Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

markw10 · Jan 19, 2008, 02:36 AM

I upgraded to Leopard about 3 months ago and have had no problems at all with it. I just had a system lockup about once or twice a week where I'd have to shut down and restart my system and I never knew if this was a Leopard issue. Now two days ago I a bigger issue. I can be in the middle of typing something and my keyboard stops working. If I press any keys I get 'gong' sound showing the system knows I'm pressing a key but nothing appears. I'm not sure if this is the same issue that Leopard has been mentioned to have.
The other two issues is for no reason my dock will lock up. I am able to scroll over it and my Icons magnify but if I click on any of the programs the icons does nothing at all. Also, the pull down menus at the top won't work. I am unable to choose any menus along the top of the screen.
When this happens my only choice is often to just shut down and restart. Sometimes when it restarts it is immediately like this. Other times it may take several minutes but rarely over 10 minutes Only once did it start working again after minutes without a reboot.
I actually tried a reinstall of Leopard. It would crash in the middle of it. Someone suggested I try a Hardware Test. I did and found an error on one of the two memory sticks in my computer. I replaced the memory and no longer have this problem with the Leopard install but I was hoping this was my problem so chose then not to do a reinstall and restored from a backup. Unfortunately this problem is still occurring.
It's obviously frustrating and I'm almost tempted to just do a reinstall and restore all my data such as documents, itunes music, etc. from my backup but I dont want to deal with reinstalling all of my apps. Any idea what is causing this? This started just after the MacWorld updates for iTunes, Front Row, and Quicktime but have no idea how it would cause this.

JKT · Jan 19, 2008, 07:41 AM

Use any haxies/APE at all? If so uninstall them and see if that helps. If not you can perform an Archive and Install rather than reformatting and installing - it will preserve all your settings and files but wipe the system. You might need to re-install a few apps (such as those requiring activation like Photoshop and Quark) and internet plug-ins, etc, but you will not have to re-install the majority.

seanc · Jan 19, 2008, 08:16 AM

What Mac do you have? Since you had a bad stick of RAM, I would advise doing an re-install as something may well have gotten corrupted during the time the faulty RAM was still in there.

markw10 · Jan 21, 2008, 03:29 AM

I have the MacBook Pro. Would an Archive and install be as good as a re-install. It sounds like it'll at least save some work but if it's not complete enough I'd rather just do the reinstall. I'm not sure what I'm doing right but now the system has not done this for almost 48 hours which has never happened. I'm almost tempted to do a restart to see if it comes back.
What is an haxie/APE?

seanc · Jan 21, 2008, 11:23 AM

Yes, an archive and install would be fine, it's at least worth a try since it takes less time and you can always re-install afterwards if the problem isn't fixed.
A haxxie/APE refers to ShapeShifters theme components, one of which is called APE - Application Enhancer. Sometimes these pieces of software cause problems like this.

JKT · Jan 21, 2008, 04:04 PM

A haxie is any of the system hacks that [unsanity] Welcome - Unsanity - Makers of Haxies, small useful utilities that enhance and redefine how Mac OS X works. sell (not just Shapeshifters themes), which all use the APE framework to inject their code into your system and apps. Because of the way APE works, it has the possibility to negatively impact anything you run on your system. If you use any haxies and experience any problems at all, they should be the first thing you disable to see if they are the cause.