Only Apple apps fail to load
 

Apple apps - Safari, Disk Utility, Console, some System Preference panes, Installer, etc. - refuse to start up; must force quit. G4/733, 10.3.1. I've reinstalled OS X, run Disk Warrior from the CD (no errors), disconnected all non-Apple USB and Firewire devices, reset parameter ram; still, many Apple apps will not load.

I'm mystified. Everything ran fine until today. I'll take any suggestions. TIA.

~Dennis

What do the system logs say? What do the crash reports say?

I encountered a similiar problem two weeks ago: I my case the problem was, that I deactivated necessary fonts in font book. Especially a specific Helvetic Font must be activated for the system to run.

Galain

Interesting about the font experience. Recently I resolved duplicate fonts in FontBook. Which font folder needs what Helvetica to clear this issue? This might be it.

Gratefully,

~Dennis

Console will not load, so I cannot see crash reports or system logs.

I did turn on every font that defaults on installation to /library/fonts and /system/library/fonts. But, sadly, that did not awaken the Apple apps, even after restart.

Still open to more suggestions...

~Dennis

The system log is the file /var/log/system.log
You can view it using any text editor - e.g. BBEdit
or in a Terminal window using a variety of commands
- e.g.:
more /var/log/system.log
or
tail -100 /var/log/system.log
(to see the last 100 lines)

The system log will tell you the location of the crash logs and you can view them as with the system log.

Thank you hayne, now I can look at system.log. However, the system log does not report the attempt to load Console and its subsequent failure. On my end, I launch Console, a blank window frame appears then the infinitely spinning colorwheel. From there I can only Force Quit. Same with Safari, etc. Where do we go from here?

~Dennis

sudo cat /Library/Logs/Console/<USERNAME>/console.log

You mean that there are no error messages in /var/log/system.log that relate in time to the problems you are experiencing? Maybe you could copy and paste the last 100 lines or so from the system.log here so we could see.

And check in the folder /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/ for crash logs from those apps.

Thanks stetner, for a new clue. I tried to open Safari, it hung on launch; top reports 90% processor utilization for Safari, so I did a Force Quit then ran this in Terminal:

dbhill% sudo cat /Library/Logs/Console/dbhill/console.log
2003-11-17 16:48:41 -0800
2003-11-17 16:48:42.038 loginwindow[204] FSResolveAliasWithMountFlags returned err = -43
2003-11-17 16:48:42.062 loginwindow[204] LSOpenFromURLSpec return err = -10660

... so console didn't see it happen just like system.log didn't see it. Strange. Next?

~Dennis

If I understand, Safari does not crash, it hangs?

Can you kick off Safari and then see what a spits out? I am not sure what I am looking for, but something may jump out.

Yes Doug, Safari, and numerous other Apple apps just hang. The Force Quit window sees it, and top confirms that it is hung. Your interesting grep returned nothing after attempted launch then Force Quit of Safari. I'm hoping to avoid wiping all my partitions and reloading all production apps; but I've never seen anything like this before. The first sign of trouble was when Apple Backup2 hung in the middle of a 6GB backup to my iPod. Had to force quit it, then the other wierdness showed up, and wasn't resolved by an Archive and Install of 10.3.

More?

~Dennis

1) Please show us the last bunch of system.log and the relevant crash report logs as I requested above.

2) I think you should follow the checklist of suggestions in the "Generic OS X Troubleshooting" thread - use the version of the list that is near the end of the thread.
In particular, you need to use 'fsck' to check your filesystem as explained in that thread.

Try it while Safari is hung, not after you force quit it....

