Classic mode is acting strange, can anyone please help?

[phreakout13]

Hello I was wondering if anyone could help me with this problem. I recently installed Tiger on my 15" AlBook, and now I want to run Classic mode to play an old game. It begins to start up, and then it says it needs to update. I'll watch it for a while, and it'll just sit there and do nothing. I tried restoring Classic, and tried this again. The same thing happened. There's no way I can tell the system I don't want to update, and when I choose to, nothing happens and Classic won't start. Can anyone please help? Thanks

 

[Makosuke]

If you've already reinstalled a clean version of Classic, it's odd that you'd be having any issues.

Two things to try: Open System Preferences, go to the Classic section, and try reselecting your classic folder. While you're there, you could also try rebuilding the Classic Desktop, and perhaps starting Classic with extensions off, to see if there's something freezing it.

Also, try opening Disk Utility and running "Fix OS 9 Permissions" (it's a menu option). That might help as well.

 

[phreakout13]

thanks for the advice, but it didn't work. I restored classic a second time, and when it asked me to update, I clicked okay, and I've been waiting several hours. When I went into the system folder, there was a text file called "Classic Update Log" and it gave a list of things that have been updated. It also gave a time for when it started, and this was when I allowed it to update. I guess it's doing something, but it's been going for like, 2 hours. I'll let it continue, but how long should I expect it to take?

 

[phreakout13]

okay, I let classic mode do it's thing for about 12 hours (while I was sleeping and at school) and nothing happend. Does anyone know what I should do? All I can think of is to reinstall OS X, and there's no way I'll do that. Can anyone please help? Thanks

 

[Makosuke]

12 hours is obviously longer than it could possibly take--usually the process lasts seconds at longest. Even if the OS9 permissions repair didn't help (I'm assumning you've also run a regular "Repair Permissions", though I don't see why that'd make a difference), it still sounds like it might be having a problem creating a particular file.

If the log shows it having updated several things, then most of what needs to be changed probably already has been, and it's either sticking on some part of the upgrade or Classic is just freezing during startup. I'd assume that, were the latter the case, then it wouldn't try to update again the next time you start Classic, so it's probably freezing before it can update the final part of whatever in Classic needs to be updated.

And, frankly, if a fresh Classic and all the available Permission repairs don't help, reinstalling OSX is probably the only thing you can do in that case. You're not running any system modifications or hacks (interface enhancers, etc), are you? That could cause problems, so you might try uninstalling or disabling them temporarily to see if that helps. Unplugging any external devices can't hurt, either, but I can't imagine that being the issue here.

Two additional thoughts: You said you reinstalled Classic from scratch, and I assume that means the latest 9.2.x version without any old prefs. If this isn't the case, you might see if you can find a newer Classic install and/or disable any additions/temporarily move any prefs you've got in there.

Second, I seem to remember that some versions of the Quicktime DivX plugin can cause odd Classic issues under Tiger for some bizarre reason, so if you've got that installed maybe you should try removing it temporarily and see if that helps.