Mac Terminal - 'pointer being freed was not allocated' error when opening terminal

Question

I get the following message when opening the terminal on mac

Last login: Tue Mar 11 14:33:24 on console login(291,0x7fff78af9310) malloc: *

Answer 1

Running on Mac OS X Mavericks just

• Open "Disk Utility" app -> Press "Repair Disk Permissions"

Solved the problem

I couldn't find any com.apple.terminal.plist in the ~/Library/Preference folder

Answer 2

It looks like you don't have the right permissions on the /usr/bin directory.

Solution for OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and later:

1. Install Onyx 3.1.3 app (Free analog of Disk Utility)
2. Choose 'Maintenance' -> 'Permissions' -> 'Execute'.

Solution for older versions of OS X:

• Open 'Disk Utility' app -> Press 'Repair Disk Permissions'.

It will set default permissions for the /usr/bin directory.
If this step doesn't help try this:

• Delete com.apple.terminal.plist from the ~/Library/Preferences folder;

Answer 3

I tried running the Disk Utility and it kept crashing. I had to run it from OSX Recovery Mode.

You can enter OSX Recovery Mode during system boot by holding down CMD ⌘+R as your mac is booting up. Choose Disk Utility when it reaches the Recovery Options screen.

Answer 4

I had a similar issue while running OSX 10.11.6. I got a similar error when I ran certain commands, but it did not force bash to exit. It just aborted the command.

I tried running Onyx and repairing disk permissions via command line with no results (along with about another 100 or so desperate "fixes").

Eventually, I tried upgrading to a newer version of bash, which fixed the problem. To do this:

brew install bash sudo -s echo /usr/local/bin/bash >> /etc/shells chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

Restart the computer.

I write this in the hopes that if someone else has this error they have one more fix to try!

Answer 5

I had the same problem with my dev machine. After several hours of trying anything other than a reinstall I finally realized that was the only choice. It should have been the FIRST choice. SO EASY!

• Back up the critical data (just in case)
• Enter the recovery mode by pressing cmd+r at start up
• Choose "Reinstall Mac OS X"

That's it. When my computer restarted I was prompted for my Apple ID credentials and then my user loaded like normal, with a working Terminal, even. I didn't need to reinstall / restore anything. The whole process (including the user folder backup) took about 45 min.

Final step, remove all of the sketchy utilities installed trying to fix this without a reinstall.