[myownself]

I could use some help here:

My setup:
Emac 800, 1 gig of ram, 40gig Drive, Mac OSX 10.3.4, lean & clean system folder. Just completed a low level reformat, no junk in the menu bar, etc.

My Problem: Both Apple's and my own custom Icons will not show up in the finders window sidebar. Even the ones that come with the OS, are now generic blank folders.

I've run every Mac diagnostic utility made for OS X, performed every troubleshooting measure I've learned over the 12 years I've owned Mac's, performed several "archived clean installs" AFTER my recent total reformat and clean install, trashed prefs, etc.

Note: When this problem first occurred, I switched to my other "work" account, where the icons showed up fine in the finders window sidebar in that account. Eventually, over a period of a week of so, even that account started to show up blank folder icons also. Now, BOTH accounts will only show up blank icons, no matter what I do, including an "archived clean install."

Custom icons WILL show up properly for a day or two after an "archived clean install" - but one by one, they revert to blank folder icons.

Can anyone help?

tia

[cpac]

low on hard disk space? (This can quickly cause such corruption). I'd try looking for a cache file that seems relevant in ~/Library/Caches/ and moving/deleting it.

[jszrules]

i have the same problem, but i still have plenty of hard disk space. should i still look for that cache file? if so, how can we tell what's relevant?

[myownself]

"i have the same problem, but i still have plenty of hard disk space. should i still look for that cache file? if so, how can we tell what's relevant?"

This is me exactly. I have 20 gigs left on a 40gig Drive. I wouldn't know where to begin searching for the "relevant" cache file(s)

[typoon]

Sounds like it might be time to fire up that copy of DiskWarrior. Everyone has a copy right???

[myownself]

"Sounds like it might be time to fire up that copy of DiskWarrior. Everyone has a copy right???"

I tried ALL OS X Repair utilities....more than once.



"I've run every Mac diagnostic utility made for OS X, performed every troubleshooting measure I've learned over the 12 years I've owned Mac's, performed several "archived clean installs" AFTER my recent total reformat and clean install, trashed prefs, etc."

[cpac]

Originally posted by myownself:
I wouldn't know where to begin searching for the "relevant" cache file(s)

Well I told you where to begin: ~/Library/Caches/ - doesn't seem to be there though. You could try the old standard of deleting your Finder preferences - other than those two suggestions, I"m not sure what to say. I've never had any problem.

Have you both been putting custom icons on the special Apple folders? (e.g. Applications?) I would think this might cause extra problems because the icon used in the sidebar is not the same as is shown anywhere else in the Finder - changing one might break all sorts of things w/r/t the other....

[jszrules]

Originally posted by cpac:
Have you both been putting custom icons on the special Apple folders? (e.g. Applications?) I would think this might cause extra problems because the icon used in the sidebar is not the same as is shown anywhere else in the Finder - changing one might break all sorts of things w/r/t the other....

nope, never added custom icons. i once asked about this in an earlier thread and the response was that this was a fairly common bug. i guess i'll just wait until Tiger to see if this bug gets fixed along with a few others.

[maxintosh]

Wouldn't hurt to run the Pilot in Cocktail, either.

[myownself]

"Wouldn't hurt to run the Pilot in Cocktail, either."

Tried that..thanks, but so far, trashing prefs as suggested above, etc., nothing has worked, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...



"Well I told you where to begin: ~/Library/Caches/ - doesn't seem to be there though. "

Sorry-what I meant was: I wouldn't know "WHICH" cache files to consider trashing in ~/Library/Caches/, etc. BUT, taking your suggestion, I did use PantherCacheCleaner 2.3.5 (which has caused me great probs in the past, because it can, by it's programmers own admission, delete necessary cache files, which CAN cause lots of probs for some), to no effect. I even copied all the files in that folder, put them on another drive, then trashed the ones on my startup disk-but alas, nothing changed.

It makes it very hard to use the Emac without being able to readily identify those folders.

I do appreciate everyone's willingness to help, so please, continue your suggestions, something's gotta work

[jszrules]

Originally posted by maxintosh:
Wouldn't hurt to run the Pilot in Cocktail, either.

