Can't play, can't patch, file errors galore

I've been playing CoH for about 6 months now, 22" 2007 iMac, 2.4ghz, 2 gigs of RAM. I downloaded I16 but my friends weren't available to play so I didn't actually give it a try. The next time I started, it wouldn't run, at all, and I had to force quit it.

Following the advice here, I trashed the game and reinstalled. It wouldn't start to patch then either, so I trashed the permission folder and then it started to work.

Except not. I've been seeing things like "assertation failure," checksum failed on piggs, suggesting I may not have sufficient permissions or disk space... there's over 200 gigs free on a 300 gig HD, so there'd better be enough room, and I'm the only user on this computer, and naturally set to admin, so it can't be that.

First I got this error message... http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/631/picture7iq.png

and when I hit "OK," got this.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9168/picture8wgm.png

What kind of Mac are you using this on? How much RAM is installed, and which MacOS and video processor?

If you're unsure, open Applications > Utilities > System Profiler - all that info is on the Hardware and Graphics/Displays sections.

Also, at the same time, go to help.ncsoft.com and file a support request.

Some quick fixes to start with:

- Open Safari and on the Safari menu, select Empty Cache.

- Open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility and Repair Permissions.

- Make sure you're using an Administrator user "Allow user to administer this computer" checkbox in the Accounts Preference Pane) to at least patch CoH, if not run it.

- Preferably also make sure you're using the same user to run CoH as you used to patch it.

- Use Get Info on the City of Heroes application. Verify that the Sharing & Permissions are set to allow your username, admin, and everyone Read & Write permission.

- If you're using a 3rd party firewall like Little Snitch make sure it's turned off during patching.

Addendum:

Following your instructions and/or trying to install the game is causing serious issues with my computer... The web browser is quitting unexpectedly and Spotlight is crashing on startup, rendering the computer inoperable unless I boot in safe mode.

I think I'm done.

Those mdworker errors in your console log are a clue - you either have hard drive problems, or you had them and they screwed up an OS update.

Boot from the Snow Leopard (or was it Leopard?) disk and run Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the disk (not the permissions) repeatedly until there are no errors, plus once more.

If that doesn't turn up anything obvious (or possibly if it does) you'll have to do a re-install. It'll take about 45 minutes, and then the installer will let you re-import your settings.

After that, if there are any further problems, we'll have to look into whether something being loaded at startup is corrupting the system memory. That's pretty easy to do, since on a Mac nearly all the startup stuff is stored in Library > Startupitems or in your Accounts System Preference panel.

EDIT: If you feel uncomfortable doing any of this check and see if you have an Apple Store or Apple Certified Repair Center in your area - they'll do pretty much what I outlined above without you having to worry about whether you're doing it right.