Panther laptop wont display the finder anymore.

[Schmittroth]

My TiBook with Panther recently did something wierd. I started the machine up and everything was cool till it came to draw the finder and desktop. It did the desktop pattern and the titlebar at the top of the screen, but stopped at the icons.

My dock appears as normal. I can launch programs from the dock. But I can't activate the finder by clicking on the desktop pattern. I can bring up Finder windows by clicking on the Finder icon on the dock. Programs seem to run normal as does expose but I still can click on the desktop to activate the finder.

Any thoughts. Thanks

Marc

[mystixman]

open up applescript (Applications-->Applescript-->Script Editor


and type

tell application "Finder"
activate
end tell


and then run that.

[G5orbust]

In the menu bar does "Finder" come up?

If so, click on the word "Finder" and go to preferences. You may have your icons disabled for some reason.

If not, try that script.

[Schmittroth]

The script only brought an already open Finder window. No icons and the desktop still inaccesible. The Finder works as a program. It can even be Foreced Quit, but still no icons and no interaction with the desktop.

[HexMonkey]

Have you tried repairing permissions and deleting the Finder preferences file (located in Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist)? If neither of these work (you'll probably have to relaunch Finder to see if they have or not), try creating another user and see if all works well there.

[The Void]

I had this same problem about a month ago. I managed to fix it by........ err..... bugger!.... sorry, but i can't actually remember *how* i fixed it. D'oh!

I think it happened after i had installed a freeware/shareware program. No sorry, i can't remember which one (i try a lot, and then dump them if they're of no use to me).

So, i probably trashed the prog in question, and its preferences. Also trash the finder prefs, and it can't hurt to repair permissions from the install disc.

Sorry to be so vague, but my point is; it's unlikely that the finder would go belly-up without something making it do so. So, have you installed any programs or hacks lately? If so, one of them is probably the culprit.

The Void
............

[Schmittroth]

Thanks for all the help. Trashing the Finder Prefs did it. I also trashed the desktop just to be sure. I had repaired my permissions early on with no effect.

I'm a little at a loss to figure out what happened to cause this though. The laptop had been fine. Then I turned it on once and it wasn't. The only different thing was that it had been off for slightly more than a day. That's unusual for this machine.