[A1acran]

Hello, I'm a long time windows user and just got my first mac (dual 2 gig) about a month ago. All is great, I love my mac, but when I installed the 10.3.2 update all went wrong: ichat and itunes don't work, there's no way to switch users, and none of the apple menu works. When I try to go to the about this mac, logoff, restart, or shutdown nothing happens. The only way to shut it down is to hold down the power button. So I called apple support and they said to fix the permissions that didnt work, reinstall panther, and try again but it still didn't work. And I haven't read about anyone else with the same problem as me, so I'm back to 10.3 for now. Can anyone help me out?

Thanks,
A Frustrated Mac User

[RevEvs]

If you did a clean reinstall of panther and it still didnt work then im thinking somethign is seriously wrong.

First is the RAM check, have you installed any third party RAM? If so try removing it and using only the apple ram and see if anythign is better, if so you may have bad/cheap RAM.

If that doesnt work phone apple again ang get them to fix it.

EDIT: just realised 10.3 is fine, and that its just 10.3.2, so probs not a RAM problem. Hmmm id just stick with 10.3.1 then for the while untill somone thinks of a better solution.

revs

[Spheric Harlot]

Did you install the G5 firmware update that came out a few weeks ago?

Just an idea.

Oh, and: It's a good idea to give people browsing the forum a brief idea of what the thread is about by giving the thread a more descriptive title. You're probably going to single out more useful responses that way.

Good luck!

-s*

[Terri]

What 3rd party stuff are you running, both hardware and software?

This is not normal. 10.3.2 has been working fine at all of my accounts that have installed it including some G5 machines and the 17" Powerbook that I'm writing this on.

[A1acran]

Thanks Guys,

I have a stock G5 2ghz, no third party ram, and yes, I have installed the firmware update. As for the 3rd party hardware, I have a kensington studio mouse and a DSL modem but I haven't installed any of the 3rd party software since my clean install.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by A1acran:
Thanks Guys,

I have a stock G5 2ghz, no third party ram, and yes, I have installed the firmware update. As for the 3rd party hardware, I have a kensington studio mouse and a DSL modem but I haven't installed any of the 3rd party software since my clean install.

Dumb question (I think): the DSL modem is not a USB thing, is it?

Because USB modems are absolutely notorious for causing *weird* problems.

-s*

[Developer]

Those are weird symptoms you have. What exactly do you mean with iTunes et al. do not work? What exactly happens?

Anyway, open the Console application from your Utilities folder and then do all that doesn't work for you. Does Console say anything then?

ps:
and what Spheric Harlot said.

[A1acran]

To answer your question Developer: when I click on ichat, itunes etc., the icon bounces once in the dock and then it just freezes up. It won't show up on the screen or menu bar and I can't force quit. I'm running 10.3 now so I can't try the console thing.

When I go to the apple then system preferences, it opens but it wont let me click anything or quit it - just a spinning ball.

[Developer]

Originally posted by A1acran:
I can't try the console thing.

You'll have to. Also launch Spin Control (part of the developer tools) before launching iTunes, iChat etc. so that we can see where they hang.

[Spheric Harlot]

FWIW, I think I've seen this problem too, just after installing (I think it was) 10.3.2.

Hm.

Another thing to try (cause it did go away, and this was one of the things I did IIRC):

When you restart, hold down Apple+S.

This will boot you into Single user mode.

Once it's done, type (without the quotes)

"fsck -fy"

and hit return to check the file system for errors. fsck is the command, f is the option for "force" - it wouldn't run on a journalled system otherwise -, and y is the option to repair stuff without asking you every time.

Theoretically, this shouldn't be necessary on a journalled hard drive, but I've done this a few times recently, and it DID find errors.

If it finds anything (checking will take a while), it will tell you "FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED"

If it does, RUN IT AGAIN. Repeat until it tells you the volume is okay.

Then type "exit" (again without quotes) to boot up normally.

Let us know what happened.

-s*

[Sophus]

Try setting up a new user account, log in to it and try launching some of the apps that you have problems with. If they launch in the new user accounts, your old preference files are most likely screwed for some reason. Also, as suggested, fsck your disk in single user mode.

[A1acran]

All right, I've tried everything all of you have said and nothing seems to work. I tried the fsck thing and it said everything was fine, when I open console it doesn't say anything, and I can't create a new user account because the system preferences won't open. So I'm pretty much screwed and unless anyone has any other suggestion I'm just going to have to call apple again.

[tooki]

What happens if you boot up with the shift key held down?

tooki

[Geobunny]

Open the Terminal (Hard Disk -> Applications -> Utilities) and type the following:

/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

This should launch iTunes and if there are any errors, it should print the error messages to the terminal window. If there are any, copy them and paste them here.

Is it only those applications that no longer work? Have you moved them from the Applications folder at the first/top level of your hard disk? If you moved them before the update then that could be the source of your problems. Apple's updates never used to like it if you moved the applications from where it expected them to be. They've been getting better recently, but it could still be a problem.

[bergy]

Don't know if this will help, but you might want to check it out ..


http://www.macattorney.com/panther.h...r-General-7587