Douglas, here is the grep you asked for:

dbhill% sudo lsof | grep Safari
Safari 537 dbhill cwd VDIR 14,6 5632 2 / (/dev/disk0s6)
Safari 537 dbhill 0r VCHR 3,2 0t0 28372740 /dev/null
Safari 537 dbhill 1w VCHR 0,0 0t0 28197252 /dev/console
Safari 537 dbhill 2w VCHR 0,0 0t0 28197252 /dev/console
Safari 537 dbhill 3r 0x01b53950 file struct, ty=0x3, op=0x30c2a4
Safari 537 dbhill 4r VREG 14,6 156864 631227 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/HIToolbox.rsrc
Safari 537 dbhill 5r VREG 14,6 528477 631208 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/Localized.rsrc
Safari 537 dbhill 6r VREG 14,6 3177 630974 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/HIServices.rsrc
Safari 537 dbhill 7r 0x01b52d14 file struct, ty=0x3, op=0x30c2a4
Safari 537 dbhill 8r VREG 14,6 5265446 631223 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Extras.rsrc

hayne, this are the last few lines of safari.crash.log:

Thread 5:
#0 0x90017048 in semaphore_wait_signal_trap (semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 8)
#1 0x9000e890 in _pthread_cond_wait (_pthread_cond_wait + 624)
#2 0x90a4c03c in -[NSConditionLock lockWhenCondition:] (-[NSConditionLock lockWhenCondition:] + 68)
#3 0x92dca928 in -[NSUIHeartBeat _heartBeatThread:] (-[NSUIHeartBeat _heartBeatThread:] + 400)
#4 0x90a3a198 in forkThreadForFunction (forkThreadForFunction + 108)
#5 0x900247e8 in _pthread_body (_pthread_body + 40)

... and the last lines of the system.log (allowable for this message length) that cover a time of a Console hang and a Safari hang:

dbhill% tail -100 /var/log/system.log
Nov 17 21:20:15 localhost kernel: System Sleep
Nov 17 21:20:27 localhost kernel: System Wake
Nov 17 21:20:27 localhost kernel: Wake event 0020
Nov 17 21:20:27 localhost kernel: AppleNMI unmask NMI
Nov 17 21:20:27 localhost kernel: UniNEnet::monitorLinkStatus - Link is up at 100 Mbps - Full Duplex
Nov 17 21:20:16 localhost configd[89]: posting notification com.apple.system.config.network_change
Nov 17 21:20:16 localhost configd[89]: executing /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Kicker.bundle/Contents/Resources/set-hostname
Nov 17 21:20:26 localhost configd[89]: AppleTalk startup
Nov 17 21:20:16 localhost mach_init[2]: Server 0 in bootstrap d03 uid 0: "/usr/sbin/lookupd": exited as a result of signal 1 [pid 415]
Nov 17 21:20:26 localhost mDNSResponder[183]: mDNSResponder Waking at 7323035
Nov 17 21:20:27 localhost lookupd[508]: lookupd (version 324) starting - Mon Nov 17 21:20:27 2003
Nov 17 21:20:27 localhost set-hostname[514]: setting hostname to Prakasha.local
Nov 17 21:20:29 localhost configd[89]: posting notification com.apple.system.config.network_change
Nov 17 21:20:29 localhost mach_init[2]: Server 1e2b in bootstrap d03 uid 0: "/usr/sbin/lookupd": exited as a result of signal 1 [pid 508]
Nov 17 21:20:29 localhost configd[89]: executing /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Kicker.bundle/Contents/Resources/set-hostname
Nov 17 21:20:29 localhost lookupd[517]: lookupd (version 324) starting - Mon Nov 17 21:20:29 2003
Nov 17 21:20:29 localhost set-hostname[530]: setting hostname to 4b952161.trlck.ca.charter.com
Nov 17 21:20:32 localhost configd[89]: AppleTalk startup complete
Nov 17 21:20:38 localhost kernel: arp: 68.183.82.1 moved from 00:07:0d:ae:60:8c to 00:07:0d:ae:60:54 on en0

Hmm, nothing jumps out at me from the lsof dump...

lookupd seems to be having trouble starting, I never sleep my machine, so I don't know if that is normal for waking machines.

One of the First things in said trouble shooting list
 

One of the First things in said trouble shooting list.

Have you tried creating a new Admin user and seeing if you get similar problems?

