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alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 01:24 AM

10.3.2
AI PB 15"

After Panther completely locked up as described in the OS X forum and over at Apple's discussions, iChat will no longer launch. It bounces twice, the triangle appears, and quits. Nothing is written to the crash log, and repairing permissions/trashing prefs/etc. have all failed.

Any ideas?

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 01:35 AM

Okay...just installed iChat 2.1 beta. Still fails to launch.

CharlesS · Feb 11, 2004, 01:45 AM

Does anything show up in the console?

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 01:54 AM

Nope.

Here's something interesting. If I open the package contents and go to

Contents/Resources/MacOS/iChat

It has a modification date of when I attempted to launch the app. When I double click the icon it opens in the Terminal and tells me "Broken Pipe" then "Logout."

Also I am finally getting iChat to launch, but it's sporadic.

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 02:36 AM

Just tried replacing iChat.app with a good copy from another friend. Repaired permissions then launched it. Nothing.

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 01:11 PM

I"M GETTING SERIOUSLY FRUSTRATED WITH THIS PIECE OF SHIT.

I reinstalled Panther (went back to 10.3.1) using archive and install.

iChat worked fine for one launch, and has gone back to bouncing and quitting again.

It's affecting ALL users on my machine.

NOTHING IS WORKING.

If I repeatedly launch it 5-6 times, it may work.

gorickey · Feb 11, 2004, 01:32 PM

Have you replaced the following with a fresh copy from elsewhere:

Macintosh HD/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/InstantMessenge.framework

?

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 02:26 PM

Originally posted by gorickey:
Have you replaced the following with a fresh copy from elsewhere:

Macintosh HD/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/InstantMessenge.framework

?

Hmmm...

That should have been replaced when I archived and installed Panther. The old iChat was moved to /Previous Systems/Applications.

Is there any other thing I can check for system-wide? I tried searching the HD and could not turn up any global preference files.

It's ridiculous that I would have to reinstall an entire system to gain back the functionality of a CHAT PROGRAM. Well, besides the fact that 10.3.2 was being crash-happy...

Another interesting note:

TTP4 supposedly saw something around the time iChat bounced and quit, because it gave me a -2 error message. I'm away from my computer right now, so it should be interesting to see what a file scan turns up.

gorickey · Feb 11, 2004, 03:46 PM

Originally posted by alphasubzero949:
Hmmm...

That should have been replaced when I archived and installed Panther.

Actually, I don't believe it would have, try manually doing that just to make sure and see how it goes...

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 04:25 PM

I saw a thread in the Apple discussion forums and figured it wouldn't hurt to try:

I took my PB off the network. Voila! iChat now launches normally. I quit/restarted the program several times to be sure.

It's definitely network related.

alphasubzero949 · Feb 11, 2004, 04:33 PM

If I take my location offline, all is well. iChat behaves normally.

Definitely a network problem...anyone have a fix?

jbreu · Feb 11, 2004, 05:21 PM

i am having the same problem at the moment. i have noticed that the ichat icon on the menu bar will say that you are on. when the program seemed to crash on me and was not open in the dock, i recieved an im from some one. if this is a network problem, how does this play into it?

FlammableYurt · Feb 11, 2004, 08:53 PM

I had this exact same problem, and tried all the suggestion above, too, but none of them worked. I gave up and just used Fire for a week or so.

Then I wanted some information that I had in one of my saved chats, so I opened the chat, not remembering that it was going to try to open in iChat. Weird thing is, iChat opened. It was the first time I got it to open - by opening a saved chat file. I don't know if it somehow fixed itself in the time I wasn't using it (though I generally tried to open in a couple times each day), or if opening the chat fixed it.

Anyways, I guess it's worth a try if it worked for me!

jbreu · Feb 12, 2004, 10:28 AM

surprisenly after i spent all this time searching forums to find out what happened to my ichat, i quit and left it alone. i came back about 4 hours later and it worked just fine. i launched it, quit it, and launched it several time with no probs. whatever the problem is, its gone now...

pat++ · 05:41 AM

I opened a bug on this to Apple months ago. From what i've seen, it seems to be related to upnp/ssdp.... do you have a DLink router (DLink DI-604) ? anyway, try to reboot your router/modem. It should fix the problem. Let us know if this helps.