Shell Script to Compare Installations

I wrote a little shell script to run in BBEdit. It creates a uniquely named text file containing the names of all/most of the files in my system library folder. It uses the ls command with the -AR option to recursively list subdirectories encountered. I call it CatSysLib.sh:

#!/bin/sh
cd /System/Library
theDate=`date '+%y%m%d%H%M%S'`
destPath="/Volumes/Cornucopia/Catalogs"
theCat="$destPath/$theDate.txt"
ls -AR > $theCat
exit 0

By comparing the new system with the old one that didn’t work, I discovered an odd extention: LexarFilterScheme.kext.

A Google search revealed that THIS was the cause of my DVD not playing commercial titles, to wit:

“One of our readers, has reported to us an incompatibility issue rather annoying between the Secure II software found in USB key from Lexar and MacOSX. Indeed, once the software is installed on the Mac, it becomes absolutely impossible to play any DVD (backup or movie DVD).”

I made sure not to reinstall that security software and used Disk Utility to reformat the flash memory of the Lexar JumpDrive.

Note: In the script above, the first line starts with a two character “shebang” which is a word formed from a corrupted combination of the number sign (hash) and the exclamation point (bang), kind of like the word “blog” is from web log.

Advertisement

blogitude

Recently I did a Software Update of Quicktime. There was a little warning attached to it that I brushed off. When later I tried to play a DVD, it didn’t work. Naturally I assumed it was the new version of Quicktime and decided to rebuild my system. A very rash action I admit. The least I could have done was some research to find the real cause and perhaps uninstall that version of Quicktime.

Anyway, getting the system back to were it was before the rebuild was a journey of a thousand steps. A lot of the information I needed came from technical blogs. This blog is my show of appreciation and perhaps a shortcut to others mired in similar painful circumstances.