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TICKET ARCHIVE -> 10.3.9 can't perform system tasks
studioj - Mar 6, 2006 - 8:41 am
My mac G4 suddenly stopped allowing me to execute various system tasks. For example, if I invoke disk utilty I get the spinning "beach ball" forever. If I try to install any new SW, same behavior (I can mount disk images, but the installers just hang). I can navigate the file system and run all my installed programs. I've booted into safe boot and run disk utilty. I've used the console to rebind my applications. I've run the daily, weekly and monthly cleanup jobs. I've zapped my PRAM. I'm out of ideas... I figure something has happened to one of the background accounts that runs jobs but I have no idea how to figure out which one or what's wrong. Help!
Cheryl - Mar 6, 2006 - 10:36 pm
You can find a log of what is happening from the Console. This gives you a running list of what is going on in the system. Console is in the Utility folder.
How much room is empty on your hard drive? It could be you are slim on the available space the system needs to download and install. Open a window and look at the very bottom. It will show you how many items in that window and the amount of free space.
Do you know how large your hard drive is? You can find this out by going to the Apple Menu and select about this Mac. Now click on more information. The Apple System Profiler will open. Click on Hardware. This will tell you how large the hard drive is.
Cheryl
How much room is empty on your hard drive? It could be you are slim on the available space the system needs to download and install. Open a window and look at the very bottom. It will show you how many items in that window and the amount of free space.
Do you know how large your hard drive is? You can find this out by going to the Apple Menu and select about this Mac. Now click on more information. The Apple System Profiler will open. Click on Hardware. This will tell you how large the hard drive is.
Cheryl
studioj - Mar 6, 2006 - 11:01 pm
The hard drive has 46gb free. THe console is useless... same spinning beach ball thing. I finally gave up after fighting with it for 4 hours today and reinstalled the OS. I have 3 Macs running OS10.3.9 and 30 windows machines running windows XP and 2000. I've had to reload the Mac OS at least three times now on each of these machines... most of the windows machines were loaded 4 years ago and haven't had much done to them. We also have unix machines which are very stable... I don't know what's going on with OSX, but it's starting to make me question how robust an OS it is... THanks for the ideas. Perhaps some day I'll figure out what caused the problem.
Cheryl - Mar 6, 2006 - 11:07 pm
Do you turn off the machines every night? If so, that is the problem. None of the nightly routine jobs are being done to keep the machine in smooth running order.
I suggest you download and install Macaroni.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9633
Once installed and set up, you will notice improvement in about three days. You can set it to do the jobs in the morning when you start up the machine.
You should not need to reinstall the OS unless you have a severe hard drive problem.
Cheryl
I suggest you download and install Macaroni.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9633
Once installed and set up, you will notice improvement in about three days. You can set it to do the jobs in the morning when you start up the machine.
You should not need to reinstall the OS unless you have a severe hard drive problem.
Cheryl
studioj - Mar 7, 2006 - 5:53 am
Machine is on 24/7 and I also manually ran those housekeeping jobs twice during my pilgimage for a solution. My guess is that I really would not have needed to reinstall the OS any of the times that I have... IF the reason that the accounts that run various operating system jobs had become corrupt could be found. What I believe is happening is that the MAC OS allows certain applications to hijack operating system accounts or parameters (I'm beginning to seriously suspect Adobe since it has been at or near the reason for each of my reinstalls)for its own purposes and ultimately this causes the OS to cease to be able to do its housekeeping and basic operations such as disk maintenance. I seriously suspect Adobe but I seriously blame Apple ;-)
Cheryl - Mar 7, 2006 - 10:06 pm
If your machine is on 24/7 does it ever go to sleep? Do you keep programs such as Adobe constantly running?
If your computer is set to sleep - especially the hard drive - (from Energy Saver panel in system preferences) those nightly jobs will not be done. You can set the monitor to sleep but keep the hard drive running.
Try this and let me know what the results are.
1. Shut down the computer if it is on.
2. Press the power button to start the computer.
3. Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and the "s" key for single-user mode.
