Mac OS X 10.4.6: Applications silently fail to open, or you see "error: can‘t fragload"

After installing the smaller-sized delta (or "patch") version of the Mac OS X 10.4.6 Update on a PowerPC-based Mac, a few applications may:

• Fail to open, without an alert message, or
• Display the alert message "error: can't fragload", or
• "err -2804" messages appear in the Console log.

Note: If you want to see if you installed the smaller-sized delta version of the Mac OS X 10.4.6 Update, see this article and look for a MacOSXUpd10.4.6PPCPatch.pkg file in your Receipts folder. If you don't have this "PPCPatch" file, this article does not apply to you. Note that not all delta updates are smaller-sized deltas.

Solution

Do either of the following:

• Download and install "Mac OS X 10.4.6 Combo for PPC," which is about 140 MB in size. If you are updating more than one PowerPC-based Mac, you'll probably want to use this download.
  
  
• Or, if you want a smaller download, download and install "Mac OS X 10.4.6 for PPC," which is about 65 MB is size.

Note: These updates do not appear via Software Update preferences once you've already installed the smaller-sized Mac OS X 10.4.6 Update. You must manually download and install them from Apple Downloads as linked above.