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MaxPower2k3 · Aug 28, 2003, 06:40 PM

Today, I was watching my friend's web-based webcam (uses Teveo software to broadcast on a webpage with a java applet) and i closed the window, and safari crashed. Then finder crashed. when i tried to restart, everything else crashed. I restarted with ctrl + cmd + power and it went to the gray screen and got through that fine, then went to the Mac OS X startup screen, and it got through that normally. Everything loaded. Then the desktop background loads, and stays blank. Nothing loads from there. The dock shows up fine, but clicking on anything results in it freezing. opening the Force Quit window (alt + cmd + esc) works, and shows nothing is running. The dock doesn't indicate Finder is running either. As best as i can tell, finder just isn't starting on boot. Any suggestions to get it to work? I ran Repair Disk and Repair Permissions from the OS X install disk, and both finished fine. My mom has an iBook, so I could start my PowerBook (it's a 12", combo drive, 256 RAM) in Target Disk Mode and delete some pref files if necessary, but i wouldn't know what to look for. Anyone know what might fix this?

MaxPower2k3 · 09:07 PM

well i tried booting into single-user mode and deleting the Finder Prefs from there, but it didn't work. Finder still doesn't load on boot. Anyone have any suggestions, short of "back up and reformat"?

edit: tried Safe Boot (hold Shift on startup) and that doesn't work either... just get a blank blue window and a spinning beachball after OSX loads (even worse than on a normal boot, ironically)

Mr. Blur · Aug 28, 2003, 09:30 PM

So, it sounds like you are getting past the login screen then, or are you set to auto-login? Tried logging in as a different user?

Maybe a longshot, but what if you connect it to the ibook in target mode and re-run the 10.2.6 combo updater? (then of course repair permissions and apply security updates etc).

MaxPower2k3 · Aug 28, 2003, 09:33 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
So, it sounds like you are getting past the login screen then, or are you set to auto-login? Tried logging in as a different user?

Maybe a longshot, but what if you connect it to the ibook in target mode and re-run the 10.2.6 combo updater? (then of course repair permissions and apply security updates etc).

i do have it set to auto-login, so i can't try logging in as someone else. If i connect to the iBook, and the PowerBook's drive is mounted on the iBook, could i specify that i want to run the updater on the OS installed on that drive, as opposed to the one on the iBook's internal hard drive?

CharlesS · Aug 28, 2003, 09:41 PM

Have you tried running DiskWarrior on the drive?

MaxPower2k3 · Aug 28, 2003, 09:55 PM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Have you tried running DiskWarrior on the drive?

don't have a copy of DiskWarrior

It doesn't seem to be a hard drive problem, because it boots perfectly normally until Finder tries to load, which leads me to beleive it's just a problem with Finder...

threestain · 11:24 PM

I've got a very similiar problem - except I only get a blank screen, with no dock or anything. I tried single user mode, and then booted through, but here it keeps flickering back to a black screen every minute or so as if its trying to load something.

Also, as I'm relatively new to this mac game, how on earth do I back up or delete things in single user mode? I don't know any of the commands, and therefore can't even get a manual page on them!

Also how do you boot into os 9 - there's a apple knowledge base doc on the issues, but whether any of them will work is debatable!

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464

Please help - I'm absolutely buggered without this, and I only got in April!

threestain · Aug 29, 2003, 02:26 AM

Argh!

I've followed all the advice given by the apple support base, and now I have to log in - but it won't progress past the login screen.

I log in, and then the screen blanks and the log-in screen returns.

Argh!

fitter · Aug 29, 2003, 06:40 AM

Try entering the console. In the User field, enter ">console", and click the Log In button. Can you login in text mode? If not, are there any error messages displayed? Anything in the system log like "Cannot authenticate: null authorization ref."?

threestain · Aug 29, 2003, 07:02 AM

Having looked at all the threads in the apple forums, its seems this is quite a common problem (caused by an update from july?). Will try and enter in text mode - single user mode is fine, and apparently its a problem with the gui, so maybe text mode will allow me to at least save some files before reformatting and killing my computer!

Thanks for info!