What exactly would each of the Pilot's Tasks do? Can someone please take a moment to describe the goals and after-effects of each of the Pilot's Tasks:

1) Clean caches
2) Run cron scripts
3) Remove archived logs
4) Prebind system
5) Repair permissions

I've never done something like this, so I was wondering how this would affect stuff like app preferences, browser History/Bookmarks, iChat logs, etc. In addition to wanting to fix this custom icon bug, I have been experiencing a general slow-down of apps (iDVD, Safari, etc) and an iChat bug (http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=219967). Hopefully running the Pilot will fix these things, too. Thanks.

[smeger]

This is a common bug in OS X, but it's usually sporadic - rebooting will generally fix it. There have been some reports that Unsanity's Labels X makes this bug transition from sporadic to continuous. I don't know if this is true or not.

Icons are stored in
/Library/Caches/com.apple.dock.iconcache.<some number>

You may need to delete this file while you're not logged in, or while you're logged in as a different user. This can be tricky. I'm not sure if this is actually necessary, but if it is, you'll need to create a new admin user, log your normal user out, log in as the new user, take ownership of the file, and delete it.

The number at the end of the filename corresponds to your UID. If you were the first user created on the machine, it'll be 501. If you're the second, it'll be 502. Etc.

[jszrules]

Originally posted by smeger:
This is a common bug in OS X, but it's usually sporadic - rebooting will generally fix it. There have been some reports that Unsanity's Labels X makes this bug transition from sporadic to continuous. I don't know if this is true or not.

Icons are stored in
/Library/Caches/com.apple.dock.iconcache.<some number>

You may need to delete this file while you're not logged in, or while you're logged in as a different user. This can be tricky. I'm not sure if this is actually necessary, but if it is, you'll need to create a new admin user, log your normal user out, log in as the new user, take ownership of the file, and delete it.

The number at the end of the filename corresponds to your UID. If you were the first user created on the machine, it'll be 501. If you're the second, it'll be 502. Etc.

Thanks, smeger, I have Labels X so that theory makes sense. But why can't I delete the file while I'm logged?

Even if that works, I'd still probably want to run Cocktail, anyway. Anyone mind explaining:

Originally posted by jszrules:
What exactly would each of the Pilot's Tasks do? Can someone please take a moment to describe the goals and after-effects of each of the Pilot's Tasks:

1) Clean caches
2) Run cron scripts
3) Remove archived logs
4) Prebind system
5) Repair permissions

I've never done something like this, so I was wondering how this would affect stuff like app preferences, browser History/Bookmarks, iChat logs, etc. In addition to wanting to fix this custom icon bug, I have been experiencing a general slow-down of apps (iDVD, Safari, etc) and an iChat bug (http://forums.macnn.com/showthread....threadid=219967). Hopefully running the Pilot will fix these things, too. Thanks.

Thanks a lot.

[myownself]

smeger-I am forever in your debt.

Forever.

It worked. Perfect.

I spent the weekend doing a low, low, 8X level reformat, for the 3rd time in 1 week, that took 34 miserable straight hours - started one by one reinstalling my apps awhile ago, took a breather and came here, hoping against hope-and sure enough:

there you were.

I trashed Labels and that fixed everything. (Yes, I tried it the way you mentioned also, with no success)

Going to write to Unsanity and see if they can work around the bug in 10.3.4 (insert grin here)

:-)

Thanks so much.

[JKT]

Originally posted by jszrules:
But why can't I delete the file while I'm logged?

Because it will be in constant use and you can't delete files which are in use by an application - you can move the file to the trash, log out and then back in. A new file will be created in the cache folder and you will then be able to delete the one you previously moved to the trash.

[JKT]

1) Clean caches

Self explanatory

2) Run cron scripts

In the case of the system, the cron scripts are maintenance scripts that clear and cycle various log files that the system keeps (e.g. console.log, system.log etc). They are set to run in the early hours of the morning and there are three in total:

daily - by default it is set to run at 3 am every day
weekly - set to run at 4 am every saturday
monthly - set to run at 5 am every 1st day of the month

(note - the times might be slightly different to that listed above... I'm going by memory here).

