[workerbee]

I've been having this since about two weeks or so: when I turn on or reboot my PowerBook, everything looks OK after logging in, but the only thing that actually works is the Finder. No other apps can be opened - they all get the Pizza wheel of death and sit there, sometimes using 100% CPU. (TextEdit opens, but stops working right after opening). The only thing I notice in the system.log is "Jun 7 14:36:36 localhost diskarbitrationd[87]: LaunchBar [342]:12711 not responding." (LaunchBar should be started on login).

Now the interesting this is: when I log out and then log back in, everything is back to normal again and works without a hitch.

So I'm wondering: what is different in the system state between a first login after a reboot and a second login?

[gorickey]

What is in your "Login Items"?

[Boochie]

Did you try disabling Launchbar? What is the system behavior after doing so?

[iNeusch]

Trash Launchbar
Get Dragthing

[workerbee]

Originally posted by gorickey:
What is in your "Login Items"?

LaunchBar

Originally posted by iNeusch:
Trash Launchbar Get Dragthing

...from my cold, dead fingers

While updating prebinding and watching the terminal, I noticed a lot of failure messages related to some framework libraries from Insider Software's FontAgent 2.1 Pro, which I recently tried. However, no FA-related application is running, so these are just sitting on the disk, I guess.

I'll try rebooting without Launchbar in the Login items next…

Thanks for the suggestions all!

[workerbee]

Looks like LaunchBar 4.0.beta5 was, in fact, the culprit. Restarting without LB in the startup items went just fine.
Looking forward to Beta6

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by workerbee:
Looks like LaunchBar 4.0.beta5 was, in fact, the culprit. Restarting without LB in the startup items went just fine.
Looking forward to Beta6

Get Butler, you'll never look back

[workerbee]

Update: almost certainly, LaunchBar was not to blame in this -- looks like my fonts were corrupted one way or another, which I found out while trying to get FontBook to open some new fonts: it deleted old fonts in its collections instead, and copied several instances of new fonts into ~/Library/Fonts/ without showing or activating them (of course, there was no warning or error message of any kind. Here's hoping for FontBook 2!).

LB's developer said that a corrupt font cache can trigger this behaviour, so maybe it is time after all to switch to a font management tool that shows some intelligence… anyone have good or bad experiences with Font Agent Pro 2.1, by chance?

[GeorgeSpicolli]

Originally posted by workerbee:
anyone have good or bad experiences with Font Agent Pro 2.1, by chance?

I have been using FontAgent Pro 2 for months and I have been quite satisfied. The product continues to get better. I have tried all the others and the winner is FontAgent Pro 2! The application does not even need to be open to activate your fonts. Speaking of activation, the auto-activation has worked like a charm.

[workerbee]

Originally posted by GeorgeSpicolli:
I have been using FontAgent Pro 2 for months and I have been quite satisfied.

Same here. I've switched to FAP 2.1 after FontBook again went bonkers on me a few weeks back, and I like it so far. Of course, I haven't done much with it: import fonts, setup my standard font sets, forget about it. Nice!

Welcome to the MacNN Forum, BTW!

[GeorgeSpicolli]

Originally posted by workerbee:
Welcome to the MacNN Forum, BTW!

Thanks for the welcome!

Also, wanted to give you heads up that Insider just released FontAgent Pro 2.1.1.

Here is what is new,
1. Full support for Quark 6 running in Panther
2. Improved auto-activation performance
3. Improved font previews
4. Correct font family name in Get Info window
5. Shared fonts activated after Classic is running are available in Classic applications