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Error when reinstalling client


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I am using Retrospect Workgroup 5.0.238 and Retrospect Client 5.0.540 with Mac OS 10.2.4 running on Dual 1.25Ghz G4 Power Mac computers connected by a local ethernet network. Recently, one of the client Macs had to be restored from backup. It is stated in the notes from Dantz that in this situation the Retrospect Client is improperly restored and must be reinstalled -- the client responds to Retrospect across the network but all other communication fails. This reinstallation procedure has worked for me in the past. However, this time I get the following error message when running the client installer: "The software to be installed requires Administrator or higher level access privileges." Of course I am in the administrator account at the time so this message is misleading. What's more interesting is that I never get the usual Authenticate dialog at all, but the error message is the same one usually produced when Cancel is clicked in response to the request for a passphrase in the Authenticate dialog. No other installers fail this way on the problem Mac, nor does the Retrospect Client installer fail this way on the other Macs. What I want to know is how to get around this installation impasse so I can resume network backups. Thanks for any insight on this.

 

Steve

 

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No. I can't uninstall. The problem is such that I never actually get as far as the installer window where the choice to install or uninstall is offered. The installer just gives me the error message and an OK button. When I click the OK button it exits. I have tried running the client installer both from the local hard disk and from the installation CD.

 

Steve

 

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Hi There,

 

You should be careful when doing this but...

 

You can try enabling the root account on your machine and uninstalling the client while logged in as root. If that gives you a permissions error too there has got to be a larger - system wide permissions problem.

 

After the uninstall, reboot and try the installer again as the root user. After you are done it is probably safest to disable the root account again.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was never able to reinstall the Retrospect Client on this system. Finally I had to completely rebuild the system from scratch -- something I was resisting because of the trouble involved (all those updates and 3rd party installers). I wish I'd known how to just go in and tweak the offending files, but perhaps there were other corrupt elements in the system. At least I know it's solid now.

 

After fighting problems when using Retrospect 5.0 and 5.1 to restore networked OS X clients I have finally found a "magic bullet" to my problems. On the negative side, all my previous backups of entire OS X systems were unusable -- they produced damaged disk images upon restoration. On the positive side, I found that by using the free utility CockTail, just before each backup, a "clean" system is guaranteed -- this produced good disk images upon restoration.

 

Here is the particular Cocktail "recipe" I use before backup:

- Log In as administrator.

- Open the Cocktail utility.

- Click the Pilot icon, click the Options tab, then enable the Restart Automatically checkbox.

- Click the Tasks tab, enable all the checkboxes, then click Run.

- Wait for the operation to complete and the computer to restart.

- Log In as administrator.

- Open the Cocktail utility.

- Click the System icon, then click Prebind.

- Wait for the operation to complete.

- Close the Cocktail application.

- Log Out as administrator.

- Do not use the computer during the backup process. This will leave it in an ideal state for performing a network backup.

 

Information about this utility may be found at:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/cocktail.html

 

Steve

 

 

 

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