Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

MacMan4000 · May 26, 2005, 10:33 AM

I have no idea what's going on... Im lucky I have a backup username. Anyway, heres the kinda long story:

I just got a new 17" LCD monitor on Monday and I installed Screen Spanning Doctor which up untill yesterday was working fine. Actually, it still is working fine... on my backup username (this username is basically the default account you start with, nothing installed, no prefs, fresh). I was loving it up untill last night...

I was installing Final Cut Express HD. for those of you who don't have Final Cut Express HD I will explain the installer (its kinda different). There are 4 DVD disks to install (yeah, its big). After you install the first disk, the Final Cut disk, it says "install the 'Apple Loops For Soundtrack' disk to complete the installation". Well I decided I didn't need soundtrack, so I tried to open Final Cut. When it opened I just saw the splash screen, before it crashed. I figured maybe I NEED to install soundtrack... but before I could do that apps starting crashing left and right. I couldn't keep anything open. Not even the finder. The finder kept crashing, then re-opening in an endless loop. I freaked out and shut it down via the power button on the back of my iMac G5.

When I restarted i tried my regular user name again, only to see the same thing happening. The finder wouldn't stay open long enough for my to log out. I eventually found out that address book wouldn't crash in this condition, so I had to open address book just to access the apple menu long enough to log out. i tried moving my prefs folder out of the library and that didn't help. So i uninstalled the screen spanning thing. that didn't help. So i zapped the pram. that didn't help.

I logged into my backup username and everything was fine, so I created a new user and started moving stuff to that username. That was all fine and dandy, I had all my stuff moved over (except prefs) and i restarted with no problems or crashes. So I start setting the prefs the way I had them. somewhere between cleardock and synergy I triggered the finders crash and burn cycle again. So I figured it must be one of those things screwing it up.

I go back to my backup name and delete the synergy prefs file and all unsanity (cleardock) pref files. But that didn't help... So i move the entire prefs folder out of my home library and restart. no go. With no prefs at all it is still crashing faster than Windows 98.

I need advice, what shoud I do... Nuke and pave? clean hd format and reinstall? (god i hope not)
Im on Tiger 10.4.1 by the way.

Heres a video of the finder's epilepsy problem. It was originally in .avi, but i converted it to .mov for those of you without the QT plugins for .avi
http://homepage.mac.com/kmurphy3/.Public/DSCF0001.MOV
http://homepage.mac.com/kmurphy3/.Public/DSCF0001.AVI

Screen Spanning working fine:
http://homepage.mac.com/kmurphy3/.Public/DSCF0004.jpg

Any ideas?

ReggieX · May 26, 2005, 12:39 PM

Do an Archive & Install, and next time let the installer finish its job.

wdlove · May 26, 2005, 12:47 PM

Have you done a Repair Permissions?

RAILhead · May 26, 2005, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by ReggieX

Do an Archive & Install, and next time let the installer finish its job.

Ditto.

Nuke and pave is so PeeCee.

bstone · May 26, 2005, 02:49 PM

Wrong forum. Try posting in the Mac OS forum, where all posts regarding OS issues are to be made.

MacMan4000 · May 26, 2005, 02:51 PM

if i archive & install what exactly gets archived? my home folder? system files?

Would I be better off to copy everything I want (my home folder) to my firewire drive then format and install on the iMac's internal drive?

MacMan4000 · May 26, 2005, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by bstone

Wrong forum. Try posting in the Mac OS forum, where all posts regarding OS issues are to be made.

I was going to do that, but It could also be under peripherals, with the screen-spaniing stuff going on, or GUI with unsanity's stuff... so i figured i'd put it in the multi-purpose forum, a.k.a. the lounge.

Plus the fact that every other section of Macnn responds much slower... and im impatient.

bstone · May 27, 2005, 09:15 AM

Then just for that I won't help. Nah nah!

(not to say i have any good ideas anyhow)

cgc · May 27, 2005, 05:11 PM

The symptoms of the Finder starting then quitting forever are the same I had when I skulled my system via an appearance theme screwup. My only recourse was to archive & install. It's relatively painless, especially now that there's no disc to swap.

MacMan4000 · May 27, 2005, 11:24 PM

I backed up everything to a firewire drive and did a clean install. Thanks for the suggestions. Everythings fine now.