[nemo]

Recently heard of a piece of software called kick-off http://www.VersionTracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=8489
sounds useful, (anyone use it?) but if an application freezes up your whole system and force quit doesn't work are there any other methods for quitting the app without restarting. For instance, on a G4 there is that little programmers button, which I've never got around to looking into. Would you be able to quit a crashed app from there? I understand OSX answers these issues, but I suspect I won't be upgrading for quite a while, so presently I'm on 9.04.

[yoyo52]

The programmer's button won't do what you're looking for. There's just no alternative to rebooting. OS X gives an alternative because an app freeze or crash will not involve the system itself, so you can just quit the app without having to restart. It works very nicely on the PB version--I've yet to crash with it, in fact, although some apps crash from time to time. The Classic environment does crash, unfortunately, just like OS 9 does

[rjenkinson]

install macsbug on your machine. you can find it at http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=369

-r.

[SillyPooh]

I would reserve MacsBug for really experienced people - not that you guys are not experienced, but well, other people do read these forums.

No, the programmers key - or command+power key - is very useful for most freezes and crashes. By doing so, you get the little debuggers prompt. If you get a line cursor, try the following:

Type SM O A9F4 and then press enter. (that's an O, like in "Oh yeah")
Then type G O (that's an O, like in "Oh ...) and Enter.

That should quit the frontmost application. You can also quit the finder that way and will come back by itself. If for some reason the finder has quit, you can restart it with G F or G FINDER. Same for the system (G S or G SYSTEM).

As a general rule, if the mouse is frozen, you can't do much but to restart.

[This message has been edited by SillyPooh (edited 12-29-2000).]

[nemo]

Thanks a lot, that's just the sort of info I was after.
have downloaded Macsbug and printed off those instructions.

[Cipher13]

ES is the most useful command in Macsbug - Exit to Shell.
Will recover you nicely very often

By the way, get into Macsbug and type help...

Manual built right in

Some common commands:
ES - Exit to Shell (quit frontmost application, basically)
EA - quits frontmost and relaunches
stdlog - very cool breakup of your System at the time
rb - reboot

to name a log, do this:

log logname
stdlog

or whatever...

Cipher13

[Ruby]

Crashin' and freezin'? Sounds like a new hip hop song.

------------------
Ruby

[Richard Clark]

Have all updates or the Software Update control been run?

------------------

[nemo]

Richard
Yes, as far as i'm aware everything is updated.

[nemo]

hey sillypooh,
you've just saved me 2hrs work. had a crash in illustrator (normally I do periodically save, however..) couldn't force quit so tried out the code thing and it worked! allowing me to save my stuff and restart.
thanks again