I am running 10.3.9 on dual G5 1.8 ghz. Untill recently I had 512 MB RAM
and upgraded to 1 G. There is no difference in the very slow start up time, which takes up to 4 minutes. I have noticed some increase in speed when working in Photoshop, but none in the starting up. Is it normal that it takes this long? It seems like it used to be faster. If you have any ideas, I will appreciate them!

Thanks,

-alimaj

No, this is not normal at all. Hold down command-V (for verbose) immediately after starting up. You should see text messages instead of the normal gray screen with whirly icon. Where do the text messages get hung up?

Trevor

yeh... even the powermac G4 400 in the office starts up inside 30 seconds....

Your G5 sounds like its having problems... once you have done Trevors suggestion it might be worth running disk utility from the CD and repairing and verifying everything.... then run the hardware test CD, run it on a loop over night see if it picks up any problems...

Also..... have you got a whole LOAD of fonts turned on in font book?.. I dropped a few thousand in a few years ago and got slow startup times like you describe!

Thank you all for your replies. I tried the command-v thing, didn't work. Disabled all fonts in Fontbook and no difference. So I called Apple support. To make it short, I couldn't "repair disk" so I was told that I'll have to erase and clean install. Scary. Please bear with my ignorance - what would be the best way to back up EVERYTHING I have? I have copied tons off stuff to my external LaCie but is that good enough? I really want to keep tons of my e-mails, Quicken data etc.
Thanks.

-alimaj

You're giving up WAY too fast. The first line of Apple support has a little guide with their little rote answers, and if your problem doesn't appear on their list they ALWAYS tell you to Erase and Install. This is sometimes a really stupid thing for them to tell people, but it keeps the tech's call times down.

(Not that there aren't times when that's the best answer, but it's not the best answer YET.)

First of all, "the command-v thing" will always work unless you have the Open Firmware password set, or you are using a keyboard that is not supported during bootup, like a wireless keyboard.

Either way, here's a workaround. Boot to OS X. Open up your Terminal. Enter the following command by cutting and pasting it from here into your Terminal, then hit Return.

sudo nvram boot-args="-v"

(If you want to turn off this behavior later, copy/paste sudo nvram boot-args="" in at a later time.)

Enter your admin password when asked.

Now, restart the computer. It will start up in verbose mode, with text scrolling by. Tell us on what line of text it stalls.

Trevor

Off-topic
 

Here's an amusing skit about tech support that is not too far off of reality:
"Welcome To The Internet Helpdesk"

try reseting your pram

Thanks you guys for all your replies. I didn't have time to really deal with the problem past week.
I AM electronically challenged and suffer from digital anxiety. I use these things but know almost nothing about them. Kind of like cars.
Anyway, I've been having troubles for a while. Got lots of spinning rainbow wheels (clicking to change backgr.&foregr. color in Photoshop, sometimes clicking other tools, LOTS in Painter 8 Kai plugins-almost always have to force quit, Illustrator CS used to quit unexpectedly a LOT, don't know about CS2 quite yet, Safari quits unexpectedly too, couldn't open Palm desktop and Illustrator CS at the same time- get an error message and the list goes on and on.)
When I talked to the Apple guy, I booted from OSX Install. disk 1 and tried to run Repair disk. I got bunch of things in red, the first one was "keys out of order" and a message that disk cannot be repaired. That's when he said I'll need to erase-install.
Do you still think I don't need to do that? Given all these little very annoying problems happening all the time, part of me wants to do it to start out clean again......sigh......

"Keys out of order" means that your hard drive has some very serious problems with it's filesystem. Erasing and installing is one option (and it suddenly makes much more sense why the Apple tech told you that.

However, there is a fix that usually works for keys out of order--and that is to run DiskWarrior on your hard drive. You can see information about DiskWarrior here: http://alsoft.com but don't just buy the web download--you need the bootable CD, and the quickest way to get that is to go to your local Apple Store or CompUSA and buy it.

Then boot to it, select your hard drive, and click the button to fix.

