[Fooboy]

Like every program i try to open on her account has the "this program has quit unexpectantly" error and wont open. I think it started when we were playing Big Bang Checkers (she likes that game) on her account, and then I tried to open ichat, and it crashed ... now ical, ichat, address book all error out when I try to open them. I tried restarting. What can I do to fix this?

PS. Not that this is an emergency - but big bang checkers doesnt work either.

Also, FYI ... my account and all its programs work fine.

[Is it 1981?]

Try going into Font Book, clicking on Edit > Resolve Duplicates - if you've got more than one copy of a font installed on your system, that can sometimes play havoc; Resolve Duplicates just 'turns off' the duplicate font.

Failing that, I think your best bet would be to just create a new account and transfer/ copy all your wife's files into that new account.

[Kickaha]

Uh, well there's a whole massive range of things to check and fix between 'look for duplicate fonts' and 'nuke account'. :/

I take it Finder runs, right?

[Fooboy]

Yes, finder runs.

The account isnt really "nuked" ... just several programs wont open now.

btw - its a fresh install of Tiger ... 2 weeks old.

Edit: Font book reslove didnt work.

[Kickaha]

Alright, try these...

1) Delete everything in ~/Library/Caches
2) Delete ~/Library/Preferences/all-the-apps-that-won't-run-pref-files

[Ebby]

I vote on deleting the caches too, but the preferences don't seem right to me. Unless every preferences file were messed up. Make sure you restart after you delete it.

[Is it 1981?]

Kickaha - I've experienced the very same problem on several occasions from 10.3 onwards, and out of the all the suggestions I've been given by my local Apple Reseller, various forums, Apple Discussions etc only Resolve Duplicates has ever managed to fix the problem - and even then, it doesn't always work. It was pretty easy to transfer all my files into a new account so that was the easiest thing for me.

I only suggested it because I thought it might save a lot of time and heartache deleting caches, prefs, installing BSD things (all of which I've done in the past) only to find spending 10 minutes setting up a new account would do the trick.

[Fooboy]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Alright, try these... 1) Delete everything in ~/Library/Caches 2) Delete ~/Library/Preferences/all-the-apps-that-won't-run-pref-files

Uhhh ... I accidentally deleted Caches under just Library and not under user ... did I just mess up our system?

(I then deleted caches under her user and some of the plists and it still doesn't work)

[Bryson]

Before we go any further... you've done everything in the FAQ, right? As in, permissions repair, FSCK, caches etc. Just worth checking if you have.

Failing that, an Archive and Install isn't too onerous, and should preserve the data.

Oh, and I think you meant Assploded.

[Fooboy]

Ah never mind guys ... I will probably just reformat it to a single partition and reinstall so I can put on Boot Camp.

But before I do that, I gotta take it in for repairs as the Super Drive is all screwed up ... it wont burn things properly and sounds like a prop plane when Audio CD's are put in.