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Saramin · Nov 13, 2005, 03:07 AM

Alright. This may sound like I've gone off the deep end, so bear with me. This morning I woke up my sleeping laptop running 10.4.3 and found it gone all to hell. It's like there are two concurrent versions of OS X running at the same time. Half of the dropdown menu options suddenly are listed twice with contradictory hotkey shortcuts, my airport card settings have been reset and have stopped working outright, the computer insists on speaking aloud every single input despite my turning off any and all related audio options, and there's a black rectangle surrounding the last thing I mouseclicked on. My keybindings are gone and so are my custom hotkeys. Dashboard lost half its widgets.

Can I rollback to the last working version or is my only option to just reinstall Tiger? I'd rather resort to the last since I misplaced the original CD (no, it's not a pirated version). Any thoughts?

Thanks. =)

CharlesS · Nov 13, 2005, 03:50 AM

That has got to be one of the weirdest things I have ever heard.

If you create a new user, does all this behavior continue to occur?

Big Mac · Nov 13, 2005, 04:28 AM

Based on a recent previous thread, it sounds like you have a Universal Access feature on. I assume the Airport weirdness is incidental.

JKT · Nov 13, 2005, 07:30 AM

Hold down shift as you restart to disable any third party kexts and apps and see if that restores any sanity. Also, do you have lots of disk space left? Do you use FileVault at all?

JKT · Nov 13, 2005, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Based on a recent previous thread, it sounds like you have a Universal Access feature on. I assume the Airport weirdness is incidental.

There isn't a single Universal Access feature that would do this, unless something has gone seriously wrong. Where is that thread.

ghporter · Nov 13, 2005, 09:18 AM

I'd be interested to find out whether a restart had been tried at all, and if so what happened. I want to believe that the original problem is simply an odd memory glitch, and that a restart would clear it up completely...but then I'm an optimist.

Progress?

TETENAL · Nov 13, 2005, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

There isn't a single Universal Access feature that would do this

Well, Universal Access (VoiceOver) doubles restart and shut down menus, outlines with black the selected control and speaks it aloud. Sounds exactly like "this".

JKT · Nov 13, 2005, 12:03 PM

My bad - you are absolutely right, it is VoiceOver (btw, the OP probably pressed command-F5 which toggles whether it is switched on or not). Thanks for the correction - it prompted me to take a look at VO again... I hadn't realised that VoiceOver doubles the menu options (fwiw, it doesn't actually double them - the additional Restart and Shutdown options are to do so immediately without further input whereas the ones with ... after them are the standard options)

JKT · 12:11 PM

fisherKing · Nov 13, 2005, 12:24 PM

i've seen this twice with quark users...
they do a key-combo, and turn on voiceover.
then freak!

i've had them turn off the key combos for universal access (in the keyboard pref pane)

really looks & acts weird, doesnt it?

tooki · Nov 13, 2005, 12:44 PM

All VoiceOver is doing is exposing "hidden" menu commands, mainly those using the Option key. In Mac OS X, a normal user can press the option key while the menu is open and see how some commands will change (e.g. "Close Window" -> "Close All Windows").

And also, if you look carefully, the commands that are "duplicated" and "contradictory" are not: one is missing the ellipsis ("…"). The ellipsis after a command means that further user input will be elicited, while a command without an ellipses will be executed immediately.

tooki

fisherKing · Nov 13, 2005, 12:52 PM

you also get a force quit for the frontmost app.

the black highlight boxes are odd, though. sometimes they pop up where there is no cursor activity, or stay onscreen after a box is closed.

the first time i saw this, we did an archive & install. then we backed up, zero'd the drive, reinstalled the os and all was well.

until that quark command opened voiceover (and that's how i found this!)

tooki · Nov 13, 2005, 12:55 PM

How did you guys NOT notice VoiceOver turning on? It literally speaks "VoiceOver On" through the speakers when you activate it...

tooki

fisherKing · Nov 13, 2005, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

How did you guys NOT notice VoiceOver turning on? It literally speaks "VoiceOver On" through the speakers when you activate it...

tooki

not sure about the other person, but the one i worked with...external speakers...generally turned off...!

tooki · Nov 13, 2005, 02:27 PM

Ah. To me, audio feedback from the computer is important enough that the sound is never off.

tooki

fisherKing · Nov 13, 2005, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

Ah. To me, audio feedback from the computer is important enough that the sound is never off.

tooki

i concur...but the woman in question (a graphics pro) plays music from a *gasp* stereo system and hated hearing her mac make noise when working...