Trevor

Trevor, is the Disk Warrior a prefferable option to erase-install? With the D. Warr. I don't have to backup my entire life?
Thanks!!

Well, I'm obligated (I think there's a law somewhere) to note that you always need a backup no matter what you do. And this is especially true if your disk already has issues--like yours does. If you have the ability to make a backup, you need to do that in any event. Always have a backup plan.

What DiskWarrior will probably save you from is not the backup, but the restore from backup. In other words, it is likely (but not assured) to fix your hard drive with data in place.

Trevor

OK, I will try it in the next few days.
Again, forgive me, but when you say "boot to it" do you mean insert the disc and then hold down the "c" key?
Also, I just checked some reviews of DW on Amazon and they are pretty mixed....

Yes, insert the disc, restart, and hold down the C key. You could also alternatively (if you wish) set the CD as the startup volume in System Preferences > Startup Disk.

As for the reviews on Amazon, I wouldn't give them much credence. If you ask the experts on this forum, you will find DiskWarrior to extremely well regarded.

Trevor

Just got the DiskWarrior, will do it now.
I'll report on the result.
My heart is pounding.

I just finished running the Diskwarrior. It seemed pretty easy. I had it rebuild the directory. I think I see some improvement in speed opening applications like in CS2. The START UP time went down from 2'44" to 2'05" so I guess that's an improvement but it still seems slow!

This is my question now:

When I booted from OS X Install. CD and tried to "Repair Disk" it said the disk couldn't be repaired and it showed "keys out order" in red (with other things). I understand that DiskWarrior would fix the "keys out of order" but maybe there is still something else that needs to be fixed? Would it make sense to try to boot from OS X CD and now try to repair disk? Is my assumption correct that it couldn't repair disk BECAUSE keys were out of order? Now that (presumabely) they are in order, would it work?
Thanks,

-alimaj

Everything should have been fixed by DiskWarrior.
But it is always a good idea to check again using Disk Utility's "Repair Disk" or using 'fsck -fy' from single-user mode.

And I note that the first startup after a disk repair (or after a system update) is usually slower than subsequent startups.

Report continued:

later today I booted from OSX Inst. disk and did "repair disk". This time it repaired. Start up time now is still over 2 minutes.

Overall tere is increase in speed in opening applications, I think. But I've been working with Phosotsop CS2 and now am getting rainbow wheel spinning much more than usual. Doesn't last very long, but happens every other time I click on a tool or do something. It's actually really annoying.

I tried to work in Painter 8 with KPT collection plug-ins. Every time I wanted to use one of the plug-ins it would ask me for a license number. One of the plug-ins (I think it's Scatter) gets totally hung-up with a rainbow wheel spinning for hours. Have to force-quit, just like before I ran DW and disk repair. So I think there is still something not right, and being the retard I am, I have no idea what to look for.

-alimaj

Please press command-V immediately as your computer starts up and hold it down until you get a text screen. Or use the workaround I outlined in post #5 above. Then tell us what the message is where the computer pauses for a long time.

Trevor

Thanks, Trevor, I just started up in the verbose mode. The text was scrolling by pretty fast, it stopped for maybe max of 3-5 seconds couple of times. I was not able to read that quickly what these lines said.

-alimaj

The start up normally goes like this: black screen about 20 secs, gray 24 secs, blue 5 secs and the rest is my desktop background picture with no icons, no menu bar, just rainbow wheel in the upper left corner. So that's where it is about 1 1/2 minutes. In the verbose mode, the text went by fairly fast and then it went to the desktop background pic, where it stayed again for a long time.

You need to distinguish between system startup time and login time.
(This distinction would be clearer if you turned off "auto-login" for your account in the Accounts preferences.)

What you have said above indicates that the system startup time is less than a minute. But then it takes 1.5 minutes for your login.
So you want to investigate why your login is taking so long. You probably have some login items (programs that launch at login) in your Accounts preferences and it is one of these that is causing the delay.
Or maybe there is something else wrong with your user account that is causing the delay.

