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Skyboxer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 2, 2015
4
0
Somewhere, USA
Hello,
Recently my macbook pro late 2008 running 10.6.3 has been booting into a blue screen with the cursor and the top menu bar. Nothing shows no dock or login screen. I have tried repairing the drive with my install disk as well as reinstalling osx. I don't know what's wrong. I CAN boot into safe mode and use the computer fine however.
1433299053000735562876.jpg
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,425
4,392
Delaware
Can you open your System Preferences (from the Apple menu)?
If you can, then open the Displays pane. Do you have an Arrangement tab?
Click on the Arrangement tab, then click the box that will turn off screen mirroring.
(This may happen when your hardware thinks you have an external display attached, even if you don't have an external display. Turning on Mirroring will (should?) show you a normal screen now, with a dock, etc. )

If you can get to the Apple menu, then you can also get your system updates, just click on Software Updates, then let all available updates install. Check again for updates after your Mac restarts, until no other updates are listed. That will update you to OS X 10.6.8, etc.
 

Skyboxer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 2, 2015
4
0
Somewhere, USA
Can you open your System Preferences (from the Apple menu)?
If you can, then open the Displays pane. Do you have an Arrangement tab?
Click on the Arrangement tab, then click the box that will turn off screen mirroring.
(This may happen when your hardware thinks you have an external display attached, even if you don't have an external display. Turning on Mirroring will (should?) show you a normal screen now, with a dock, etc. )

If you can get to the Apple menu, then you can also get your system updates, just click on Software Updates, then let all available updates install. Check again for updates after your Mac restarts, until no other updates are listed. That will update you to OS X 10.6.8, etc.
I don't have an arrangements tab unfortunately so that's not the issue
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,425
4,392
Delaware
Can you make a new user, while you are booted to safe mode?
Then, log out, and log back in to your newly created user.
Do you get a normal desktop, then?
 

jayhawk11

macrumors 6502a
Oct 19, 2007
775
283
Also a problem: why are you only running 10.6.3? Get that thing updated to 10.6.8. No reason to be that far behind.
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,425
4,392
Delaware
Then the issue is in your user...
The Dock can cause a number of strange issues that don't always appear connected to the Dock - so, open your user folder, then Library.
(If you struggle with how to get to your user folder, use the Go menu.... )
Trash the Caches folder that you find.
Open the Preferences folder, then trash these files or folders:
com.apple.dock.plist
com.apple.BezelServices.plist
com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
com.apple.systempreferences.plist
com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
ByHost folder
won't hurt to trash your com.apple.finder.plist

Restart.
 

PhilBoogie

macrumors 6502
May 15, 2014
456
3,639
A friend of mine has this as well (on her mid 2010 iMac, 10.6.8)

I tried to help her out over the phone. Came across this while searching:
Boot in single user mode and issue a 'mount -uw /' command to mount the root filesystem as writable.
To rename the /Library/Caches directory, enter 'mv /Library/Caches /Library/Caches.bad'

Don't know yet if that fixed it. But yes, indeed, do rename (or delete) those .plist files.

What strange is that this works:
Click on the Apple menu, top left, choose System Preferences/Account/Startup Items and add Terminal. Double click it; it'll launch. Type: "open Finder" and if it comes back with an "10810" error paste the following in there: "/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder & disown" which should launch the Finder now. Though not on a subsequent reboot. Plus still no Dock...

---
I also found this:
Boot into Single user mode, and do:
/sbin/fsck -fy
Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.
(Space between fsck AND -fy important).
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
---------
Seems strange that Safari is running: was that in your Startup Items already?

edit: for someone this worked:
Got it! Deleted the loginitems.plist and the loginwindow.plist, and it worked! Thanks!
 
Last edited:
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