Mac auto-update to 6.0.5 crashed and corrupted app—how i fixed it

[sporobolus 1]

i was running Evernote 6.0.3 (recently installed by download, after App Store version wasn't displaying notes)

 

Evernote requested to update to 6.0.5; i gave it permission and didn't pay attention

 

today i noticed Evernote was no longer running and i see that it's icon is the "dead-app" icon; i checked the console log and i see this sequence of entries (anonymized):

 

2014-12-17 1:04:26.674 PM Evernote: Sparkle: Extracting /Users/****/Library/Application Support/Evernote/.Sparkle/Evernote 451190/Evernote_RELEASE_6.0.5_451190.zip using 'ditto -x -k - "$DESTINATION"'

2014-12-17 1:04:58.932 PM ReportCrash: Saved crash report for Autoupdate[31505] version 1.8.0 (1.8.0) to /Users/****/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Autoupdate_2014-12-17-130458_****.crash

 

Sparkle is an updater tool that many apps use; the crash log referenced ties "Autoupdate" to Evernote thusly:

 

Path:            /Users/USER/Library/Application Support/Evernote/*/Autoupdate.app/Contents/MacOS/Autoupdate

 

so it is pretty clear that the updater failed and left a corrupted app

 

i fixed this by reinstalling from the 6.0.3 DMG i still had on hand; it once again offered to update to 6.0.5, so i gave it a chance; this time it updated correctly

 

(this is not a support request, it is intended to help others who run into this solve the problem)