One way to check on this if it isn't clear immediately what is causing the delay would be to create a new user account and login under that account to see the difference.

Hayne, thanks. I actually have NO apps in the startup items (is that what you are mean?). I am the only user of this computer. I do have the Automatic login checked. I don't use a login password, because it's only using this machine. So what could be causing such a long login? And the rainbow wheel in Photoshop - that's a new thing since I ran DiskWarrior today.......I really appreciate you trying to help me!

What happens if I turned the auto-login off? Will it ask me for a password?
Would it be the same one I use to install anything on the computer - I don't remember creating anotherone for login. I just want to make sure if I turn it off that I will be able to use the machine.

Yes - that is your account password. You use the same password to login as to permit installations that have system-wide effect.
Depending on the Accounts preferences, it may also ask you for your username - so make sure you know what that is. You probably know this - it is what your home folder is named.

It would be a good idea (as I said above) if you created a fresh new user account that you could use for testing. After you log out, try logging in as your regular user. Then log out again and log in as the newly created user.

You will want to test to see if this problem happens for that newly created user account, or if it is just a problem for your original account.

You might try reinstalling that application.
Also try doing Keychain repair (with "Keychain Access" which is under /Applications/Utilities)

Otherwise try the standard troubleshooting suggestions:
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/ (see the "My Mac needs help" section)
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...04011205473937
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=7269
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html

Yes - sorry, I forgot that you are using 10.3 - they are called "login items" (which is more correct) in 10.4

Thanks for the replies, hayne.

I just want to make sure I understand everything about my existing and/or newly created account names and passwords. This is what is currently in Accounts in sys. preferences:

My account

my account name here
Admin


Disply Login Window as: List of users (is checked)

Automaticaly log in as: my account name here (is checked)

(everything else is unchecked)



(when I click on my account, on the right side is:):

Name: my account name here

Shortname (greyed out) : my short name here (which is the same as the one next to the house icon in Finder - is that waht you call home folder?)

(under security):

A master password is NOT SET for this computer

FileVault protection is OFF for this account

---------

So if I want to create new account, I will have new account name, new shortname and new password?

I am asking all these (for you) trivial questions because I want to make sure I don't get locked out of my own computer. When I first got it more about 2 years ago and set all this up - I can't remember a thing about how and what I did.

Also, do I have to worry about about FileVault? Is it to protect my stuff from somebody else accessing it?

Thanks,

-alimaj

Yes - your home folder has a house icon.

When you disable the "auto-login" and then restart the Mac, it will come up with a "login window" asking you for your username and password. I think you can use either your long or short username there.

Yes.
Of course, this doesn't affect your existing account. After you add the new account, there will be two user accounts on the Mac and you can choose which one to use on the login window.

By the way, you use the "+" sign in Accounts preferences to create the new account.

FileVault encrypts your whole home folder when you are not logged in. You definitely don't want to enable it. It has been known to sometimes cause problems.

OK, so I disabled the auto-login and restarted the computer. Now the login part took 48 seconds (down from 1.5 minutes), so that seems like a substantial improvement.I also have NO apps in startup items. I expected it to ask me for my name and password, but it didn't. Maybe because "the master password is NOT set on this computer"?
So does it seem now like a normal startup+login time (1'39" total)? It sure went down a bit.
I haven't created another user yet, will do it next and try out things.
Thanks for helping :-)

-alimaj

I don't understand. If you disable auto-login, then you should get to the login window when you restart the computer. And you need to supply your name and password at the login window. What did happen?

Well, I just checked login options and automatic login is ON - hmmm, I turned it off, so I don't know what happened (this is after I restarted with automatic turned off, or so I thought). I am going to do this again now. It is interesting, that the login time was shorter though.
-alimaj

OK, I don't know what happened the first time but now I restarted and it asked me for a name and password. After I did that, it took 1' 25" to login.
I will go back to automatic and check the login time again. I am so confused.

Now, with automatic login, it also took 1' 25". I wonder what I did that time that it took only 48 seconds.

