Thanks for your reply.

This is the result of running the recommended commands, which has reset the status from drwxr-xr-x to drwxrwxrwt :

192-168-1-100:~ Tim_Day$ ls -ald /tmp /private/tmp

drwxr-xr-x  8 root  wheel  256 28 Sep 08:47 /private/tmp

lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root  admin   11 29 Jul 21:02 /tmp -> private/tmp

192-168-1-100:~ Tim_Day$ sudo chmod 1777 /private/tmp

Password:

192-168-1-100:~ Tim_Day$ sudo chmod 1777 /private/tmp

192-168-1-100:~ Tim_Day$ ls -ald /tmp /private/tmp

drwxrwxrwt  8 root  wheel  256 28 Sep 08:47 /private/tmp

lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root  admin   11 29 Jul 21:02 /tmp -> private/tmp

192-168-1-100:~ Tim_Day$ 

I hope now that this will not keep recurring.  It is good to have access to someone like yourself which expert knowledge of this stuff.

Re your other questions; I only used the cleaner programs after the Pipe Error in an attempt to fix an unknown problem. I did not apply any manual updates between the working and non-working events.

Also: Yes, I do have Zoom, Microsoft Office but not Chrome installed and these do make automatic updates. I am not aware of other programs with manual upgrades apart from Norton Security ver 8.8 which I occasionally use to do manual Cleanups.