Google Chrome Update Rendered Macs Without System Integrity Protection Unbootable

Mr. Macintosh:

Sometimes Avid Media Creators use 3rd Party Graphics cards connected to their Mac Pro. When the issue hit yesterday, it was thought that Avid was the main cause of the problems since all the users experiencing the issue had Avid software.

Only later after a MacAdmins deep dive investigation was it found that AVID was NOT the cause of the problem but the Google Chrome was!

Nice detective work here to figure out that Chrome was to blame. The Chrome updater was deleting the /var symlink at the root of the startup volume.

Google:

We recently discovered that a Chrome update may have shipped with a bug that damages the file system on macOS machines with System Integrity Protection (SIP) disabled, including machines that do not support SIP. We’ve paused the release while we finalize a new update that addresses the problem.

Why in the world would a web browser’s software updater be doing anything at all at the root level of the boot volume? The arrogance and presumptuousness here boggles the mind. This is like hiring someone to wash your windows and finding out they damaged the foundation of your house. And people wonder why Apple requires Chrome to be a sandboxed app that uses WebKit on iOS.

★ Wednesday, 25 September 2019