I created new account. set it to "needs no limits" and automatic login ON. I restarted and after typing in name&password it logged in in no time except it looked like a brand new computer with the default desktop and none of my stuff (icons etc.). I freaked out for few secs till I saw I could click the lock to make changes and changed to my admin account. Phew. Now I am back to my original account.

I noticed an option under Security in the new account to check "allow user to administer this account'. Would turning that ON and login in as that user bring me to my original (admin) screen upon restarting?

I see there are neighborhoods on my computer I haven't visited before.

-alimaj

I would suggest that you turn automatic login OFF.

That is correct behavior. This is a brand new account, completely separate from your other account. Your new user has a different set of privileges, different home folder, different desktop, etc.

No, that just makes the new account an "Admin" account, able to escalate his or her privileges if necessary to install certain software, etc.

Trevor

Thanks, Trevor.
So logged in with the new user account I wouldn't be able to access any of my original account's files, apps etc.?

You mean that even though you had "auto-login" set for this new user account, it came up with the login window (asking you for name & password) when you restarted? That is strange.

It seems you don't understand what user accounts are all about.
Each user account (now you have two) has its own "home" folder (where the files created by that user (e.g. MS Word documents) are stored. And each user account has its own separate set of preferences governing how the computer will look and act. By default, the documents etc of userA are not accessible to userB. Thus each user can log in (at different times) and use the computer without affecting the other.

I'm not sure what it was that you changed. It isn't necessary to change anything to switch to a different user account. You just logout (using the Apple menu) and then you get back to the login window where you enter the name and password of the other user you want to log in as.

No. The idea is that some users (those with "admin" status) have more power over the computer than others. E.g. in order to update the OS (Software Update) you need to have "admin" status.
You can have more than one user account on the computer that has "admin" status.

[QUOTE=hayne]You mean that even though you had "auto-login" set for this new user account, it came up with the login window (asking you for name & password) when you restarted? That is strange.


hayne, I am sorry, I might have messed up so probably I had the automatic
login OFF. My apologies.

If you can still stand this, what else do you think I should do about my glitches? I really want to try NOT to erase/install, can't deal with that right now. Should I perhaps run repair disk and/or DW one more time? Or just live with it? It seems like there IS something wrong somewhere. What is really getting in the way is the spinning ball in Photoshop, I spend a lot of time there, also some very slow brushes in Painter. That's new.

You can move or copy files from your account to the Shared folder (it's full path is your boot drive > Users > Shared) to be accessible by any user on the computer. You can also set up permissions on any folder under your control to give other people access to it, including limiting access to read-only, or write-only, or to only certain people or certain groups of people. Permissions are fairly flexible and powerful, and one of the many reasons that OS X and other operating systems based on Unix or similar to Unix are monumentally more secure than Windows.

Also, the fact is that using the default setup of OS X, an admin user can give themselves temporary root privileges from the command line, at which time they can see any file on the computer. That's one reason that you don't let just anyone have an admin account on your computer.

Trevor

Trevor, thank for explaining that. I just never had to deal with another user so never looked into this.

Hayne linked to several excellent Troubleshooting pages above. I would suggest that you go through those.

One of the items detailed on some of those pages is that if you are not confident that your current OS might not have some corruption, you can try downloading and installing the combo update of the same OS point version that you are already running. So, for example, if you are running Tiger 10.4.3, download the 10.4.3 combo updater from Apple, and run that overtop of your existing install.

That's just one possible fix for your glitches--check out the links that Hayne gave you above.

Trevor

I think that the scenario you describe (Automatic Login ON but you are still asked to give username and password) is possible when you have Automatic Login switched on in System Preferences > Accounts, but in System Preferences > Security, you have the setting "Disable automatic login" checked.

But I've never actually verified that.

Trevor

I've been looking at Hayne's links to the troubleshooting pages.
I just ran "repair disk permissions" and login time is 58 seconds.

Right now I am downloading combo update for 10.3.9 and will do as you suggested. See what that does.

I just installed the 10.3.9 combo update. Login time 1'26".