Please note that a lot of issues were resolved in 10.31 some of which were releated to system user Accounts though your problems seem unique, at least to me.

Lastly if you loose your Patience rememeber you have two Archive and isntall Options.

With and with OUT user settings. The latter of which is a clean install with out having to reformat. You will have drag Apps from Previous Apps to new, Old Desktop to new, reinstall some Apps, Printers etc. Easier then reformatting.

Thank you anthlover for your thoughts. I will create a new admin user and get back here with the results, as I've done everything else possible on the list. And the reinstall without user settings, if it comes to that, is one I hadn't considered but will use instead of wiping the drive, losing all the other partitions.

Gracias,

~Dennis

Bummer.... System Preferences hangs when I try to access the Accounts prefpane, so I can't create a new admin user, and there are no other user accounts on this machine. But I will be patient awhile longer to see what light of genius shines on this perplexity.

~Dennis

Is root enabled?

Good clue, yellow... root is enabled; and when I logout to log back in as root, I enter root and password, hit return - then the system stalls with the color pinwheel. Really, I've never seen a root login fail. This tells me that something is seriously amiss. So perhaps I will finish my work for the day, using non-Apple applications and do a drastic reinstall. Unless you have some ideas.

All ears,

~Dennis

Looks like only recourse ....
 

Please note that unless you have some unique needs to Paritition, the Archive and install option makes the option unnecessary the way one used to Keep Apps, OS, and OS9 on separte paritions.

I sill do use Partitions on other drives for Cloning, e.g. External FW Drive where I keep a large drive paritioned into Daily, Weekly and experimental clones of my system.

------------------
Archive and isntall with OUT user settings. Provides a clean install with out having to reformat.

You will have drag Apps from Previous Apps to new, Old Desktop to new, reinstall some Apps, Printers etc. Easier then reformatting.

Good Luck.

I took your advice, anthlover, to archive and install leaving user stuff unchecked. It was successful with all Apple apps working. Then I copied over user files and prefs, rebooted, now Apple apps don't work again. I wish I knew what Apple is allergic to in my files, application support, and prefs. Strange indeed. Guess I'll start over yet again. Entertaining, but tedious.

~Dennis

Well, at least you know it is something in your prefs etc.

The thing to do is to copy your prefs over one at a time now or use the binary search method
- copy over half your prefs
- works? copy over half of the remaining ones

- doesn't work
- remove half of what you copied over

rinse lather repeat...

Good luck.

Douglas, thank you and hayne, anthlover, yellow and everyone else that helped me get to a successful resolution. I've narrowed it down to something in the user library. I will find it eventually, but right now I'm fully operational. Thanks again everyone.

~Dennis

Once have the time and you find the culprit, please post back here. I, for one, am curious what it was.. and this might be useful later for others in a similar situation that read this thread.

Me Too Curious...
 

Me Too Curious...

Course when you copied your Prefs you kind of Converted your install from With Out User Prefs to WITH**

At least you were able to narrow it down:)

Actually, guys, the only thing I have copied over are my fonts in ~/user/library. I haven't started on Application Support yet. First I'm going to backup my working system to my external firewire... THEN I'll start working through the other stuff as I use my production apps. I promise I will report back when it bites me.

Thanks again more than I can say.

~Dennis

Found it!
 

Okay, this is what happened. In Font Book, I did a "resolve duplicates." Very bad mistake. Note that only Apple apps went down; I thought it might be a font issue. Another user noted this in Ric Ford's MacinTouch website today. Following is my response to the posting:

"Ditto Nick Collingridge’s experience of many Apple apps failing to launch after Font Book, Resolve Duplicates. It was disastrous; and took two days of reinstalling to find the Font Book problem source. If you do not disclose and choose the location of the preferred font to keep, in resolving the duplicate, Font Book does not know to choose the /system/library/fonts (or /library/fonts) location over the same font in OS 9 System Folder. Thus the font becomes disabled and OS X doesn’t like to go to OS 9 for its system fonts; leaving the user twisting in the wind with critical Apple apps unavailable. And no clue why."

