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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Text in drop-down menus does not appear

CuriousQuest - Feb 25, 2007 - 3:44 pm

When I click on a topic in the menu bar of my PowerBook G4 Titanium 667 MHz machine, running Tiger, no text appears in the menu space.

This problem began after I changed the region code after being prompted to do so when I inserted a video DVD into the computer. I installed a SuperDrive a year or so ago instead of the read-write CD drive that the computer originally came with - I don't know if this is related to the problem other than coincidentally. Other DVDs that did not require region code changes did not cause any problems.

Also, the font style of the text that does appear (in the Finder windows that were open before this happened, and any other windows that I open by clicking on file names in these finder windows, and text on the icons) is different than it had been.

The computer seems to be otherwise working ok, I just can do anything that requires selecting an option from a drop-down menu.

Thanks for suggestions!

ishan - Feb 25, 2007 - 3:52 pm

I'd suggest deleting your font caches using one of the freeware/shareware utilities like Yasu, Onyx, Mac Pilot, Cocktail, etc, all downloadable from versiontracker.com and macupdate.com. Then restart and see if the problem still persists.

I would also download Linotype FontExplorer X (it's free). This is a great utility and will–among many other features– diagnose font file corruption as well. I am assuming you haven't removed any of the essential fonts required by OS X.

Hope that helps and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

CuriousQuest - Feb 26, 2007 - 5:44 pm

Thanks. I've installed Mac Pilot and Linotype FontExplorer X on my machine. When I click on the Fonts icon in the toolbar of Mac Pilot, I don't see any text except on the buttons Reload, Insert Defaults, Apply Changes (Apply Changes is grayed-out). There is a yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it at the bottom of what looks like a set of empty text boxes. Clicking other icons in the Mac Pilot toolbar gives me sets of check boxes and options , most of which have text.

Any suggestions? A problem with my system is that right now I don't see any text on many of the windows that popup.

Thanks!

ishan - Feb 26, 2007 - 8:09 pm

Download the combo updater for the version of OS X you're using and run it.It will replace tens of thousands of files, one or more of which is corrupt and causing the systemuiserver to not display text. You should be OK after that. If not, you would need to do an Archive/Install using your original install disks, then upgrade via Software Update or the combo update you downloaded earlier to your current version of 10.x.

Hope that helps and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

CuriousQuest - Feb 27, 2007 - 6:31 pm

I don't see enough text to be able to install the combo updater. Can you point me to instructions for reliably doing an Archive/Install with my disks? If I could avoid losing information/applications on my machine that would be great.

Thanks.

CuriousQuest - Mar 1, 2007 - 8:24 am

Any suggestions about installation instructions other than my original documentation for Tiger?

Thanks.

CuriousQuest - Mar 1, 2007 - 4:43 pm

Waiting patiently to hear from you...

Thanks!

ishan - Mar 1, 2007 - 7:34 pm

You will see all the instructions when booted up with your original install disk. In brief, though, if you want to preserve your third party apps, preference panes, etc. and their .plist (preferences) files, when reinstalling, click on "Options" and you will see an option to archive and install, keeping accounts and preferences intact. Do that initially and if that fixes your problem you should be fine. The most drastic option when booted up from the install disk is an erase/install, which, as its name implies, means you will lose everything on the disk and have to reinstall all your third party apps, set up your network again, etc. etc.

Hope that helps and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

CuriousQuest - Mar 4, 2007 - 3:56 pm

I need to delete the contents of my Trash folder in order to be able to archive and install (otherwise there is not enough room on my harddrive). Because I can't see text on drop-down menus or buttons, I can't do this in the usual way. However, when I boot from the installation disk, I can choose to use Terminal, and it occurred to me that I might use Unix commands to delete files from the trash folder. However, although I have worked with Unix in the past, I don't remember enough at this point to be able to accomplish this.

Perhaps you can direct me to a useful source of information, and/or give me some pointers on how to do this?

Thanks.

ishan - Mar 4, 2007 - 5:17 pm

Try this (copy and paste into Terminal)

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/
sudo rm -rf /.Trashes/
sudo rm -rf /Volumes//.Trashes/

Be careful with the rm -rf command. If you've used Unix, you know how easily you can easily delete your entire drive's contents with this command.

Hope that helps and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

ishan - Mar 4, 2007 - 6:28 pm

CuriousQuest - Mar 6, 2007 - 9:01 pm

Thank you. I was able to remove items from the trash so that I could begin an archive/install of Tiger, if I chose not to install printer drivers or translations (and I also chose not to install extra fonts). After the installation disk verification was successfully completed, the installation eventually returned a message saying that there had been an error with the installation, please restart. After restarting and attempting the installation a few more times without success, I tried using the disk utility on the installation disk to repair the Macintosh HD volume (I found out that this might be the source of the problem by looking at the installer log).

Attempting to repair the Macintosh HD volume resulted in the following messages:

Volume Bit Map needs minor repair
Checking volume information
Repairing volume
The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.

Any suggestions? I'd really like to avoid erasing the disk because I have applications that I am not sure I will be able to replace. Would freeing up more space on the disk help, by chance?

Thanks!

ishan - Mar 7, 2007 - 4:34 am

The fact that you weren't allowed to install some items suggests your disk is already too full. Did you have enough space on your drive to do a full install? If you didn't, the install, even when pared down, won't work. Back up everything you can onto another media and try the install again. If you still get an error with Disk Utility, either a)your install disk is bad b) you have a hard drive going bad or c) you have to buy Diskwarrior (from Alsoft) to fix the errors. But you should not get the message after an archive/install saying the drive is beyond repair by Disk Utility. That implies that some of the files that are retained by the Archive/Install, including the preferences files and network setting are corrupt, or that the install disk itself has gone bad; the latter is almost impossible.

Rather than waste more of your time, an erase/install after backing up your important files is rapidly becoming your best option. Why can't you replace the applications that would be erased by that process?

TechSupport - Mar 17, 2007 - 10:10 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=292687

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

CuriousQuest - Mar 17, 2007 - 10:11 am

Just to let you know, I ran Diskwarrior, then did an archive/install with OSX, and the system seems to be working fine now.

Thanks for your help.