Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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This is happening to my Mom's machine (running Tiger).
If you google "Finder restarts continuously" you'll see some people who've had the issue. Several have had good luck removing an offending thingy from Stuffit. However, hers does not have this thingy. From the admin account I went into her account and moved the contents of her desktop a folder (on the desktop) named "Safe". Leaving the ownership of her Desktop folder set to the Admin account I swapped accounts back to hers and PRESTO her Finder is no longer doing the constant re-start. Of course she can't see her desktop because she doesn't have permissions. So when I go back and deed permissions back to her and log back into her account the Finder pulls the same old crap. Can anybody think of what might be happening here? This started occurring out of the clear blue sky as far as she's concerned, but she may have created some invisible folder that I can't see.... what app can I put on the Admin account that will let me see the invisible files in her desktop directory? I want to make a backup of all her shit and re-install the OS and recover her account from a backup now. Jeepers. .... |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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Some additional information:
When I was first introduced to her misbehaving machine I noticed that her Mail app automatically launched itself at start up, even though there was no such start-at-launch selected in her user account. ::FLASHBACK SEQUENCE:: Thinking back a few days I remember now that her Mail app forgot her account info and I had to re-populated the account info. Doing this allowed the app to reacquire all the existing saved mail and such and it seems that everything was back to normal. ::FLASHBACK SEQUENCE:: So last night while operating on her Desktop (folder) from the Admin account I threw away several things which she no longer needed. One of the things I saw sitting out there was locked folder for the Mail app. Just sitting there on the desktop! Hmmm.... She's been trying to access other information on her machine right now and the beachball is spinning.... I suspect that the hard drive has had some sort of stroke. ... |
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I shot the sherrif.
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What would happen if you just moved the Desktop folder, created a new one (same name) and then moved her Desktop items over in chunks to the new folder, until you find the one where once moved the reboot behavior kicks in again.
Otherwise, if you go to her account and check the login items, what's there? Remove 'em all. Google is your frenemy. Caveat Emptor - Latin for tough titty I tend to interpret things in the way that's most hilarious to me |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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All the login items have been removed.... let me try making a new Desktop folder - that idea had not occurred to me.
Either way, it does rather sound like her machine is about to lose its shit in a big way doesn't it? ... |
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I shot the sherrif.
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Maybe. It does sound like the drive is acting funky, that's for sure. If you bring up Disk Utility, does it report any S.M.A.R.T. errors?
This app. used to offer a free scan on download, and you only had to pay if you wanted to use it running all the time. Might be worth checking out. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14825/smartreporter/ If the OS were trying to launch something that it didn't have permissions for, but assumed it did, etc. it might behave like you're describing. I would think that a hard drive failure wouldn't be so specific, and I wouldn't think that a drive failure would cause constant reboots related to the Desktop folder, unless the machine was trying to launch something from the Desktop and then hitting a wall. Google is your frenemy. Caveat Emptor - Latin for tough titty I tend to interpret things in the way that's most hilarious to me |
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