Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> How to recover when Finder freezes?

Dm318 - Feb 20, 2007 - 9:27 am

E.g. when copying data from one location to your mac via SMB. You encounter a connection drop for whatever reason. Finder freezes and you get the spinning rainbow wheel. It stays there perpetually. Is there a way to recover from this situation other than pressing the power button to force the Mac to power off? Sorry, perhaps I'm a bit uninformed, but this "feature" is causing me to pull out my hair!!!

Hope you can offer some advice before I go bald!

Thanks a million!
Daniel

Natobasso - Feb 20, 2007 - 4:17 pm

Hi Daniel; Nathaniel here.

Just Force Quit the Finder and then click the Finder logo in your doc to get back to it and hopefully your mac will stop searching in vain for the dropped SMB server.

Download Tinker Tool from Versiontracker.com if you want to add 'Quit Finder' functionality to your Menu Bar/Finder pull down menu.

Dm318 - Feb 21, 2007 - 8:47 am

Thanks Nathaniel. However, sometimes, the finder freezes such that I can't even get a response by clicking the "apple" at the top left corner. When that happens, I notice there's pretty much nothing I can do...

This is one time I wish I can press CTRL-ALT-DEL and kill Finder like I kill Explorer.exe in Windows. And worst case scenario, run explorer.exe to regain control even if it means to salvage the situation and reboot. You know of anything close to what I described?

I'll checkout Tinkertool.

Thanks again,
Daniel

Natobasso - Feb 21, 2007 - 11:04 am

Yes, I'm sorry, I should have given you the key combo for force quit:

command + option + esc

Should break the pinwheel of death, as they call it.

Dm318 - Feb 23, 2007 - 10:13 am

Thanks Nathaniel. Cheers.

Natobasso - Feb 23, 2007 - 11:16 am

Howdy! Just because the answer I gave 'wasn't the answer you were looking for' doesn't mean that I wasn't helpful.

I'm opening this question up to other techs; you can close it again if you like.

Next time, make sure you grade your assisting tech on the help they provide, not what he/she didn't provide.

TechSupport - Feb 26, 2007 - 11:20 am

We apologize for not being able to resolve the issue you asked of us. It is the absolute worst case scenario for us to do this. In our review of why this happens, it generally is related to either the particular issue being addressed or frequently, incomplete or incorrect information provided. We hope by moving your request to the public forums that you will be able to get a solution without leaving you empty handed.

Your ticket has been closed with our support team. Your request has just been posted to Mac OS X System & Mac Software and is available for your viewing at:

http://macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=292099

Again, thank you for using Macosx.com. We hope you will consider using us again in the future.