[kelchm]

Today, when I tried to open the Energy Saver preference pane I was greeted with this error: "could not load Energy Saver preference pane."

I have tried repairing permissions. Anything else I should try before I do an archive install?

EDIT: Also, when I try to launch mail it crashes instantly. I have no idea what happened, everything was working fine earlier.

[Randman]

Restart?

[kelchm]

Originally Posted by Randman 

Restart?

I have restarted several times.

[jmikola]

I was having the same trouble, starting yesterday, with opening Energy Saver and the Desktop/Screensaver prefs panes. I followed some tips from this thread which suggested opening the Console utility and then starting System Preferences and attempting to open the troubled pref panes. I ended up catching the following output:

8/1/08 10:18:59 AM System Preferences[115] Error loading /System/Library/PreferencePanes/DesktopScreenEffectsPref.prefPane/Contents/MacOS/DesktopScreenEffectsPref: dlopen(/System/Library/PreferencePanes/DesktopScreenEffectsPref.prefPane/Contents/MacOS/DesktopScreenEffectsPref, 265): Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsAppSupport.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/ImageKit
Referenced from: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iLifeMediaBrowser.framework/Versions/A/iLifeMediaBrowser
Reason: image not found

The important line there was the path after "Library not loaded", so I called up Finder and Terminal and jumped down the line into that path. The problem ended up being that ImageKit.framework (beneath GraphicsAppSupport.framework) was a real folder with some empty-looking files within it. The actual ImageKit library was nowhere to be found. Comparing it to the ImageIO.framework alongside it, which is an alias/symlink to the real library stored elsewhere, I figured that ImageKit.framework should have been the same. Perhaps some recent installer script (run between now and when my pref panes were still working a few days ago) encountered an error while attempting to update it and left it as a real folder instead of a symlink.

After some detective work, I trace the original ImageKit.framework to:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework

Using Terminal, I cd'd my way into the GraphicsAppSupport.framework folder and went about restoring the alias/symlink:

$ cd /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsAppSupport.framework/Frameworks
(enter admin password and back up original folder just in case)
$ sudo mv ImageKit.framework foo
(create an alias pointing to the original library)
$ sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework ImageKit.framework
(assuming everything works now, we can remove that backed up folder)
$ sudo rm -rf foo

With Console still open, I restarted System Preferences and attempted to load the troublesome pref panes. They're now fully functional. I have no idea if the cause of your problem is the same, but at the very least, this might give you some insight as to how to go about researching it.