the same, with Trash. The message to the user is: there is only one Trash, even though there may be multiple paths to it.
Posted By: tacit Re: Removing an App - 02/01/15 05:56 AM
Unfortunately, the downside with this strange deception (other than, of course, a certain confusion when one compares different versions of Disk Utility, some of which say the trash is /Trash and some of which say it's /.Trash--neither of which is actually the case) is if you have an actual folder named Trash on the root level of your hard drive...in which case, God help you.

And yes, you can do it. I checked.
Posted By: ganbustein Re: Removing an App - 02/01/15 06:40 AM
Not really a problem, beyond the usual "Once we practice to deceive..." admonition. The "/Trash" that Disk Utility and/or Finder shows is a phantom folder, never reachable by that path. Since you can never reach the phantom folder using its path, it can never be confused with a real folder that actually is at that path.

But if you don't want your computer lying to you, abjure Finder and the rest of the GUI, and go straight to Terminal. The command line never lies to you. (Well, almost never. Files whose owner or group equals 99 will always appear to belong to you or your group, respectively. Unless you're root. Nobody lies to root.)

This is not the only deception Finder pulls. It localizes the names of many folders and applications based on your preferred language. Again, the names are changed only as reported by Finder. Under the hood, the real names are unchanged, and at the command line you always see truth.

Finder lies through its teeth when showing you permissions. I don't think it's malice. It's just incompetence. From the Get Info window, it's hopeless to try to figure out what a file's permissions actually are, and changes you make through Get Info are unpredictable.

Bundles, including applications, are actually folders, but Finder always shows them to you as files. Another deception that the command line is no party to.

I know there are people who are scared of the command line, but me? It's the GUI that frightens me.

Posted By: tacit Re: Removing an App - 02/02/15 08:23 PM
Originally Posted By: ganbustein
This is not the only deception Finder pulls. It localizes the names of many folders and applications based on your preferred language.


On a vaguely tangentially related note, speaking of languages, it appears there's some funkiness in the way the Finder reports names with accented characters in them. If you use the version of PHP that ships with OS X and you write code that accesses files in the local filesystem, PHP appears not to be able to read files whose names contain accented characters, no matter what character encoding you use, even if the file paths and names appear identical in the Finder and PHP. I've never been able to figure out what gives with that.
Posted By: ganbustein Re: Removing an App - 02/02/15 08:42 PM
Originally Posted By: tacit
[On a vaguely tangentially related note, speaking of languages, it appears there's some funkiness in the way the Finder reports names with accented characters in them. If you use the version of PHP that ships with OS X and you write code that accesses files in the local filesystem, PHP appears not to be able to read files whose names contain accented characters, no matter what character encoding you use, even if the file paths and names appear identical in the Finder and PHP. I've never been able to figure out what gives with that.

This may have to do with the fact that HFS+ uses "fully decomposed canonical" characters, stored on disk using UTF-16. PHP is probably using UTF-8, but that's no problem. The conversion between UTF-16 and UTF-8 is mechanical and trivial. The "fully decomposed" part is more interesting.

For example, the letter "á" (an "a" with an acute accent), can be written in Unicode as either the single codepoint 00E0 (LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE), or as the pair of codepoints 0061 0301 (LATIN SMALL LETTER A followed by COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT). HFS+ insists on the latter, even though the printed glyph is exactly the same.

Even this conversion should happen automatically. Perhaps PHP is doing something to prevent the conversion.
Posted By: tacit Re: Removing an App - 02/03/15 11:06 PM
PHP supposedly supports both UTF-8 and UTF-16 with mb_convert_encoding, so there might be a way to force PHP to play nicely with Finder accented characters, but at the moment I don't have time to mess with it. The problem crops up in a FOSS cloud file storage app I was tinkering with (the developers actually withdrew the OS X version of the app because of it).
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