[Francesca]

This is a serious bid for help; it seems like (my boyfriend) Jeremy's newly-upgraded G4 has gone seriously, outrageously buggy. The problem seems like a really complicated one.The upgrade consists of the following:

1) New (internal) 40 GB HD
2) Defrag of original HD, backup of all files onto 40 gig HD
3) 40 GB partitioned, now consists of 36 gig HD and 4 gig scratch disk(set as default scratch disk for Photoshop 5.5)
4) 256 MB RAM installed (we now have 512 megs altogether)
5) Upgrade from OS 8.6 to OS 9.1
6) Additional video card installed

Things seemed to go OK pretty much for about a week or so. I told him to save all new files to the new HD (Mammoth) and to trash some of the ones that were still on our originaI HD (Fracintosh) since it is about 80% full. I gave Photoshop 128 megs of RAM, and recalibrated the monitor.

A few days ago, Photoshop started acting buggy. Jeremy says it started acting really slow when he used 300 pixel brushes, which he has always liked. He says there would be a delay in the color appearing. Then, today, OE started acting wierd, and froze a number of times while he was sending email. He was finally able to send whatever mail he wanted, and he left the OE window open while he continued to use Photoshop.

Then the most unbelievable thing happened: When he closed Photoshop, he clicked the OE window, and at lightning speed, each email in his inbox opened, one after the other, as if something or someone was reading them really, really fast. I wonder if someone is hacking into his mailbox. (No, it's not me.) Is this possible? Does it sound like a hacker, or maybe one of those government programs like Carnivore? He closed his mailbox and OE.

At this point the desktop started to act buggy. When he clicked on a folder to open it, it would not open, but all folders in a straight line towards the TRASH highlighted, one after the other. Nothing wound up IN the trash, however. (He was able to open that). None of his folders will open, nor will the new HD (named Mammoth) or the scratch disk. He tried to rebuild the desktop, and was offered the familiar prompt TWICE, and then a
prompt asking if he wanted to save the contents of the desktop to the scratch disk. He clicked NO (was apparently given no other option) and the desktop was not rebuilt.

What on EARTH is happening here? Is there a hacker afoot? Could this be the result of a virus? Is the new RAM chip defective? I am such a novice at troubleshooting...I wish I knew more. He can't open anything on the desktop at present. He was also unable to disconnect Remote Access (we have it set up with the blinking icon on the menu bar) and had to shut down from the tower...

5:09 AM: He just remembered that a few days ago, when he tried to save a file to the new HD (Mammoth) all the icons in it hightlighted very quickly, one by one, just like what happened today on his OE program and on his desktop. At present, after restarting, the problems persist, and a new one has cropped up: The (mouse)cursor worked for awhile and then froze, displaying a rectangle with a horizontal line through it, which looks sort of like a flag (!?)

Francesca ??????????????????

[chris v]

Do you still have the second hard drive installed? and does it have a system folder on it? The first thing I'd do is boot from the second drive to see if the problem is related to a specific drive and system folder.

Zap the PRAM-- hold down option+command+P+R as you restart the machine, untill you hear the third start-up chime, then let go. This resets something (I'm not sure exactly what) in the motherboard that can occasionally corrupt.

Track down a copy of Disk Warrior. It will rebuild any corrupt directories on the problem drive, if it's related to a specific drive.

Of course check back, as I'm by no means the expert around here.

CV

[Leonis]

This really sounds like a hard drive problem....

My advice is backup all the stuff....reformat the whole drive and reinstall the OS and others...

To see if the RAM is defective...use either TechTool or the Hardware test CD comes with the G4 (if your machine is the summer 2000 or later machine). I don't think it's RAM problem. If it's RAM problem you can't launch Photoshop at all....but hey...it's safe to check everything.

Zap PRAM or maybe hit the cuda switch? May help a little...

BTW. Why are you using 300 pixel brushes???? Any brush bigger than 200 pixel is deadly slow even you have the fastest machine!

[Francesca]

Hey, guys...it it's a hardware problem, we'll have to bring it back to the repair shop. Zapping the PRAM and stuff like that is what I'm able to do. We shouldn't have to reformat, etc...We just got our Mac back from the upgrade last week! Unless, of course, they screwed up something there. Jeremy likes to use huge brushes with the airbrush tool...just likes the effect.

Thanks to all for your advice here...
Francesca

[bluedog]

If you have a chance BEFORE sending it in. It sounds to me like a USB problem!! Honestly. The multiple selections seems like it thinks you are clicking and dragging or holding down the shift key.

Try and see if unplugging your mouse/keyboard from the USB and waiting something like 20 seconds and reconnecting it does anything.

The multiple emails quickly opening seems like the effect you would get if you highlighted a bunch (in his case all of them) and then double-clicked to open them. It really seems like issues with your USB. They may be the cause of the upgrades, but I would NOT worry about viruses or hacking attempts.

One question, have you done the upgrade on the firmware for your machine? I didn't seem to have any USB trouble until after applying the apple firmware update for G4s. It may have been a coincidence, but occasionally on startup, I'll have to plug/unplug my keyboard and mouse and then they will work (otherwise they don't respond at all). That's just a minor nuisance, and I don't reboot often, but its nonetheless a bother.

Good luck, try and see if this helps, and if so, perhaps a new keyboard or mouse will be the solution.

Try deleting any temp files photoshop may have created on your scratch disk. I had a similar thing happen to a box at work, and wiping out 7GB worth of invisible temp files did the trick nicely.

[Francesca]

You know, bluedog, I never did a firmware update. But I have had USB problems from time to time, both with the G4 I'm talking about here, and with my other, newer (5 months) G4. It seems to happen with any of the devices, like keyboard, printer, Wacom tablet, floppy drive. Sometimes they won't work even if I unplug and replug things into the hub, even trying this with the 2 USB ports in the tower. If I restart, the problem usually goes away. Why are things so buggy with USB, anyway?

