Terminal isn't recognizing any commands in OS X

Question

I installed Git with the Git installer for OS X and restarted terminal, but I got a "command not found" error. I also installed Meteor (a web development framework) and ran it – I also get a "command not found".

They were working earlier.

The output of /bin/echo $PATH is

/usr/local/bin

This is a fresh install of OS X. Other commands are working though: I think I can cd around and rm and create files.

Answer 1

Fixing your PATH, temporarily

If your path is screwed up, as a temporary fix you can run the following to reset it, like Daniel Beck said:

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Now, all commands in your current shell should run as usual. If not, try hash -r (in Bash) to rehash the contents of your PATH directories.

Finding the problem's cause

You can then try to trace down the error. Since the Git installer only adds its path to /etc/paths.d, it's not likely that this caused your shell to malfunction. It's probably a line with PATH= in one of your shell's configuration file.

For Bash on OS X, the config files are typically one of the following:

• ~/.bash_profile
• ~/.profile

You can edit these files with open -e ~/.bash_profile, for example. If open still isn't recognized, run it with its full path, i.e. /usr/bin/open -e ~/.bash_profile. Look for a line that assigns the PATH, and remove it. Save the file, and open a new shell to see if it worked.

_{Since a login shell is started with the Terminal in OS X (instead of a non-login shell like in many other Linux/Unix variants), it's unlikely that ~/.bashrc is compromised.}