~Dennis Hill

tell Apple
 

You should report the bug to Apple, otherwise it may never get fixed.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Done.

~Dennis

Thanx for the Update
 

Thanx for the Update

I just had the same thing happen to me. I added a bunch of fonts to a new collection and found that I had lots of duplicates. I think the problem happened as soon as I deleted some copies of Helvetica. While Fontbook gave me the beachball, I tried to lanch Safari: got the beachball again... then went to Console, again, the beachball. So I force quit all three apps, and restarted. I found a 4 copies of Helveica in the trash and threw them back into the /Library/Fonts folder (the fact that they went in there was just an assumption), but even after a restart I am still getting the problem with Apple apps not launching.

After reading this thread, I suspect that maybe one of the Helveticas was supposed to go into the /System/Library/Fonts folder, but a Helvetica already exists there. Can someone tell me if there is supposed to be another Helvetica in there... Or maybe any more suggestions, because I just did a fresh install of Panther a few weeks ago, and It was a huge pain in the ass since I have no real means of backing up my Data (I had to network to a friends PC to use his hard drive space, and I think I sorta wore out my welcome there).

The only Helvetica I see in my /system/library/fonts is:

Helvetica.dfont
216 KB
Version 4.1d2

If Helvetica was your problem, and you can find this font and put it where it belongs; you should be good to go. Otherwise you might think about an archive and install without preserving user. That will set everything straight, although a troublesome solution if you have no backup.

~Dennis

When you go into Font Book, does Helvetica appear under the "User" section of "All Fonts", or just under the "Computer" section?

If it comes to Archive and Install
 

Doing it with out user Prefs will preserve your data....

That said you should have a back up. FW drives are th best. But At least back up Documents and Apps to CDR or DVD etc.

1) What do you mean "without user Prefs"?

2) Reinstalling can't be the only option! What does Font Book do that can't be undone. The only font I deleted, was one of the Helveticas, which I later found in the trash, so it doesn't permanently delete them. ... And if the problem has to do with disabling fonts or resolving duplicates, where does Font Book store the info that lets the system know that a font is disabled? (I've already tried trashing the fontbook prefs in my user preferences.) If it's just a matter of Fonts being in the right place, doesn't that seem like it's be easy enough to fix?

I don't have time at the moment to check this out, but it occurred to me that fonts are a personal thing. So I looked in: And there seems to be info there about font collections. How about copying these files from a new user account to replace your 'bad' ones?

edit: spelling

I can't make a new user account using the Accounts PrefPane because it hangs as a result of my problem. And, for some reason, I can't enable the root user. The font collections you listed are exactly the same as mine and none of them have mod dates later than my initial install date. So I doubt they have anything to do with it.

I, too, was unable to create a new user or login as root. When I performed an archive and install not preserving user settings, all my user data was archived, but the the system was clean and the Font Book settings refreshed to default. Thus everything worked perfectly again. I simply moved my archived user files over to the new user created with the install.

To backup your files, perhaps you know someone with an iPod.

~Dennis

Archive and Install with and with out user Prefs
 

Archive and Install with and with out user Prefs:

These installation Options which became available with 10.2/Jaguar and later allow one to install a new System with out first reformatting their Drive (Having Backups is still Sage Advice)

Both Options Create a new System folder and a Previous one out of your existing.

With** user Prefs Installer trys to exactly recreate the current environment with very few exceptions (that I am aware of Palm Conduits, NAV9, Custom Mouse Drivers and CCC off the top of my head are the only casualties).

With OUT** User prefs is a TRUE clean install with out** having to reformat. You will have drag Apps from Previous Apps to New Apps folder, Old Desktop items to new etc, Some Apps will require reinstalling. ,Recreate Printers etc.

In Both versions Systems Patches need to be reinstalled etc.
-------------------

Yes some of us may be able to help you unscramble the Egg (As you are aware there is a bug in Font Book that allows one to wipe your fonts). Wether your suppostion is correct that they only end up in the trash to be put back in the correct place I am unsure of.

