resulting pkg installs payload to wrong folder(s)

[rockpapergoat]

i have a simple makefile that installs an app bundle and packs a postflight script. what i'm seeing when run on my build machine is stuff like this:

Sep 5 20:57:46 derwin installer[2238]: Applications/TSP_Managed_Mac.app relocated to tmp/the_luggage/TSP_Managed_Mac.app-1.0.7/root/Applications/TSP_Managed_Mac.app
Sep 5 20:57:46 derwin installer[2238]: PackageKit: Shoving /var/folders/zz/zzzivhrRnAmviuee+++++++++++/Cleanup At Startup/PKInstallSandbox-tmp/Root (2 items) to /

any idea why the installer would dump the app back to the tmp root location? i also had a previous build dump the app in /Applications/Utilities/Waterroof.app, even though that's not specified anywhere.

the relevant lines from the makefile look like this: http://pastie.textmate.org/private/aucexsivlobbf5p8ms6ywa

the payload is a tar.bz2 archive.

thanks for all your work.

[unixorn]

What do the contents of the tar.bz2 look like?

[rockpapergoat]

they look pretty normal. i copied the app to the build directory, changed ownership to root:admin and tarred it up. looks like this:

http://pastie.textmate.org/private/7jvqg9ndjzgajyoonbdcda

looks like there's no path prepended there. it's just an archive of the app bundle.

maybe it's some weirdness with apple's installer. regardless, it's strange behavior.

[unixorn]

That does look really weird. The unbz2 make rule just explodes the tarball into /Applications in the package root. It should definitely not be relocating the app.

The filesystem is hfs+, right? Are you trying to build on an NFS or AFP mounted filesystem?

[rockpapergoat]

nope. all local, hfs+. maybe my system is hosed. i'll try building elsewhere and report back. thanks for your help!

[rockpapergoat]

pretty weird. i tested on another laptop, tarred up cyberduck, edited the makefile with the basics, and built a package.

the app isn't installed under /Applications but under /tmp/the_luggage. the directory looks like this:
http://pastie.textmate.org/private/hgwcssrqddp3z2wysdygaq

and this is using a fresh pull straight from github.

i haven't seen this behavior before and don't know what would cause it. any ideas?

[rockpapergoat]

okay, so after purging /tmp/the_luggage and removing any app from the build directory, a pkg file will actually install.i don't know if this is typical or in the docs, but i don't remember having to do this before.

[unixorn]

You shouldn't have to do that. When I get in to work on Monday I'll install from github onto a fresh machine and make sure nothing got inadvertently broken in any recent updates.

[rockpapergoat]

thanks. i don't have an older version hanging around to check. after running 'make clean' for a given pkg project, installation does work, though.

[kevinrivers]

I am having the same issue. Fresh build, cleaning out /tmp/the_luggage does not help. Apps still get installed in /tmp/the_luggage...

[unixorn]

Could you post a gist with your Makefile? I haven't been able to replicate this.

[jcoffland]

I ran in to a very similar problem with an OSX package I'm working on. Suddenly it stopped installing. However, if I changed the install location slightly it would work. I finally tracked down the junk in /var/log/install.log which brought me here. And after reading the above I figured out a fix for my problem.

I deleted the directory /tmp/pkmk.NA60G/ I'm sure that is just the name on my machine with my particular package but it was a tmp directory mentioned in /var/log/install.log. Something in this folder was messing up the installer even though it said the install was successful. I don't know how it happened but it took me a long time to figure out why my package suddenly stopped installing any files.

Anyway, thought I'd share in case it might help someone else out.

[unixorn]

I wonder what was in that temp dir.

Also, was that on 10.6 or 10.7?

[jcoffland]

10.6 I'm not sure what was in the directory. Once I wiped it out everything worked fine again.

[a-n-d-o]

FYI Gang.... I encountered this same "app was relocated" issue. I figured out that the installer -- even though I specified that the app was to be installed in /Applications -- if the app was already on the target volume somewhere (anywhere), the installer would always "re-install" it to that same location... so on a clean mac, the installer works fine.