Digital BW, The Print

At 5:57 PM +0100 10/5/05, Steve Kale wrote:
>On my G5 I get the message "Required file
>cannot be found.  Reinstall the program." when I try run the application.
>...  As I have no idea what the
>required file is called I am stuck.

You can sometimes solve problems like this by using the command-line 
tool "fs_usage", which traces everything that goes to and from the 
disk drives. It's included with Mac OS X. You might have to install 
the developer's tools, but I don't think so. It requires full access 
to the system, so you have to run it as root by saying "sudo 
fs_usage" in a Terminal session and providing your password. It helps 
to make the Terminal window wider than normal, since fs_usage trims 
its output to fit the window.

fs_usage generates a LOT of output. What you want to do is get 
everything set up to reproduce the error, then run "sudo fs_usage" in 
a (wide) Terminal window, and then immediately go back to your 
program and cause the error. Then quickly go back to the Terminal 
session and interrupt fs_usage with Control-C. Then you can scroll 
back through the fs_usage output looking for clues.

If you're lucky the program will try to access the missing file by 
name, and you'll see the name. If not, at least you should see it do 
a "stat" (get file information) on the directory it's supposed to be 
in.

If that's not sufficiently enlightening, it may (or may not) be 
useful to try to compare fs_usage output between your working system 
and the non-working one. If you can identify where the broken system 
departs from the normal flow, you should be able to see the working 
system access the desired file. In trying to do this, it will 
probably be helpful to read up on fs_usage's command-line arguments, 
which can limit the trace in various ways. Type "man fs_usage" in a 
Terminal window.

Good luck!

   -Paul
kb5mu@...