Weird symptoms, please someone help me!

[queenerica]

I have a powermac g4 (mirrored doors)dual 1 gig with 1.25GB of RAM. I have had it since march of 2003. I am running Jaguar 10.2.8
I am having some weird symptoms and I was wondering if someone could help me troubleshoot the problem. Here are some of the strange things my computer is doing:
It often randomly tells me I need to restart my computer by pressing and holding down the start button.
ONe time it suddenly shut off right in front of me. WHen I started it back up, the time was incorrect and the date said 1970.
Firefox and Safari crash over and over.
Sometimes it can't find firefox in order to open it.
One time, it kept asking me for keychain passwords and when I entered the only password I would have for my mac, it said it wasn't valid.
It often freezes up and I get the rainbow spinning wheel. Sometimes it freezes and I just can't do anything.
Sometimes it initially freezes then it goes back to the login screen.
Sometimes mail crashes right after I open it.
I am unable to print and unable to download anything onto my boot hard drive. the printer does show up on the apple profiler though, so I know it is being recognized.
When safari and firefox crash, the console says kern_protection_failure and a bunch of other things, but I am unable to get onto the internet from my house for long enough to post, so I am posting from work where I dont have access to the log.

I have tried repairing permissions (over and over....it still repairs something every time even if I do it 4 times in a row.)
I have run the hardware test on a loop and everything seems fine there. I also created a new user to see if the problems persisted and they do.
I downloaded cocktail (onto another drive)to try to clean up the cache but it won;t mount and gave me an error message (can't remember what it said, but it was a weird one....somthing like a bad tunnel or tube or something).
I have plenty of hard drive space available so I know it isnt that.

Can someone help? I have a huge project coming up an if my computer doesn't work then I'm screwed!

Thanks!

[fryke]

Maybe it's simply the onboard battery running out? The kernel panic (the telling you to restart in several languages is called "kernel panic") usually is rather about hardware than software. Unless you have unsanity haxies installed, that is.

[queenerica]

What is an unsanity haxie?

[camgangrel21]

If you don't know then that is not what is doing this.
Have you tryed to do a Archive Reinstall of the OS. Do that it most likey will fix what ever is going on in software. 2nd you most likey need a new battery. I had something like this happen to me and when I got a new battery of my 450 x 2 PowerMac G4. It put a stop to it. But a Archive reinstall and then updateing your system back up to 10.2.8 will go a long way in know that it is not Software. And doing that will not lost any of your apps or other stuff. Just gives you a "New" install of the OS system only.

[barhar]

Unsanity is a software publisher; and a haxie is a type of software.

An Unsanity haxie is software written by Unsanity. (Ciick here to view their products.)

Typically, Unsanity haxies are accessible via the 'System Preferences' application (accessible via the 'Apple, System Preferences...' menu item, or the '/Applications/' folder). in the 'Other' section.

----

Order and install a 922-4028 (or equivalent) '3.6 Volt, 850 mA (milli-ampere) Lithium battery.

The battery size is 1/2 AA.
You may also see 850 mAh, for milliampere hour.

Here are some links:

synaptech.com - $5.00
macsupportstore.com - $14.00.
partstore.com - (ridiculous)
If desperate - radioshack.com - $14.99.
Other links.

-----

While a possible last means, please do not fall into the Windoze way [new - MacOS X way] of handling problems - and immediately perform either an Archive and Reinstall or Erase and Install.

[queenerica]

Will I be able to install that battery myself?
Yesterday, my computer worked for the most part ...til it crashed on me.
This morning, I started it up, tried to click on the firefox icon in my dock and the whole thing froze then gave me an error message. Then I had to turn it off with the start button. I started it back up and got onto safari which it let me use for awhile. Then safari crashed. Then I just wanted to write something I had not yet finished in Textedit so I did that and during that time I opened ICAL then that crashed and then Textedit would not let me save my document on the desktop but it would let me save a "save as" version on another internal hard drive I have. I was able to copy one of the crash logs (not sure which one it was for) and it said the following:


Mac OS X Version 10.2.8 (Build 6R73)
2006-07-04 07:04:14.199 Safari[433] Font GB18030Bitmap: in _readBasicMetricsForSize, claims 0 max advance but is fixed-pitch.
2006-07-04 07:12:04.861 Safari[433] ABAddressBook could not aquireLock: writeLock error Bad file descriptor: 'Framework/AddressBook/ABAddressBook.m' line: 1396
2006-07-04 07:12:04.862 Safari[433] -[ABAddressBook _initDefaultContactManager] Can't _acquireLock Framework/AddressBook/ABAddressBook.m:1403
Jul 4 07:12:05 Erica-Simpsons-Computer crashdump: Crash report written to: /Users/ericasimpson/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Safari.crash.log