Helvetica can not be the only Font the system needs to function.

You will need to do WITH OUT user Prefs as you do not want to recreate teh current problems.

I'm sure I saw a way on these forums to construct a new user account from the Terminal. If I can find it, I'll post a link to it.

There was an article on the main macosxhints site:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...30603190314390

okay... At this point I don't know how a new user account will help me if I don't know what files (or lack of files) are to blame. Not to mention that dbhill already noted that switching to the root user didn't work.

Last time I did a fresh install I was smart enough to create a separate partition for OS9 (about 6gigs available on it), so I can back up some of my stuff. However, I have a number of files that I have set the ownership to www and the group to admin, but when I copy them the ownership changes to zeb. How can I copy these files without losing the ownership and permissions?

I searched and searched, but could not find it.

However, what if you downloaded TinkerTool and used it to change the Application font for your system.

Tinkertool claims that the follow fonts (at various sizes) for
System: LucidaGrande
System(headlines): LucidaGrand-Bold
Application: Helvetica
Fixed-pitch: Monaco
Messages: LucidaGrande
Labels: LucidaGrande
Help-Tags: LucidaGrande
Window Title Bars: LucidaGrande
Utility Title Bars: LucidaGrande

So perhaps if you used TinkerTool to change the Application font to anything besides Helvetica, then you could open Accounts long enough to create a new user.

As an alternative, perhaps one could create a new user using Netinfo Manager...except that one could probably not open Netinfo Manager either.

NetInfo Manager does work, but I was unable to enable the root user... if that says anyhting...

I will try TinkerTool. I have that sitting around in my Apps folder...

Standby...

no dice... :mad: beachball

The one I thought might work didn't and the one I thought would not work did (although not well enough to help).

You could try to use hayne's link to create the new user account, and then migrate all of the personal files in your current user account over to the new user account. Once you're sure you've moved everything, then delete the old user account. I'm thinking that if you used the Terminal to move those particular files over, then their ownership and permissions would be preserved [someone else might chime in here to prove me wrong if I am wrong]. Before you move those over, you should change the ownership on all your other files to newuser:admin or whatever to agree with the new account.

** slaps forehead **

I emptied the /Library/Caches folder and everything works now. :) I think the problem was in the /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/501 folder.

Th only weird thing is that the fonts menu is quite smaller than I remember it being. I'll have to proceed with great caution now... maybe I'll manually add fonts to the ~/Library/Fonts folder...

I like the idea of an Apple font management utility, but I think I'll let it evolve a bit before I start depending on it!

As far as how to copy files while preserving the ownerships... does anyone have any ideas? I remember hearing about this a while back. I think it had to do with creating a backup with a third party utility...

ditto will try to preserve file ownership and permissions

Thanks.

For basic system set up
 

Please note for Future that for a basic system set up, separte partitions are no longer necessary. That whole System X, Apps, and OS9 Parition thing is no longer needed thanx to Archive and install in X and clean install in 9.

This not to say that for other uses e.g. Cloning that partitions are not useful.

Glad your problems resolved...

Thanks for the info, it's good to know. I did it more for organizational reasons, and to have a method of backing up if I needed to.

I'm not sure if it's Panther or separating the two systems, but since I did it, my computer runs much faster. Especially during startup/log-in. It would often take more than three minutes to startup in Jaguar, and 45sec.-1min. to log-in. Meanwhile, OS9 outperformed Jaguar in almost all file system actions.

It is Panther that is giving you the speed boost
 

It is Panther that is giving you the speed boost:)

Though Reformating your drive is the brute force way to repair disk damage and this too would make your system start up faster if you had any.

Panther is faster in many other ways.

Re: It is Panther that is giving you the speed boost
 

Yes, and it was long overdue. Too much playing around like a kid in the candy store when I first switched to OSX a year ago... Remnants of trial and error. ;)

I also noticed that these prefs files change when I enable/disable a font.So removing them may also help. Glad to hear the cache thing got you going again though....