Just an update - I created a new user account. Things work LOT faster now. For example, in Photoshop using eraser tool in brush mode was very slow in my original account (got the watch icon, so I could never tell how precise I am at the moment), in the new user's acc. this is not an issue. However, some things in the new one don't work well at all. I think it should be a different thread so I will do that.
The question is - is this a good fix? Just work in the new account and not worry about why the first one isn't working right? Or could it be something that will "creep" into the new one?
Thanks for all your time and help!!!!
-alimaj

That's not really the fix I would advise. Since you've created a new account and the problem went away, we now know that the (remaining) problem is in your main account. I.e. it is probably somewhere in your /Library folder somewhere.

You can start with quitting Photoshop, then dragging any PS-related prefs files out of /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences to the Desktop, relaunching PS and checking if the problem goes away.

Trevor

Trevor, thanks. I did as you said and the eraser-brush mode now works perfectly :-)
I tested the login time again as the main user. If I log out and then log in again, the login time 8 seconds! But if I restart, then the login time is 1'25". Is that normal?

It isn't clear whether you are distinguishing "startup time" (the time the system takes until it shows you the login window) from "login time" (the time from when you type in your password until you can use Finder etc.
If you have auto-login set, it is more difficult to see the boundary between these two. If you are doing timings, it is best to disable auto-login.

Hayne, automatic login is OFF and I do measure the login time - from the time I type in name and password and hit the login button. So in my post #47 I truly meant login time, not startup time.

Then that is a bit strange. I would expect the login time to be a bit longer when you restart (as opposed to just logging out and in again) because the various files used are cached in RAM so less disk access would be needed. Restarting clears all the caches.
But that shouldn't have such a large effect.

Do you have a large number of files on your Desktop? (that would slow down the launch of Finder)

Otherwise, watch carefully so you can describe to us exactly what is happening when you log in. What things appear first? What appears after 8 seconds? What doesn't appear until after a minute?

When I log out and then login, first I see background picture, after about 7-8 seconds the menu bar comes on, and very quickly the dock and all desktop. BUT - this was true for all but one such login, which took over 30 secs. Before that one I didn't manually quit applications before logging out. Does that matter?

After restart, first the desktop pic, ball is spinning and then, after more than a minute (from logging in) the upper right corner of the menu bar comes on - the menu bar is transparent and I get the time, the american flag and so on continuing to the left until it's all there, then the dock and icons.

It doesn't really matter. All the apps will be quit automatically when you log out.

Hmm - it sounds like something in that right-side of the menubar is slowing things down.
Are you using Airport?
What things are up there in the right side of the menubar?
Do you have any 3rd-party menubar items? (If so, try removing them)

You should also look for messages in the log files.
Launch the "Console" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and look for relevant error messages. Note that messages are labeled with the date & time so you can use that to locate the part of the log to look at. Copy & paste the relevant messages back here so we can see them.

console log after restarting
 

Here are parts of the log from restarting: I put the first and last lines in so that you can see the time and then I cut out everything that didn't say anything about error. Not sure if I should include anything else:


Nov 19 17:10:47 localhost syslogd: restart

Nov 19 17:10:50 localhost kernel: AppleRS232Serial: 0 0 AppleRS232Serial::start - returning false early, Connector or machine incorrect
Nov 19 17:10:50 localhost kernel: IOPlatformControl::registerDriver Control Driver AppleSlewClock did not supply target-value, using default


Nov 19 17:10:59 localhost SystemStarter: The "HasShadow" window property is obsolete. Use CGSSetWindowShadowAndRimParameters(cid, wid, 0.0,0.0, 0,0, CGSNoShadowStyle) to turn off the window shadow instead. Set a break-point on CGSLogMessage to find out where this property is set.

Nov 19 17:10:59 localhost ConsoleMessage: Checking disks
Nov 19 17:10:59 localhost syslogd: /dev/console: Input/output error

Nov 19 17:11:14 localhost DirectoryService[219]: DS (SLP) couldn't register Jamila Hla Shwe’s Computer (afp) due to an error: 57!

