[Synotic]

As far as I can tell, this problem isn't specific to any OS version so there might be some kind of software conflict I'm unaware of. About a month and a half ago, as I was about to leave for vacation, I had to shut down my computer (to store it away, I didn't bring it with me)... Oddly enough it wouldn't shut down, I waited for a few more minutes and then held down the power button for 5 seconds to force it to shut down.

Fast forward to today, and I realized that I still had the problem. The computer booted fine, and everything seemed fine. When I had to restart, I want to the Apple menu and chose Restart... nothing happened. No errors, nothing in the console, no processor grinding. Nothing happened. Same thing with logging out and shutting down. I can select the menu and choose it, but nothing follows. If I hit the power button on my laptop, the dialog asking me whether I want to shut down, restart or log out doesn't come up. Again, no processor grinding, nothing at all. I can however, utilize the sleep menu.

In an effort to fix the problem, I downloaded and installed 10.3.5... same problem. When it asked me to restart, I would hit the button, nothing happened. I ended up forcing it to shut down using the 5 second power button method. I then decided to get my original discs out and do an archive and install... while booted from the CD, it was able to restart just fine (to prompt me for the additional discs). Which makes me think I might have a software problem. I then proceeded to install the 11 or so updates I had missed. After a few minutes of downloading and installing, same thing; as of right now, I can't restart, shut down or log out. I also repaired permissions.

Although I currently have my headphones, iPod and tablet plugged in, the problem still exists with nothing connected to the computer. I haven't performed any physical upgrades with the computer since I bought it months ago. The RAM is stock, hard drive etc...

Checking my process viewer, I have very few things running, but just a list if it helps:

• Activity Monitor
• Transmit
• iChatAgent
• iChat
• AppleSpell
• Mail
• Safari
• InkServer
• Pod2GoMenu
• Microsoft AU Daemon
• iCalAlarmScheduler
• Finder
• SystemUIServer
• Dock
• pbs
• loginwindow
• ATSServer
• WindowServer

Pod2GoMenu and the Microsoft AU Daemon are the only 2 apps I could possibly see as affecting this, but I could be wrong. The problem still exists when I terminate these processes.

Finally, the last piece of info I can provide is one method in which I can reboot. That is, by typing 'sudo reboot' in the Terminal. Doing so fades my screen to blue and my computer reboots normally. So I don't think there is anything wrong with my computer actually rebooting.

As I mentioned earlier, my system is fairly clean as I did an archive and install and don't have any odd processes running. I haven't noticed any other odd activity from my computer. This one really has me stumped

My hardware is a 1.25GHz PowerBook with stock 512 MB of RAM, 5400RPM 80GB hard drive. Currently running Mac OS X 10.3.5, but the problem existed with 10.3.4 as well. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to any possible help

[bergy]

You haven't moved any fonts around have you .... just a thought

Other than that, I would run Disk Warrior I guess ....

[asdasd]

when you choose the Apple menu options for logout/ restart/ or shutdown ( but not sleep), the system sends an AppleEvent to loginwindow which has all the smarts about logging out.

So there could be one of 2 problems

1) AppleEvents are broken. Try some other apple events, using the Script Editor application.

2) loginwindow is broken. Try sample loginwindow and see what ya get

( In terminal sample loginwindow 2)

also, you may have a problem with the login preferences, do you launch anything at login time?

[Big Mac]

This bug comes up every once in awhile. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone here has found the solution to the problem. Sometimes it cures itself, I recall. Lacking any better solution, I suggest an Archive and Install.

[asdasd]

Surely we can find the root cause of the problem - as I said it is either loginwindow or the AppleEvent manager at fault. So lets find out, shall we. I havenever seen it so we need Synotic's help.

Archive and install is not a real solution to bug that is not totally destructive, if we find a reason we can mail it to Apple.

[mikeini]

im pretty sure its the loginwindow.

i had this prob and the only way i could cure it was to reformat sadly.

but there are ways thru terminal to shutdown, logout or restart which is a LOT Better than forcing a shut down.

the commands are this:

sudo shutdown for shutdown ....

sudo reboot for restart

to kill the loginwindow from terminal, you need to do the following:

(if i remember correctly - pretty sure this will work).

open the activity moniter and look for the loginwindow processor id (pid).

in terminal. type kill pid 192 or something like that .. if i remember the specifics i will edit ..

but its something iolk ethat


i hope that helps.

when i had this problem .. i could only restart .. nto shut down .. and i used terminal to kill the loginwindow and then shut down.