NETGEAR Genie installer destroys OS X system databases
I want to document this behavior so that if anyone else is wondering what's happened, you'll understand.
You run the NETGEAR Genie installer on OS X. At the end of the installation, your Dock disappears for a second. When it comes back, your desktop picture has changed to a system default and whatever custom Desktop Picture settings you had are wiped out.
The reason it does this is because there a bug in the installer. At the end of the installation, it deletes any database located in your ~/Library/Application Support/Dock folder. Maybe years ago that was safe. Maybe in the future that will crash your machine. But right now the database it deletes is the one that stores the Desktop Picture settings. (The dock vanishes because the installer is killing the running program for some reason.)
There is no work-around for this issue. Your only choices are to either a) Don't install the NETGEAR Genie on OS X, or b) write down all of your Desktop Picture configuration settings before you install, run the installer, then reset the settings back to what you had. And do the same thing each time you accept an upgrade of the Genie software.
I attemped to report this to NETGEAR but was unsuccesful. It is the kind of issue that the NETGEAR tech support process is not designed to handle, since it is the installer itself that causes the system damage, not the Genie software. Nor does it have anything to do with the router itself.
Re: NETGEAR Genie installer destroys OS X system databases
Sounds like nightmare in the making install a program to work with our router and roll the dice wait to if our computer will works the way you wanted to.
No wonder I hate programs that take control and their own thing.
Re: NETGEAR Genie installer destroys OS X system databases
Sounds like their installer programmers need to use a handy reference to find the right way to force the icon into the Dock. Or just not do that at all -- I really dislike app installers that push icons into my Dock. ASK ME if I want an icon persisted, don't just do it.
Googling "programmatically adding an app to the macos dock" turns up plenty of useful approaches. None of them involve an "rm -f" on any file or directory.
I have to think developer.apple.com would also have guidance.