Nov 19 17:11:16 localhost SystemStarter: Startup complete.
Nov 19 17:11:24 localhost DirectoryService[219]: DS (SLP) couldn't register awws://192.168.1.102:3703?name=Jamila-Hla-Shwes-Computer.local&version=2.0&guid=6374401f-b60a-10ed-bf97-8863394ac238 (awws) due to an error: 57!
Nov 19 17:11:37 localhost diskarbitrationd[91]: disk1s6 hfs 9FC951FA-D10F-3488-BDB1-F85CE9E25628 LaCie /Volumes/LaCie
Nov 19 17:12:43 localhost kernel: resize: max chain len 37, new table size 8192

console log of login after logout
 

And here is the entire log from logging in after logout:


Nov 19 17:28:55 localhost loginwindow[197]: sendQuitEventToApp (Xcode): AESendWithMach returned error -609
Nov 19 17:28:57 localhost automount[306]: logout notification received.
Nov 19 17:28:57 localhost automount[306]: requesting logout processing.
Nov 19 17:28:57 localhost automount[311]: logout notification received.
Nov 19 17:28:57 localhost automount[311]: requesting logout processing.
Nov 19 17:28:57 localhost automount[306]: handle_deferred_requests: user logged out.
Nov 19 17:28:57 localhost automount[311]: handle_deferred_requests: user logged out.
Nov 19 17:28:58 localhost /Library/StartupItems/Tablet/TabletDriverRelauncher: switch bootstrap from 2403 to 2603
Nov 19 17:28:59 localhost /System/Library/CoreServices/ARD Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARD Agent: ********Launched Agent********
Nov 19 17:29:10 localhost diskarbitrationd[91]: disk1s6 hfs 9FC951FA-D10F-3488-BDB1-F85CE9E25628 LaCie /Volumes/LaCie

removed items from menu bar
 

So I removed third-party items from the right side of menu bar, now I have (from the right): date&time, american flag, modem, PPoe status,volume, airport (it's turned off and it has been for a year) and display.

After I removed everything else I restarted and login time was 1:36". Longer than before.

these are parts of this consol log:

Nov 19 17:46:22 localhost kernel: AppleRS232Serial: 0 0 AppleRS232Serial::start - returning false early, Connector or machine incorrect

Nov 19 17:46:31 localhost SystemStarter: The "HasShadow" window property is obsolete. Use CGSSetWindowShadowAndRimParameters(cid, wid, 0.0,0.0, 0,0, CGSNoShadowStyle) to turn off the window shadow instead. Set a break-point on CGSLogMessage to find out where this property is set.
Nov 19 17:46:31 localhost syslogd: /dev/console: Input/output error

Nov 19 17:47:06 localhost DirectoryService[216]: DS (SLP) couldn't register awws://192.168.1.102:3703?name=Jamila-Hla-Shwes-Computer.local&version=2.0&guid=6374401f-b60a-10ed-bf97-8863394ac238 (awws) due to an error: 57!


Anything in particular in the log I should be looking for?

Also, I guess I do have bunch of stuff on a desktop (how much is too much?) but would that matter at restart as opposed to logout-login?

Exactly what third party hacks were you running (both on the right side of the menu bar and anywhere)?

What exactly did you do to remove the hacks? Some hacks leave problematic files around even after you've removed the obvious stuff, and that may be slowing things down.

Note that one of the items in the Troubleshooting pages that Hayne gave you links for was to remove any system hacks as a troubleshooting step.

Trevor

I am not sure I know what "hack" is but what I had there was Version Cue, Now -up-to-date contacts, now-up-todate date book and I think that was it.
I just went to preferences of those and unchecked the "show status in menu bar" or something like that.

So if those items are slowing down your computer, they will still be slowing down your computer.

As a troubleshooting step, you need to see if completely removing them from your computer fixes the problem you are seeing. If it doesn't fix the problem, then of course you can reinstall.

A system hack is a program that runs all the time that your computer is running, is not a part of the operating system, and (usually) changes the behavior of your system in some way.

