[Orpheus]

iMac DV Special Edition, OS 9.0.4, AOL 4.0, AOL Instant Messenger 4.1.1068... a lethal mix? Perhaps... I have experienced all manner of weird and daunting problems with AOL and its particular brand of online venom.

This time, it's a problem not with AOL proper, but with AOL Instant Messenger. I launch the app, it connects and goes through the motions of a normal sign-in procedure (Buddy List pops up, little stock ticker merrily begins to scroll, mailbox palette blinks to life), but after three seconds, the stock ticker freezes and I am unable to do ANYTHING other than move the pointer around. No menu will respond, no command will work, I can't even click on the desktop to return to the Finder. All I can do is force quit.

Any thoughts on this? I have trashed prefs to no avail. I have reinstalled the application, to no avail. I just can't figure it out.

Thanks in advance to any who venture a guess!

Darren

[Cipher13]

Hm... same exact thing happens to me, as of today only.

Cipher13

The same problem started happening to me around 10:30 EST last night. However my entire computer goes dead and the mouse freezes

I had the same problem, until I realized that it was related to the news ticker. I turned off the news ticker in the preferences section (before signing on to the service) and the hanging problem went away. My guess is that AIM is hanging for some reason, while trying to fetch new news articles after launching.

Good luck...

The same problem started happening to me around 10:30 EST last night. However my entire computer goes dead and the mouse freezes

[laz]

Same thing happens here. it started hapening last night around 10Pm or so. Disabling the news ticker is the workaround for now.

[devin]

Stupid AIM, anyway I had the same problem yesterday and thought perhaps it had something to do with napster for mac that I downloaded yesterday so I sent entirly too much time trashing prefrences uninstalling and reinstalling the damn thing and all to no avail, anyway the only thingd that seems to work is turning off the tickers, which is fine with me

[Orpheus]

Great - glad to see that this one was a no-brainer (as in, I have no brain for not thinking of the "Ticker Prefs" sooner!). Let's hope this is not a recurring nightmare, but at least it seems that there is a fairly simple workaround.

Unless, next time it happens, something ELSE within the program causes it to hang. <ominous music swells>

Darren

[Fyzycyst]

There's all kinds of problems w/ AIM. I don't use the news ticker, so I've never found this particular bug, but these idiots don't listen when you give them detailed bug reports.

You all know what I'm talking about... The problem where, if you dare open the Get Info on somebody, then the next time you click in or open up a different window, AIM crashes. Or the problem where, if you've had multiple IMs open, then when you close them, AIM crashes. And, of course, their alleged "Talk" capability that has never worked. Not to mention the random "Let's silently trash the Buddy List upon opening" bug.

All but the last are, of course, 100% duplicatable. I've offered to give these people Macsbug logs and stuff, but I suspect that their bug report system is routed directly to the bit bucket.

(Having said all that, I've learned to work around all these. Mostly, I never close any window, I just windowshade them, then I just quit when I'm done -- although it still crashes quite often when I quit. And I periodically backup my Buddy List. But with the Talk thing... Really ticks me off, since all I get from others is "Oh it's cause you're on a Mac.")

- Eric.

Same happened on my PowerMac 8600 last evening around the same time as others. I just DLed/Installed the latest beta and all was well.

About the talk thing...I got it to work shortly after it came out. It's very sensitive to firewalls, and I haven't tried it lately, but I did watch it work once, between my mac and someone else's Windows machine.

[Orpheus]

Regarding the Talk feature, I have gotten in to work with this iMac on numerous occasions. I DID encounter some hairy weirdness with the tendency of the Sound control panel to revert its input source to the Internal Modem (???), but upon quitting AIM and selecting "Built-In Mic," it has functioned flawlessly (other than the inevitable lag issues with dial-up).

Darren

[TazmanDman]

4.2.1147 is the latest update... maybe it will help

-Taz

[Cipher13]

I have yet to apply that update...
I opened AIM again today, no probs.
Just went away.
Didn't change any settings or anything...
And, when it did happen, I could force quit it.

Cipher13

[Orpheus]

Cipher:

Agreed here - I, too, was able to force quit, but nothing else. And if the sole functioning aspect of an application is the ability to kill it, then there is something TERRIBLY wrong! <chuckle> I mean, the app was superceding even the application-switching and menu-dropping abilities of the OS itself! That was a hellacious breed of hang that I've rarely encountered short of a full crash (mouse frozen and/or error msg. dialog box).

Also agreed - the problem disappeared as quickly as it manifested; logging on today, no problems. Relieving and a bit unsettling, as if the same types of gremlins are apt to reappear at any given moment. At least I know the work-around for THIS particular one. What happens when the next one crops up? <same ominous music swells once more>

Darren

[Cipher13]

Indeed, very strange.
But I can think of explanations... not real good ones though. I mean, all AIM servers doing the same thing at the same time? No way.
Fould play on their side? Nah...
Yes, it is a real strange crash - no response from anything whatsoever. However, when force quitting, everything else is fine, and I can even launch AIM again...
Which means AIM was totally monopolising the comps runtime - waiting for something from the newsticker server?
Oh well. Alls well now.

Cipher13