Francesca

[bluedog]

This is all anecdotal, but I also overheard and spoke with someone at a local store who had a faulty USB port on their brand-new iBook they bought. It was their first new mac in a long time and they were disappointed. They had it replaced, but it was frustrating for them nonetheless.

Try putting your keyboard and mouse onto the other port and see if your glitch goes away. If this is a new machine and still under their telephone care, I'd give Apple a call.

It seems like the USB components are not the best (in the iBook the person said it was really loose and flaked out (because of its wiggling in the port). I think there are issues regarding the USB drivers that Apple hasn't brought up before. Its amazing in OSX things seem to work properly though without the problems I've been having in 9.21. Are your problems consistent, intermittent, or random and scarce?

Our configurations seem very similar though -- dual proc. USB hub, wacom tablet. I don't have a USB floppy (I use an older networked machine if I need a floppy drive). Intermittent problems *could* be related to power issues, but if you have a powered hub and its using that power that shouldn't be the problem.

Seems to me USB isn't all it was cracked up to be.

[reader50]

With your upgrade to OS 9.1, you are most likely running on a copy of CarbonLib 1.3.1. This version of CarbonLib has been known to cause many odd glitches, especially regarding icon selection and the Trash.

You can try the earlier version 1.2.5, or the current version 1.4. Both are supposed to be free of the 1.3.1 problems.

CarbonLib 1.2.5 - 1.9 MB
CarbonLib 1.4 - 2.1 MB

Hope this solves your problem.

[iYeat]

Is there any reason you're not upgrading to MacOS 9.2.1? This helped out my system a lot.

-C

[zos]

This sounds like a macro virus from within Outlook Express.

I've never used it as an email program but from my understanding it's the most insecure and susceptible to virii.

Get yourself a copy of the newest version of Virex and check things out immediately.

[Francesca]

I have just been through the most amazing amount of work regarding fixing these problems. I have to post a short list here of what I found wrong because I have to go shopping right now, so I will elaborate on it later.

1. Virtual memory problem. If I switch it on and off, depending on whether I'm using Photoshop, the prefs get corrupted. I now have it ON all the time, and gave Photoshop 80 megs of RAM.
2. USB Problem: I now have to plug my Wacom and my keyboard only into the tower, and unplug the Wacom when I want to use the other peripherals (ie I plug the hub back into the tower)
3. Wacom driver problem. And reinstallation only deposited 12 copies of the (unusable) driver in my extensions folder. I had to install a new driver from the Wacom website
4. Photoshop, Wacom, Finder, mouse and other prefs had to be deleted
5. Photoshop had to be reinstalled
6. Carbon Lib 1.4 seems so far to have cleared up the OE Problem
7. Partition called Scratch Disk does not work very well as a scratch disk. Setting seem to get changed, etc. I am using my extra HD, Mammoth (36 GB) as the first scratch disk, then Fracintosh (my startup disk), then "Scratch Disk."
8. Rebuilt the Directory with DW, checked all disks and repaired problems with Norton. This one should actually be listed first. It seemed to cause alot more problems.
9. Trashed alot of huge files on Startup Disk (Fracintosh) because it was 80% full, and even though it had been defragged I thought the bugs might be cause partly by this fact. After doing this, rebuilding the desktop and directory, I thought things would work better. It was then that Photoshop started to act even buggier, and the airbrush tool wouldn't work (with pen OR mouse) and I had to do the Photoshop reinstallation.

Today everything seems to be working. I won't consider it fixed unless I can say this tomorrow, too...

Francesca

[mortis999]

Francesca

Open the control panels folder.
Turn off every non OS9 extension and restart.
If this doesn't fix the problem perhaps you will need
to update the bios.

Just a shot in the dark...
If you have GlobalFax software update it and use exclusive ring detection. Classic ring detection will cause the problems you have discribed.

[Francesca]

I did start my extensions check using an OS 9.1 base set. I don't use my fax software; I have everything turned off, because I can't figure out how to use it, and anyway, I have a fax machine. Fortunately, everything is working OK and has, for a few days now. I have given Photoshop alot of RAM, and keep VM on for all apps now. Somehow, turning things on and off on my computer seems to cause problems. My prefs were easily corrupted when I started changing them...had to trash them several times before all was OK. Thanks to everyone for all your help. BTW...[b]what are bios?[b]

Francesca

[reader50]

BIOS - Basic Input Output System

This is a term from the PC world, it is roughly equivalent to our Firmware, or boot ROM on older Macs.

[bluedog]

Just a note on the new firmware update.

I'm on a 533DP and the update has resolved some USB issues I've had with non-apple standard devices. I had trouble since the last update with my keyboard and mouse (apple standard) not being recognized on startup until after I plugged and unplugged them. Then they would be recognized.

I had to do the same for my wacom tablet and Logitech Wireless mouse.

after this update, all is well. Can't say for sure it was all fixed related to the update, but it definitely showed immediate improvement.

[Francesca]

So far, so good. No problems to report. I think everything's fixed. But I am leery of turning VM on and off, since doing so seemed to upset many settings. I was quite surprised, also, that trashing alot of image files corrupted Photoshop to such an extent that I had to reinstall it. This really happened...the airbrush tool would not work at all after throwing away 3 GB of files, even though I did stuff like rebuilding the directory, desktop, and trashing prefs. It was completely corrupted. But that was a few days ago, and now, like I said, everything seems to be working OK.

Frankly, I can't believe that I figured this one out, even with the help of many kind folks on THREE forums...

Francesca

[malson]

Three forums! You forum whore Glad to hear that everything worked out for you. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you don't have any more problems.