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Finder quits on startup
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hawiken
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Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Kapaau, Hi. USA
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Oct 4, 2003, 02:29 AM
 
Aloha,
On my wife's iMac 266 running OS 9.2.2, the finder quits on startup.
The problems started with Internet Explorer, about 4 days ago, which would freeze at the splash screen when IE was launched. Then it was Entourage 2001, which would freeze when an e-mail was deleted. In both cases, a hard restart is required.
Occassionally, the finder would quit on startup, but a second restart would be OK.

I have zapped the pram, rebuilt the desktop, run Discwarrior.
Trashed all of the MS preferences and reinstalled Office 2001 and IE 5.
I did a clean install of the system software.
Now, Entourage and IE behave OK, but the Finder quits on startup. Every_single_time...
I have run Conflict Catcher 8.0.4, which swears that it's the Apple CD/DVD group that's causing the problem, but disabling those extensions has not solved the problem.

Because it started with MS software, I have a feeling that some shared library may be at fault, but I have no idea how to go about diagnosing; and if reinstalling the Office apps and IE don't help, which they don't, then I'm at the end of my expertise. Anyway, this is just a guess; I'm always quick to point the finger at MS...

I COULD re-initialize the disc and reinstall everything except for one thing- her e-mail. If someone can tell me how to back up her old e-mails from Entourage, then this is an option; and it may be the easiest one.

Nothing has been added lately- no hardware, no downloads, no new software.

There is one other weird thing- she uses a freeware called PandoCalendar, and yesterday, all of her date disappeared from her calendar. Months and months of daily diary and scheduling stuff, and of course there's no backup. Again, I have no idea how, or why- either about why there's no backup, or why the data disappeared <G>.

ANY help is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks,
Ken
     
Gankdawg
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Pacific Northwest
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Oct 4, 2003, 09:50 AM
 
How much memory do you have? Sounds like it's time to up the amount of Preferred Memory for Entourage and Explorer.

As far as where her email is stored, it's in Harddrive/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Identities/Main Identity.
     
hawiken  (op)
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Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Kapaau, Hi. USA
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Oct 6, 2003, 01:22 AM
 
Well, thanks, but IE and Entourage are behaving themselves now- it's the Finder that quits on startup.
Theres as much memory as the iMac 266 will hold- 288 megs, I think- 32 that came with it, and 256 meg chip from OWC.
It's was running great until early last week. Again, no new software, hardware or peripherals.
Would you know of any other diagnostics that I could run?
Thanks,
Ken
     
Gankdawg
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Join Date: Oct 2001
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Oct 6, 2003, 10:43 AM
 
Try trashing the Finder preference file and then restarting. The Finder will be forced to create a new one (and you will lose some settings like how you like icons, positions, etc.) upon rebooting.

Sometimes the pref file just gets corrupted.
     
hawiken  (op)
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Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Kapaau, Hi. USA
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Oct 6, 2003, 05:10 PM
 
Thanks, again. I'll try that tonight when I get home.
Ken
     
hawiken  (op)
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Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Kapaau, Hi. USA
Status: Offline
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Oct 7, 2003, 08:43 PM
 
Well, tried trashing the Finder prefs and restarting, but that didn't work either- Finder still quits on startup.
One other weird thing- when the 'Finder has quit' dialogue box pops up, I close it, and then it pops up immediately again. Always twice, and the second time that I close it, it's gone for good; or at least until I restart again. Looks like a reformat and reinstall are in order.
She should probably be moving to 10.2.x anyway....I wonder how much of a dog it's going to be on a tray loading iMac 266...
Thanks,
Ken
     
   
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