System Preferences Won't launch from Apple Menu

[arn]

Anyone run into this?

I've reparied my drive, repaired my permissions... and it still won't launch.

I've rebootded too.

what's the solution to this? I can launch system preferences from my Apps directory, and it works fine.

arn

[King Cobra]

Are you running Jaguar or Panther on your machine? If it is Jaguar, have the latest version (10.2.6) installed.

If it is Panther, perhaps you need to notify Apple of this problem. I've been told that there are new seeds being leaked...

When did you first notice this problem? Do any other Apple menu items work?

Try logging into root user (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106290) and see if the problem continues to occur.

[arn]

Jaguar 10.2.6

Other items work.

Not sure how long.... a short while. I haven't used preferences in a week or so probably.

arn

[Kwyjibo]

I had this problem when I had jaguar installed on one partition and panther installed on another. I'm thinking that jagaur autosense some kind of defaults that were set by panther and then even when your back in jag it tries to boot the panther sys preferences. The only reason I noticed this is because for certain things like preview, even when I was back in jag, preview panther version would try to launch but fail. does anyone follow?

[MacsRgr8]

I know what you mean, Kwyjibo.

A document will be opened by the newest application that can be used to open that particular file format, on its local volumes.
So Jag on one, and Panther on the other:
pdf's opened while running 10.2 searches for the newest Preview.app available on the local disks. And it finds the 10.3 - version, which will terminate imidiately. As does, QuickTime player, TextEdit and so on....

[Nermal]

I suppose it could be possible for the two OSes to get a bit mixed up. My brother just reinstalled XP on his horrible PC. He formatted drive C: and installed XP on it, and when he booted up, it'd pulled over some toolbar he'd installed onto D:

However, just because XP does something you wouldn't expect, doesn't mean that OS X will ;)

Edit: MacsRgr8 posted something that makes more sense :)

[Laslo Panaflex]

I have ran into this problem. For me I have panther and jaguar installed on the same system, same hard drive, but different partitions. It tries to launch the panther version of system preferences, very strange even though they are on different partitions. Ever better, when I try to open a quicktime or text file or preview file, it tries to open it with the panther versions which are newer and different version numbers.

If you are running panther, that is the problem, I deleted panther and everything worked fine. I haven't ran into this problem with 7b28, only 7b21 but after like a week of running panther and switching between the two.

Peas

[MacsRgr8]

I was referring to the 7B21 build of Panther, too.

[King Cobra]

The reason I ask about root user is if the problem doesn't occur in root user, then most likely the problem is within your home directory.

Have you booted up your system and run an fsck -y? Try doing that.

Boot up and hold down Apple -- S
When all processes have finished, type in
fsck -y

If ANYTHING comes back that requires repairs, run fsck -y again until you receive a positive feedback message.

Once you do, type in
mount -uw /
reboot

Also, reset your firmware:
Boot up and hold
Apple -- Option -- O -- F

type in
reset-all

[Kwyjibo]

I only had a chance to use the wwdc version, because I was too lazy to look for a newer one and my iBook has been in the shop for a while.

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by King Cobra
The reason I ask about root user is if the problem doesn't occur in root user, then most likely the problem is within your home directory.


Hmmm... this seems to suggest that it is possible to "alter" the Applemenu per user (sort of prefs).

Still, this is a good idea! If King Cobra is right, then something in your user-environment does have influence on the behaviour of the Applemenu.
That'll be nice to know.

[SubGothius]

I'm inclined to support the theory that the OS (Jag and Pan alike) will try to launch the latest local version (highest version #) of the appropriate app, and if that latest local app happens to be Pan's version, then it won't run or even launch properly under Jag. But how to solve the problem?

I'd suggest you try unmounting the Panther volume, so Pan's apps won't be availalbe under Jag -- perhaps even better yet if the Pan volume is left unmounted by default, so those apps aren't even available at boot time. When you want to boot into Pan, then you can reset that volume to automount at startup by default.