[Keda]

10.3.8

After login, the Finder begins to load, but stops w/a Rainbow Cursor for over two minutes. This happens continuously on every login.

How can I see what is going on? Can I trash any Pref files?

Any ideas?

[analogika]

Do you have a large number of fonts in your Font Book?

Try disabling those you don't need.

Also, deleting font caches sometimes appears to help this issue.
Search www.versiontracker.com for cache cleaning software.

[Big Mac]

Before anything else, it is always a good idea to login as a different user to determine whether or not the problem you're dealing with is global. It probably is confined to your account, but it is a good idea to be sure. Now is this problem a recent occurrence? If it is you'll want to try to remember anything you did around that time that could be responsible for the problem (things installed, application crashes, etc.). You'll also want to check out your Console (Applications/Utilities) to see if any error of note has been recorded.

[Keda]

Thanks for both responses.

There are quite a few fonts installed, but not more than are installed on other Macs. I will try the cache cleaning approach.

The problem does not appear on other users. BTW, this machine belongs to a coworker, so I'm fuzzy on specifics. She thought the it "just took that long to start." From this response, I think it has been acting this way for a while. I installed a 2nd HD on her computer the other day and noticed this problem then.

Is there anyways to see/examine the order in which the Finder is loading items/files? I thought a pref might be corrupted.

[Superchicken]

If this is a user specific problem instead of trying to hunt down the root of the problem... I'd try copying her stuff to a new user account, copying the most important stuff from her library, and starting her out fresh. By the way, have you repaired permissions?

[electropura]

I had the same problem recently, and used Cocktail to clean all my caches.

Worked like a charm. I was not able to determine which cache was the problem, but I think it was probably font related, as I also have quite a few.

[SMacTech]

Has this computer ever logged on to a server or possibly an alias to a server was placed in the startup items?

Have a look in the system log, via the system profiler and you should be able to see where it stalls at.

[Keda]

I am on the machine in question now.

Cocktail is running, but I wanted to post the console log from this AM:

Mac OS X Version 10.3.8 (Build 7U16)
2005-02-28 09:36:00 -0500
2005-02-28 09:36:01.287 SoftwareUpdateCheck[1275] Checking for updates
2005-02-28 09:36:06.137 SoftwareUpdateCheck[1275] *** -[NSCFArray addObject:]: attempt to insert nil
2005-02-28 09:36:06.154 SoftwareUpdateCheck[1275] *** -[NSCFArray addObject:]: attempt to insert nil
2005-02-28 09:36:06.172 SoftwareUpdateCheck[1275] *** -[NSCFArray addObject:]: attempt to insert nil
2005-02-28 09:36:06.190 SoftwareUpdateCheck[1275] *** -[NSCFArray addObject:]: attempt to insert nil
2005-02-28 09:36:08.220 SoftwareUpdateCheck[1275] Only inactive updates
2005-02-28 10:05:47.109 Safari[1291] GIF decompressor: Attempt to skip 176 byte(s) past end of data at offset 0x2551
2005-02-28 10:05:47.111 Safari[1291] GIF decompressor: Attempt to skip 176 byte(s) past end of data at offset 0x2551
Feb 28 10:08:47 HQMAC-MOORE-G4 /Volumes/Cocktail/Cocktail.app/Contents/MacOS/Cocktail: LaunchApplication(/System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Keychain Scripting.app)
Feb 28 10:09:04 HQMAC-MOORE-G4 /Volumes/Cocktail/Cocktail.app/Contents/MacOS/Cocktail: LaunchApplication(/System/Library/CoreServices/System Events.app)
Feb 28 10:16:52 HQMAC-MOORE-G4 kernel: resize: max chain len 49, new table size 16384

What does it mean?

[OwlBoy]

That was just Software update looking for updates.

not sure if…

*** -[NSCFArray addObject:]: attempt to insert nil

…is bad though. Might be what it writes when it finds updates you have disabled, based on the last line.

-Owl

[Keda]

I added a fewthe rest of the console lines in now.

I noticed that some type of GIF compressor ran after 5 minutes.

[GORDYmac]

I have the same problem. On my machine, the software update hangs as well, because network activity doesn't initiate until the Finder loads. If I relaunch the Finder, my other login items will load fine, but the Finder--and network activity--still hangs.

It's a very wierd problem. I'll try cocktail this evening.

[Keda]

I ran cocktail, Disk Util, and looked at the console some more (noticed something about Network time and turned that off)....still no luck.

[GORDYmac]

Ran MacJanitor too, no change. A while back, deleting the Finder prefs would resolve it for the next startup, though, it would return on subsequent startups. That doesn't work anymore.

I wanter if my Azureus addiction has anything to do with it. I'm addicted to downloading gigantic files. Can that screw up the Finder?

[MacCowboy]

Is the user account startup items configured to connect to servers automatically at login? If so, perhaps the server is no longer available at the IP address it originally was when the startup item was created. We had this problem with some Macs after our fileserver was moved to another IP. It took a long time for the timeout to occur when it could find the server at the original IP.

[Detrius]

I have seen this on several machines if there is not a proper internet connection available on login. On one machine, the DNS server was acting up and changing that fixed the problem. On another, it wasn't connecting to the Airport network until after login, and changing it to connect before login fixed it here. I haven't had a chance to narrow down precisely why this occurs, but I've seen it on two different machines: one is mine, one is not.