Title: PackageKit install fails with PKInstallErrorDomain Code=120 and NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 during _relinkFile operation Body: We are investigating an intermittent package installation failure on macOS Tahoe 26.5 and are trying to understand

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Created 2d

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We are investigating an intermittent package installation failure on macOS Tahoe 26.5 and are trying to understand the conditions under which PackageKit may return the following errors during an upgrade installation:

PKInstallErrorDomain Code=120
NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 ("Operation not permitted")

The package successfully passes validation and authorization, and pre-install scripts complete successfully. The failure occurs during the final PackageKit commit phase when PackageKit attempts to move/relink content from the installer sandbox to the destination volume.

Relevant log snippets:

PackageKit: Shoving <sandbox>/Root to /

Error relinking file (primary): .../Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources

failed _relinkFile(...) Operation not permitted

PackageKit: Install Failed: Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=120

NSUnderlyingError: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

The issue is intermittent and only affects a subset of systems. The same package installs successfully on many machines running the same macOS version.

Has anyone encountered similar _relinkFile / CodeResources failures during package upgrades?

In particular, we are interested in understanding:

Common causes of NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 during PackageKit relink operations.
Whether existing signed application bundle metadata (CodeResources) can cause relink failures during upgrades.
Any Installer or PackageKit changes in recent Tahoe releases that could affect bundle replacement during package installation.

Any insights would be appreciated.

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

1d

So, error 120 in the PKInstallErrorDomain domains basically means ‘something went wrong trying to install a file’. The error 1 is EPERM, obviously. The _relinkFile bit is interesting. You can think of it a bit like a rename system call. It’s responsible for actually putting the file where it needs to be. So, it’s likely that this failure is happening because the installer went to move a file into position and got a EPERM back from the file system.

If a machine encounters this problem, does it happen every time? Or if, say, you retry the install, does it then works?

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