However, for those scripts to run, the Mac not only has to be switched on at those times, but it also has to be awake. The consequence of this is that for your average mac user, they will never get run and some people will end up with .log files that are incredibly big. There are several utilities that overcome this such as Cronnix (which you can use to reschedule the timing of the scripts), MacJanitor (which will run the scripts at any time when you use it), and anacron (which replaces cron and will run the scripts at the next time the machine is woken if it missed the scheduled timing). If you are savvy enough, you can create your own cron scripts to automate various processes...

3) Remove archived logs

The cron scripts actually archive the .log files and this creates a rolling set of around ten for each - when each .log is cleared it is actually archived and the oldest archive in the set is then deleted.
I assume this process just deletes all those archives - this won't do any harm. The archives are only really necessary for troubleshooting an event that happened when the administrator wasn't around to monitor the machine.

4) Prebind system

Totally unnecessary with 10.2 and upwards as the system does this automatically whenever you launch an application anyway (and also whenever you install any updates to the system).

5) Repair permissions

Each file created in OS X is assigned permissions that effect who has access to the file, who can write to that file and delete it - this is what prevents you from accessing other Users home folders and/or from deleting their files and those of the System (the superuser or root user has full permission to delete any file they like which is why it isn't wise to activate that user unless you know what you are doing). Any applications that are installed using the Installer.app will generate a "Receipt" in the system's library folder - this receipt tells the system what permissions that application's installed files should have. Sometimes these permissions can be messed up by other installers or applications (or the user if they are careless), so Disk Utility has a routine called Repair Permissions. This looks at the Receipt files to determine what any Installer.app installed files should have as their permissions and if it finds they are different, it will correct them. Ideally, you should Repair permissions before and after you have installed any updates to the system or to any third party software. I assume that Pilot is just running the Disk Utility routine without using the GUI supplied by disk Utility.

Note that this means that any app not installed via the .pkg format will not get its permissions repaired as it will not have any receipt created.

[jszrules]

JKT, thanks a bunch for all the info. Most helpful.

Originally posted by myownself:
smeger-I am forever in your debt.

Forever.

It worked. Perfect.

I spent the weekend doing a low, low, 8X level reformat, for the 3rd time in 1 week, that took 34 miserable straight hours - started one by one reinstalling my apps awhile ago, took a breather and came here, hoping against hope-and sure enough:

there you were.

I trashed Labels and that fixed everything. (Yes, I tried it the way you mentioned also, with no success)

Going to write to Unsanity and see if they can work around the bug in 10.3.4 (insert grin here)

:-)

Thanks so much.

I searched for "Labels X", trashed and emptied everything that showed up, then restarted. Yet I still have "blank" folder icons in the Finder side-bar. Did I miss something?

[JKT]

Originally posted by jszrules:
JKT, thanks a bunch for all the info. Most helpful.



I searched for "Labels X", trashed and emptied everything that showed up, then restarted. Yet I still have "blank" folder icons in the Finder side-bar. Did I miss something?

No problem... does Labels X come with an un-installer? I thought all those haxies did? If you don't have the installer anymore, re-download it, re-install the software and then run the un-installer to ensure you remove all traces of it - you may have missed something previously.

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by JKT:
No problem... does Labels X come with an un-installer?

It sure does

[jszrules]

just ran the un-installer...still no change...this is becoming rather annoying

[jszrules]

Originally posted by jszrules:
just ran the un-installer...still no change...this is becoming rather annoying

weird...when i happened to click "Get Info" on one of the folders whose alias was in the side-bar, the icon in the side-bar switched back to the way it should be. then i did it for all of the items and everything is fine. this never used to happen while Labels X was still installed. i guess each item had to see its "Preview" in the Info pane before it changed back or something. thanks for the help.

[JKT]

Originally posted by jszrules:
weird...when i happened to click "Get Info" on one of the folders whose alias was in the side-bar, the icon in the side-bar switched back to the way it should be. then i did it for all of the items and everything is fine. this never used to happen while Labels X was still installed. i guess each item had to see its "Preview" in the Info pane before it changed back or something. thanks for the help.

This is just a general OS X bug that has been there since 10.0 (for me at least). It occasionally happens, but not as often for me in 10.3.x. Logging out and back in/a restart will also reset the icons.