Candybar http://www.panic.com/candybar/ is one example of a system hack. So are the products of Unsanity http://www.unsanity.com/products/ .

If you have any system hacks running, try removing them completely from your system and see if the login time is reduced to a normal period.

Trevor

I don't think I have any of that kind of stuff running. Where should I look to find out?

various things
 

From startup:
This problem might be slowing down the startup. Did you configure something using Directory Services? If you don't know, you probably didn't. Is your computer on a corporate network?


From logout:
Why are you running Xcode?

This "Tablet" StartupItem is something that you must have installed. (By default there is nothing under /Library/StartupItems)
Do you have a tablet of some sort attached to your Mac?
You should disconnect all peripherals while troubleshooting.

I guess this is an external disk drive. You should unmount it and physically disconnect it while troubleshooting.

I don't think I ever (consciously) configured anything with Directory services. My computer is not on a corporate network.

I have no idea what Xcode is and why I am running it.

I do have a wacom tablet attached and an external Lacie drive.

Tomorrow I will try to run things without the tablet and Lacie.

Interestingly enough, I forgot about the fact, that the tablet sometimes just gets turned off in the middle of running. Maybe I should trash everything related and reinstall the driver?

I just found hard drive>library>startup items>tablet

is it where it shouldn't be?

Xcode is an Apple application used by programmers. It's icon is a blue rectangle with a hammer on top. It's not something you would run by accident. That message I referred to seems very strange then.
Please launch the "Terminal" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and copy & paste the following commands, press Return, then copy & paste the results back here so we can see:
ls -l /Developer
echo ---------------

You definitely should check on the manufacturer's web site to see if there is an updated driver.

maybe I did something wrong - I copied and pasted and hit return and got this:

Last login: Sat Nov 19 17:46:45 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
[Jamila-Hla-Shwes-Computer:~] jamilahl%
[Jamila-Hla-Shwes-Computer:~] jamilahl% ls -l /Developer
ls: /Developer: No such file or directory
echo ---------------[Jamila-Hla-Shwes-Computer:~] jamilahl% echo ---------------
---------------
[Jamila-Hla-Shwes-Computer:~] jamilahl%




Also, I looked for xcode in finder and nothing was found.

No - you did it correctly.
What you got ("No such file or directory") is the result I expected. It shows that you haven't got the developer tools installed. Xcode is one of the developer tools.
So don't worry about it, although I still find that message that mentioned Xcode very strange.

More to satisfy my curiosity than anything else, maybe you could launch the "Terminal" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and copy & paste the following commands, press Return, then copy & paste the results back here so we can see:
locate Xcode
echo ---------------

Yes, most definitely. There have been other cases where the Wacom driver caused significant slowdowns. First remove all traces of the Wacom driver and see if the slowdown problem goes away.

If it does, then you know where the problem is. You can check for an updated driver: http://www.wacom.com/productsupport/select.cfm and see if that fixes the problem, or else you will have to decide which is more important--a correctly working computer or the tablet.

Trevor

I will see if it's the tablet. But I don't understand why when logging in as a different user, it's not slow at all and the tablet works just fine.
Unfortunately, both correctly running computer and tablet are important, since I do lots of graphics.
The current driver I have is version 4.77-8. Can I download 4.93-3 or do I have to go sequentially through 4.79-2 and 4.91-3?

You don't have to go through drivers sequentially--just go to the most recent driver.

Trevor

It is probably an interaction between the tablet driver and some preferences that you have set for one user and not the other.
In any case, you definitely should update to the latest driver.
As a general rule, each time there is a system update you should check a week or so later to see if there is an updated driver for all of your 3rd-party peripherals.

Sorry guys that i pitch in, but i've got the very same error message
lately. I didn't want to start a new thread just to announce this issue
i've got;)
Well, i've got this DS (SLP) couldn't register nnn Computer (afp) due to an error: 57! too and i have not the slightest idea what it could
probably mean. Can somebody shed some light on this issue?