[ClaraT]

Hi,

Yesterday whenI turned on my ibook, which is a year old, the photo I have in the background on the desktop (wallpaper, right?) was missing. Instead there was a light blue plain background. All my icons were there, just not the photo I use for wallpaper.

I also noticed that my dock at the bottom looked smaller, like all the icons shrunk a bit. I was worried that the computer wouldn't work, but it did. Had no problems with email, wireless, word.

Now today, the wallpaper is back. I didn't do anything to try and get it back. . .it's just reappeared.

I have not installed any new software or made any changes to this ibook to cause this peculiar change. No software updates were done, nothing. No downloads.

Does anyone think this is a warning for future problems?

Would appreciate hearing from you.

thanks . . .running 10.3.7

clarat

[nbn22385]

Did you repair permissions after the problem? There is a [small] chance it could help.

[Turnpike]

Originally posted by ClaraT:
(wallpaper, right?)

they're called Desktop Pictures in Mac OS (classic and X) but the rest of the world (windows) calls it wallpaper... I don't think it really matters what you call it, we all know what you're talking about




I would, as suggested, repair permissions, although I don't know what kind of permissions could be messed up to cause this. I think most likely it was just a simple small background process didn't work properly during the boot procedure... a simple log out/log in would have probably fixed it (and there's likely a process you could terminate from the terminal that would have caused it to restart....)

I really doubt it is a sign of things to come... don't worry about it unless it starts happening often.

[ClaraT]

I stand corrected. . .Desktop Pictures. Thanks, want NO part of PC world

Another quirky event happened after I shut down and started up about an hour later yesterday.
Just want to get information out in case others are having this problem. Hopefully you are right and it's nothing to get too concerned about. . .

This time the blue screen stayed empty for an extra long time before the first image comes up, you know the apple logo and all the initializing info.

Then the desktop picture appears but not the icons that run across the top against the white border. The beach ball was spinning and spinning and spinning.

Then the time showed up in the upper right hand corner, but the white border was still missing. The desktop picture was there but not the icons that run across the top--the percentage of battery, the flag, the sound, wireless symbols were missing. None of my items on the desktop were there either.

All the while I'm hearing the cranking, grinding of the hard drive And the screen is very dim. Once it stopped making the grinding noise, I pressed the light button that makes the screen brighter.

Are we covered for one year under Apple, then need to buy Applecare after that?

Would appreciate more thoughts on what is going on.

thanks,

clarat

[nbn22385]

I believe you have to buy AppleCare within the first year of purchase.

[Forte]

Then the desktop picture appears but not the icons that run across the top against the white border. The beach ball was spinning and spinning and spinning.

Then the time showed up in the upper right hand corner, but the white border was still missing. The desktop picture was there but not the icons that run across the top--the percentage of battery, the flag, the sound, wireless symbols were missing. None of my items on the desktop were there either.

I've experienced something sort of similar to this specific thing three times since I applied the 10.3.7 update. The desktop background, time, flag, battery, etc., all appeared, but the white bar at the top, and the dock (at the bottom) did not, and the beachball was sat there spinning for a good two minutes or so (at a guess). However, I did not experience any noticeable HDD grinding or noise (it wasn't any different to the sounds it makes when OS X starts normally - it just went on for a tiny bit longer than usual), or the screen dimming, though.

I don't think it's anything to worry about, personally, as I've only seen it happen after applying 10.3.7 - I've had the machine for almost a year (same as you, it appears), and it's not done anything odd 'til the very day 10.3.7 was applied to it. I'm not worried, anyways (I expected an update to cause weird behaviour at some point - it's inevitable, and might well have been fixed in 10.3.8, which is out now).