2006-07-04 07:13:23.334 iCal[438] ABAddressBook could not aquireLock: writeLock error Bad file descriptor: 'Framework/AddressBook/ABAddressBook.m' line: 1396
2006-07-04 07:13:23.334 iCal[438] -[ABAddressBook _initDefaultContactManager] Can't _acquireLock Framework/AddressBook/ABAddressBook.m:1403
Jul 4 07:13:23 Erica-Simpsons-Computer crashdump: Crash report written to: /Users/ericasimpson/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/iCal.crash.log

Do you still think this is the battery?
PLease help...I'm going crazy (and rapidly losing my faith in macintosh)
Thanks

[queenerica]

This morning I fired up my computer and clicked a different user to see what happened. Immediately I noticed that one of my internal hard drives did not mount. So I went to my regular user and Immediately I noticed that the picture I had had as my wallpaper was gone on only ONE of my screens (I have two flat panels) and replaced my the default blue screen. I then went to disk utility/first aid to try to repair permissions and none of my volumes apperared in the left side window pane. I did a resart and my wallpaper picture was back. I tried clicking on my firefox icon and the dock froze in the magnified position and I started to get the spinning wheel. It eventually defroze and I got the crash log you will find at the end of this post. Safari seems to be working. I am going to try to post every time this computer does something else weird until I can find out what the problem is...the probs are so weird that the usual advice seems like it would be grasping at straws without more details on what it is doing.
Also, Here are some of the Applications I am running on this computer (not sure if it makes any difference):
Adobe After Effects 5.5
Final Cut Pro 3
Garage band
CanoScan ToolBox (for my canon Lide50 scanner)
Click and Design 3d ( a program that helps me make cd labels and such
Adobe Photoshop CS
Firefox
ABiWord (converts WORD docs into something I can read)
Acrobat Reader
IDVD
IMOVIE
IPHOTO
ITUNES

IN terms of peripherals :
canon PIXMAIP4200
I have a Panasonic AG-DV Tape deck
and right now not attached, but a scanner and a casio camera dock I plug in when I need it.
Before I shut the computer down before, the craash log said something about autodiskmount which I have no idea what that is.
Here is the most recent crash log :

Mac OS X Version 10.2.8 (Build 6R73)
*** malloc[419]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x12bf840; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug
: for architecture i386 object: ./Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes malformed object (unknown flavor for flavor number 0 in LC_UNIXTHREAD command 27 can't byte swap it)

Jul 5 06:50:51 Erica-Simpsons-Computer /sbin/autodiskmount[226]: disk5s2 hfs no no Firefox [not mounted]

Jul 5 06:50:52 Erica-Simpsons-Computer crashdump: Crash report written to: /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/autodiskmount.crash.log

DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -2
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -2
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -2
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -2
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
2006-07-05 06:52:22.678 loginwindow[370] Could not find image named `bang'.
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
DOCK: CFMessagePortSendRequest returned -1
/usr/bin/hdid: mounting "Firefox 1.5.dmg" failed: Operation timed out.
DiskArbitrationRegister failed: 1102
DiskArbitrationRegister failed: 1102
2006-07-05 06:55:13.948 Safari[432] ABAddressBook could not aquireLock: writeLock error Bad file descriptor: 'Framework/AddressBook/ABAddressBook.m' line: 1396
2006-07-05 06:55:13.948 Safari[432] -[ABAddressBook _initDefaultContactManager] Can't _acquireLock Framework/AddressBook/ABAddressBook.m:1403
Jul 5 06:55:14 Erica-Simpsons-Computer crashdump: Crash report written to: /Users/ericasimpson/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Safari.crash.log

DiskArbitrationRegister failed: 1102
DiskArbitrationRegister failed: 1102
DiskArbitrationRegister failed: 1102
DiskArbitrationRegister failed: 1102


Is any of this making any sense to anyone? Will documenting the crashes and logs and weird behavior help in diagnosing the problem?
thanks

[nixgeek]

OK, try unplugging all of your devices except for the keyboard and the mouse. Reboot and test the system by using it as you usually do. If the crashes go away, then it's possible that it's a bad driver from one of the other peripherals. Plug them in one by one, rebooting once you plug each device and then use it as usual. If the crashes begin once you've connected a particular peripheral, then you know it's the software for that particular peripheral.

If that doesn't do it, then it could be the battery (as mentioned above....doesn't hurt to replace it...remember that your Mac is quite old and those batteries only last for a number of years before they go belly up and start causing weird problems on the Macs).

The other option is to boot from the install discs and run Disk Utility from there (since you can't repair with Disk Utility when you're booted from the hard drive). Once you've booted from the install discs head to the menubar and look for the option to launch Disk Utility. Then select your hard drive and run a Repair Disk. Do it until you see them message that the volume is OK.

The last resort I would say is to try what barhar suggested about the Archive and Install. This basically installs a new System folder but keeps everyting intact.....documents, apps, and other stuff that pertains to your account.

Give those options a try and let us know what happens. Good luck.