So I tracked down the cause of the FPE (Floating Point Exception), thanks to one of the people reporting the bug providing me with a kernel dump. The reason why I couldn’t reproduce the error is obvious, I am on an x86_64 kernel, the error would only occur on systems running legacy_kernel which forces i386 only operation. The cause? I was using a long integer for calculating the byte count for file transfers…

Why is this a problem on i386 systems?

64bit systems have a long integer range of −9223372036854775808 to +9223372036854775807

32bit systems only have a range of −2147483648 to +2147483647

So when the byte count reached over +2147483647 it starts subtracting and goes all the way back to −2147483648, then division by zero happens and the universe unravels.

Ok so enough jargon, let me get to the good stuff – the download:

myHack 2.0 RC4.1
Downloaded 39283 times.
Size: 7.79 MB

Summary of changes from myHack 2.0 Release Candidate 3:

• Bugfix: Resolved floating point exception on i386 systems
• Increased resolution on file transfers that are less than 1MB to 1KB for more accurate reporting
• Updated Chameleon to revision 1332
• Updated Patched_10.7_AppleRTC.kext to new version see blackosx’s comment HERE for details
• myHack now installs Chameleon modules
• Cleaned up and further optimized code – should launch faster now
• Removed x86_64 instructions to lighten binary further
• Updated myHack Chameleon theme
• Added arch=i386 kernel flag to default org.chameleon.Boot.plist

Todo:

• Update myFix
• Something special that will be revealed once it is ready

Make sure to read the release pages for myHack 2.0 RC1, RC2, and RC3 if you have not done so already, for a complete list of changes, contents and features.

Additional details of the myHack app’s contents will be maintained on the downloads page. Credits and further instructions will be maintained on the guide page.

Feel free to comment on this post but for support or to report a problem you encounter – please use the newly opened myHack forum instead.

This version is now deprecated, consult the downloads page for a link to the latest version.

This version was downloaded 1703 times.

Moving right along… A bug was reported a few times that I was sure I had resolved in beta testing, but with all the focus on Lion installation I seem to have overlooked some of the code for Snow Leopard installation in the release candidates (RC1/RC2).

So after releasing RC2 which was to address a number of issues, I went over this forum post again and decided to attempt to reproduce the error. Which I did. I have fixed this problem. myHack 2.0 RC3 will now prepare working installers from OS X 10.6 and 10.6.3 sources without any problems.

Also I have tweaked a few other things – I made a couple of small cosmetic adjustments to the output log and I have removed SleepEnabler.kext from the generic extra. I have also replaced ElliottForceLegacyRTC.kext with a Patched_10.7_AppleRTC.kext that I made. I have tested it and confirmed it is backwards compatible with Snow Leopard. Which is great because the ElliottForceLegacyRTC.kext was based on source code from OS X 10.5 and causes kernel panics on some newer hardware.

I triple checked to verify everything works properly with an OS X 10.6 installation by creating and booting to a freshly made installer several times. It works perfectly.

Summary of changes from myHack 2.0 Release Candidate 2:

• Bugfix: OS X 10.6/10.6.3 Installers will now function correctly.
• Removed SleepEnabler.kext and ElliottForceLegacyRTC.kext
• Added Patched_10.7_AppleRTC.kext
• Some minor cosmetic refinements to output log.
• Added tr to included utilities.

Make sure to read the release pages for myHack 2.0 RC1 and RC2 if you have not done so already, for a complete list of changes, contents and features.

Additional details of the myHack app’s contents will be maintained on the downloads page. Credits and further instructions will be maintained on the guide page.

Feel free to comment on this post but for support or to report a problem you encounter – please use the newly opened myHack forum instead.

This version is now deprecated, consult the downloads page for a link to the latest version.

This version was downloaded 129 times.

This release was made to address several issues that some users encountered with RC1. I must note that the issues were caused not by the way RC1 was coded but rather permissions or corruption issues on their own systems.

However, being the case that what we are trying to do here is help people get clean installs on systems that may be unclean to begin with I do want to do whatever I can to make sure this tool will work on even these damaged systems, at least to whatever extent I can.

Summary of changes from myHack 2.0 Release Candidate 1:

• Completely rewritten progress bar functionality, no longer relies on CocoaDialog for progress bar display, embedded in application window instead.
• No longer runs file copy process in background, it now runs directly in a pipe.
• No longer needs to write/read files to/from /tmp.
• Chameleon installation routine will now flush the boot sector prior to installing chameleon.
• Force unmount of target prior to erase (prevents an error if the device is in use and can not be unmounted normally).
• Refined UI appearance and log output.
• New Icon/Logo – Contributed by blackosx

Make sure to read the release page for myHack 2.0 RC1 if you have not done so already, for a complete list of contents and features.

Additional details of the myHack app’s contents will be maintained on the downloads page. Credits and further instructions will be maintained on the guide page.

Feel free to comment on this post but for support or to report a problem you encounter – please use the newly opened myHack forum instead.

This version is now deprecated, consult the downloads page for a link to the latest version.

This version was downloaded 4653 times.

Here it is, much anticipated, extensively tested and debugged, the new and improved myHack!

Gone are the awkward and inflexible mpkg’s of the past! The new myHack core was written from scratch in c, it took hundreds of hours to write, days more to beta test and debug. It is not yet flawless but it does work beautifully. I have already updated the myHack guide with the instructions and some additional details for version 2.0, make sure you read it before you run the app.

Additional details of the myHack app’s contents will be maintained on the downloads page. Credits and further instructions will be maintained on the guide page.