[sra]

Various threads have reported a problem shutting down a computer running Tiger, but none of them seems to have the answer for my version of what's happening.

Environment: 17" G4 1.33 GHz PowerBook, OS X 10.4.2. No extra hardware attached.

Symptom: when I try to shutdown or reboot in any of the normal ways, the machine hangs with just a screen background. I have to use the power button to shut down. When I try to shutdown directly from my account, I am left with my own background. Alternatively, I can log out normally, getting back to the login screen, but then the shutdown or restart buttons bring me to an empty screen.

Apparently there is some process running that blocks shutdown. It must not be one that I started, because I can log out normally. Also the same thing happens when I log in as another user, one with hardly any startup items, who hasn't actually used the machine since well before I installed Tiger.

The problem did not appear when I first installed Tiger. I am not certain, but it may have appeared shortly after I updated to 10.4.2.

When I try to shutdown from Terminal with "sudo shutdown -h(/r) now", I can see what is blocking the shutdown. I get a message like the following, after messages announcing the shutdown of various services:

2005-08-30 13:23:31.886 openexec[353] Process lock reports that another openexec is running on this host.

If I now repeat the "sudo shutdown -h now" command, the machine shuts down normally, indicating that the first shutdown killed the extra process.

Prior to attempting to shutdown, Activity Monitor (as well as ps-ax) reports only a single "openexec" process. Its process number is not the same as the number that appears in the "Process lock reports ..." message. It still shows up (with the same process number) afer the first shutdown command runs.

Does anyone have any idea (a) where this extra openexec process might be coming from, and (b) how I can keep it from starting?

[__^^__]

Have you looked in any of the system logs for more information?

[sra]

I found the solution: When I removed QuickBackStartupItem and SpeedToolsDTStartupItem from /Library/StartupItems/ I was able to shutdown and restore normally. Since I still get the message about "another openexec" when I shutdown from Terminal, I guess that was a red herring.

Now I wonder where these startup items came from. There is an install log in /Library/Logs for something called SpeedTools on the relevant date, and citing these things as installed. I certainly didn't install such a thing directly myself: it must be something else that gave me this present. does someone know where this came from?

[Barry]

http://www.speedtools.com/STUS.shtml

[Barry]

if you don't know how installed this then your system has been compromised. someone knows your admin password...software cannot be installed on a Mac without it...I would change my admin password as soon as possible...

[sra]

Mea culpissima. I DID install SpeedTools -- it's a utility that is distributed free with OWC FireWire drives, and I just didn't remember that I installed it at a point when I was trying to diagnose a problem with my external FW drive.

So: if you buy a drive from OWC (and their drives are fine, and reasonably priced), don't install this free software on your Tiger system until the problem is corrected.