TechTool Pro 2.5.1 problems: a follow-up

We have received many more reports of problems with the newly released TechTool Pro 2.5.1(see item posted last time). Although several readers wrote to say they were having complete success with this update, many more wrote to confirm the reported problems. It is still not clear why some users have a specific symptom while others do not. Almost all the problems focus on the Protection control panel/extension; disabling the extension was always a successful work-around. Here are the highlights:

Launching TechTool After updating, Ben Trihub tried to open the TechTool Pro application. It would usually fail, giving an error message that stated that TechTool had either become corrupted or would not work on the given Mac model. Several other readers reported the same symptom. In a possibly related issue, when Andrew Sorensen tried to launch TechTool, he received an error message that said that he had the "wrong" version of the TechTool Pro extension and control panel installed. It turned out that the 2.5.1 update did not update these files; they were still the 2.1.1r2 version.

Update: The Updater does not update the Protection extension and control panel. You have to manually install/replace them, as stated in the Read Me file. Russ Walkowich adds: "One must also remove the older DNA module and insert the new one. It also has you remove the TechTool Pro CP preferences file (which I couldn't find). Then you're supposed to update the DiskMaker app, then use the updater to update TT Pro to version 2.5.1." (Thanks also to Bill Frazier.)

Paul Kayhart warns to be careful not to install the "pre-System 7.5" version of the files by mistake.

Update:As with past versions of TechTool, the "corrupted" error message may be due to using an "illegal" serial number (e.g., ones posted to pirate sites). If this is the case, reinstalling with a legal number should fix things.

Finder Two readers (Douglas Thom and Mardis Coers) found that the Protection extension prevented the Finder from loading at startup.

Work-around? Tim Nowak also was getting a Finder crash at startup after installing the Protection Extension. However, he found a work-around: "After some experimenting I found that if I added a space to the front of the AppleShare extension, forcing it to load first, the system boots just fine. This problem and solution have worked on all 15 installs of the program."

Outlook Express Two readers (Marshall Duvall and Mal Veitch) reported conflicts between the Protection extension and Outlook Express 4.5. In one case, OE reports an internal error when trying to read new mail from an IMAP server. In the other case, deleting email was significantly slower after installing TechTool. Mal writes: "When I was playing with TechTool's new control panel, I discovered that the Trash Cache feature was retaining hundreds of temp email files. Switching off Trash Cache returned things to normal."

Duplicate TrashCache folders? Andrzej Kozlowski had some problems that he claims were due to having two copies of the invisible "*TP2*TrashCache" folders installed. He made them visible and deleted them. After this, only one new such folder was created and his symptoms vanished.