[awcomix]

Upon switching my G5 (mac OS X 10.4) on last night I discovered that all my preferences had been reset to default settings. For example, my desktop files where misplaced, desktop image changed, dock programs reset, firefox settings and bookmarks reset etc. Luckily all files were intact
I have not logged in or out of the user account or changed any settings/preferences in my last session. Nor has any one else used the computer. I’m at a loss as do why this has happened

[Sherman Homan]

That is usually the result of creating a new user or trying to manually rename your original home directory. Open up your hard drive, open up the Users folder. Did you rename your home directory? It should be your "short" name, which you can check in System Preferences --> Accounts.

[awcomix]

No I had not done anything like this and the shortname is still what it should be. No system preferences were changed or even looked at

[TETENAL]

Are you using FileVault?

[awcomix]

No. I haven't used or downloaded any new programs within the last couple of weeks

[Big Mac]

It really does sound almost exactly like a thread from a week ago. That person's thread was titled almost the same way. OS X does not "reset." Please check to make sure you're logged into your user.

[awcomix]

I am logged into one of two accounts as I have always been. The other account has nothing in it and is never used. Other than shutting down the computer at the end of the day i have done nothing different.

[Chuckit]

If you're not using FileVault, there only are a few things that are likely to cause this (or even can cause it, as far as I know):

1) Renaming or moving your home directory
2) Renaming or moving the Library folder located in your home directory
3) Renaming or moving the Preferences folder inside that Library folder

I would take another look and make sure neither of these has somehow happened accidentally.

[awcomix]

Nothing has been altered or changed all I have used the computer for is net surfing and photoshop in the last couple of days. I've gone to 'library' folder and the is still a 'preferences' folder there. Please excuse my ignorance but I'm not really sure what I'm exactly looking for to be different...

[Chuckit]

The Library or Preferences folder would be recreated. What you're looking for is another folder, possibly with a short or nonsensical name if you accidentally renamed it, that used to be your Library or Preferences folder. And I would try looking in the Users folder at the root of your hard drive to see if there are any weird user folders in there too.

[awcomix]

No, nothing jumps out at me as different, plus I was never in that area of the computer to change anything. There are two users listed plus a folder labeled 'shared'...
My main concern i guess is not having this happen again.

[analogika]

The most common cause of this (and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet) is that your hard drive is full.

If your hard drive is too full, your applications can no longer save their preferences (due to lack of disk space), so that the next time you run that program, it will have to re-create the default Preference file.

This typically affects all applications running at the time the disk space ran out, including the Finder, desktop image, and the Dock.

It is recommended you keep around 10% of your hard drive free for normal use. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you go below 1GB of free space, as normal use - for example, surfing the internet with Safari for a while - can cause virtual memory to eat that up very suddenly.

Under 10.4, you are warned when disk space gets low. Did you receive and ignore that warning? How much free space do you have on your startup drive?

Did you "clean up" your hard drive recently? The Library folder in your home folder contains ALL your personal preference settings. I've seen people throw that stuff together with the top-level Library folder on their hard drive, thinking they were redundant...

[Rich Quarles]

I've been having the same problem periodically ever since I migrated to a MacBook Pro from my trusty Powerbook. I AM using filevault though. Could someone point me to the previous thread-- I couldn't find it.

Trashed preferences are especially frequent after system crashes.. which I virtually never got before on previous system... and now get once or twice a week. And yes, system is current 10.4.9 and all patched.

Find that Mail.app is ridiculously fragile in this way-- and iTunes as well.

Thanks in advance,
Rich

[Hobeaux]

I used to have a blue-n-white tower with a 10GB (!) hard drive. Once the drive dropped below 100MB free space the Finder would relaunch back to the default settings--my customized Dock would be replaced with the default set and any other setting would revert.

definitely check your available HD space.

[kick52]

this happened to me once, my library folder got moved into ~/.jedit somehow.

do a search for library or preferences or whatever.