4. At the command-line prompt, type: /sbin/fsck -fy
5. Press Return.
The fsck utility will go through five "phases" then return information about the disk's utilization and fragmentation. Once the check is finished, if no issue is found, you should see "** The volume (name of volume) appears to be OK."
Note: If fsck alters, repairs, or fixes anything, it will display the message:
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command until it no longer appears. It's OK if you need to do several "passes" of fsck, because first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues.
When fsck reports that, "** The volume (name of volume) appears to be OK.",
6. type: reboot
7. Press Return.
Also, you can use Disk Utility from the OS CD to repair the drive and permissions.
Start up with the OS X CD (matching the version you are running) and do not click on the installer screen. Instead go to the Installer menu and select Disk utility.
When that opens click on the second icon in the side bar at the left, then click on Repair Disk at the bottom right.
Watch the activity screen. If it does any repairs - you will need to click on the Repair Disk button a second time after the first pass is done. The object is to make sure it finds all the problems and repairs them. You may need to hit that button a third or fourth time to get no references to repairs made.
Now click on Repair Permissions.
When that is done, quit Disk utility and restart the computer.
Cheryl
If your computer is set to sleep - especially the hard drive - (from Energy Saver panel in system preferences) those nightly jobs will not be done. You can set the monitor to sleep but keep the hard drive running.
Try this and let me know what the results are.
1. Shut down the computer if it is on.
2. Press the power button to start the computer.
3. Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and the "s" key for single-user mode.
4. At the command-line prompt, type: /sbin/fsck -fy
5. Press Return.
The fsck utility will go through five "phases" then return information about the disk's utilization and fragmentation. Once the check is finished, if no issue is found, you should see "** The volume (name of volume) appears to be OK."
Note: If fsck alters, repairs, or fixes anything, it will display the message:
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command until it no longer appears. It's OK if you need to do several "passes" of fsck, because first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues.
When fsck reports that, "** The volume (name of volume) appears to be OK.",
6. type: reboot
7. Press Return.
Also, you can use Disk Utility from the OS CD to repair the drive and permissions.
Start up with the OS X CD (matching the version you are running) and do not click on the installer screen. Instead go to the Installer menu and select Disk utility.
When that opens click on the second icon in the side bar at the left, then click on Repair Disk at the bottom right.
Watch the activity screen. If it does any repairs - you will need to click on the Repair Disk button a second time after the first pass is done. The object is to make sure it finds all the problems and repairs them. You may need to hit that button a third or fourth time to get no references to repairs made.
Now click on Repair Permissions.
When that is done, quit Disk utility and restart the computer.
Cheryl
studioj - Mar 8, 2006 - 7:41 am
THe machine never sleeps. Adobe apps are sometimes left running for days at a time. Believe me, I have gone through so many disk repairs, permission repairs and fsck's that my head is spinning. The problem was (I'm using was because I reloaded the OS and for now the problem is gone) not a disk permissions or related problem - at least as far as the utilities you mention were able to determine. As I said, my best guess is that one or more of the accounts, such as "unknown", are getting hijacked by Adobe (this is the only non-OS related app on the machines) and as a result are unable to perform system functions such as installs, disk repairs etc. Given that the only apps on the machine are from Adobe, I lay this issue at either Apple or Adobe's feet. Frankly Adobe has become the worst software provider in terms of using near-hacker tactics for spying on users and snooping around a machine. It's clear they need a little business competition to keep them humble ;-)
Cheryl - Mar 8, 2006 - 8:59 pm
You can be right in the fact that Adobe is using the machine for its own spying. You might want to check out other software programs to replace the Adobe ones that you use. There are many shareware programs that do the same and sometimes better than Adobe.
Graphic Converter is one that can replace Photoshop. It can do everything that Photoshop does and can convert all your pictures and images to any format you wish.
Cheryl
Graphic Converter is one that can replace Photoshop. It can do everything that Photoshop does and can convert all your pictures and images to any format you wish.
Cheryl
Cheryl - Mar 8, 2006 - 9:02 pm
One more thing that neither of us had even thought of. Adobe is a memory hog. It will take all the memory you have available just for that program. Some of them (Adobe programs) will not release the memory until you restart the computer. This could also be causing your problems.
Cheryl
Cheryl
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