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OSX - Huge Finder Issue, Need HELP!

Nym

Nym

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 4, 2006
607
0
Porto, Portugal
Hi guys, I'm typing this on a completely "frozen" Mac, let me explain what happened:

A buddy of mine came here yesterday and brought me a RAR archive filled with the fonts he downloaded from sites like dafont.com and etc, the problem is, he copied the RAR to the desktop and double clicked the archive which decompressed all those font files to the desktop (they were more than 100 I'm sure), now the finder doesn't respond and doesn't even show icons on the desktop, the dock crashed and lost all the preferences and I cannot open a finder window to remove all those font files from the desktop which would solve the problem because as far as I can see the problem is with the Finder rendering 100 icons on the desktop. Can someone please give me a suggestion as to I can solve this issue without re-installing OSX and losing EVERYTHING? Since I cannot even get into a finder window to copy my stuff outside of the HD. Any help is appreciated, thx in advance.

FWIW, my Mac is a 24" iMac, C2D, 1GB, 7300GT.
 
If you have a bootable disc around, you can insert it, restart your computer and press C while the computer starts up. This will make your mac boot from the disc. You can then access your HD and move/erase the icons. This should clear things up. Granted, I haven't done this since OS 9, but I helped a friend do it earlier this year. Hope this helps!
 
Thx man, will try that, I'll give you my feedback in 5 minutes, thx for the quick reply, I'm kinda pissed :D eheh.
 
No problem. Just make sure to select the appropriate startup folder after finishing. System prefs —» startup disk. select the one in your HD and not the disk
 
Humm, I've tried it and it prompts me to install Mac OSX which I would really like to avoid, I mean, it says it restores everything to my previous settings after but I don't know, I don't want to lose my applications and install them all again... arghhh, the finder..
Is there any way for me to share my Home folder so I can acess it through another account? that would solve the problem...
 
Nym said:
Humm, I've tried it and it prompts me to install Mac OSX which I would really like to avoid, I mean, it says it restores everything to my previous settings after but I don't know, I don't want to lose my applications and install them all again... arghhh, the finder..
Is there any way for me to share my Home folder so I can acess it through another account? that would solve the problem...
Click to expand...

I don't think he meant the OS X bootable cd... I may be mistaken but any bootable cd should do what he was suggesting.

If you have another computer and firewire, couldn't you boot the computer in target disk mode?
 
Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you. A bootable disc is a disc that includes the system. It allows you to boot from the cd, it's not the intall disc. Do you by any chance have a firewire cable and another mac? You could start up in target disk mode and use the other mac's system to boot.

EDIT: adrianblane beat me to it :)
 
Sorry, I just never had a problem with a Mac so I'm kinda new to this whole troubleshooting Mac's stuff, what kind of bootable CD?
I guess that If I could acess my home folder through my other user account it would solve the problem very quickly, I can still acess System Preferences, but the Finder is 100% bricked, it's just beachballing me like the world's going to end :)
And Nop, I don't have a External HD... I know, it sucks to be me, eheh.
 
Nym said:
Sorry, I just never had a problem with a Mac so I'm kinda new to this whole troubleshooting Mac's stuff, what kind of bootable CD?
I guess that If I could acess my home folder through my other user account it would solve the problem very quickly, I can still acess System Preferences, but the Finder is 100% bricked, it's just beachballing me like the world's going to end :)
And Nop, I don't have a External HD... I know, it sucks to be me, eheh.
Click to expand...

Try enabling the root account through "Netinfo Manager" in your utilities folder. You'll need to authenticate first under the security menu and then enable. It'll then ask you to choose a password. Choose a secure one. Once this is done you can log out and log in as "root" with the new password.

+++WARNING+++

When logged in as root you have ultimate power over your system, including the power to completely hose it! Emergency use only. You have been warned!
 
Try booting in safe mode. As soon as you powerup, hold down the shift key. Booting in safe mode takes quite a bit longer than a normal boot, so be patient. I don't know if it will help or not, but it often gets around issues that cause hangups. Once in safe mode, you can trash the offending files.

btw-buy yourself a backup drive. Otherworldcomputing has some good ones for around $100, or you can make your own with a case and drive. I keep a 320gb firewire drive and use superduper to clone about once a week. In the event something happens like what you describe, you simply boot off the backup, and you are up in about a minute. fwiw...
 
Have you tried force-quitting the Finder? If you can't access the force-quit dialog box from the Apple menu, try cmd-opt-esc. If the Finder is hung, it might take a while for the force-quit box to appear, so be patient.
 
cal6n said:
Try enabling the root account through "Netinfo Manager" in your utilities folder. You'll need to authenticate first under the security menu and then enable. It'll then ask you to choose a password. Choose a secure one. Once this is done you can log out and log in as "root" with the new password.

+++WARNING+++

When logged in as root you have ultimate power over your system, including the power to completely hose it! Emergency use only. You have been warned!
Click to expand...

YOU'RE A F*CKIN GENIUS :D

Not even safe booting allowed me to open a finder window, but as I logged in as root user, it allowed me to go into the desktop and trash all those 2,785 font files!! I guess I can understand why the Finder crashed... oh well, thx for all the help guys, it is now working great again :)
 
Nym said:
YOU'RE A F*CKIN GENIUS :D

Not even safe booting allowed me to open a finder window, but as I logged in as root user, it allowed me to go into the desktop and trash all those 2,785 font files!! I guess I can understand why the Finder crashed... oh well, thx for all the help guys, it is now working great again :)
Click to expand...

No worries.

2,785 fonts! No wonder it choked.

BTW, It'd be a good idea to disable your root account again. It really is for emergency use only.
 
cal6n said:
No worries.

2,785 fonts! No wonder it choked.

BTW, It'd be a good idea to disable your root account again. It really is for emergency use only.
Click to expand...

Already did :) But it taught me something that may come in handy when future problems appear, root account is a life saver!
 
2785 fonts? Who on earth would zip them all in one place? :eek:

It's good to see your mac back up and well!

EDIT: now this is a great community! You posted your problem (a horrible one) and one hour later you're good to go :) just like in the Windows world...
 
question for future, how could you access those fonts? would unzipping on an external drive work? I guess my question is, was it the number of fonts being unzipped, or the fact they were on the desktop?

-just like in the windows world, but much prettier...
 
I guess it was the fact that the fonts were mistakenly extracted to the desktop, my icon resolution is set at 64x64 (twice as Windows), so the Finder must have had a hard time rendering 2,575 font icons :D
I have now unzipped the archive to a normal folder and it's working normal :)
 
Nym said:
I guess it was the fact that the fonts were mistakenly extracted to the desktop, my icon resolution is set at 64x64 (twice as Windows), so the Finder must have had a hard time rendering 2,575 font icons :D
Click to expand...
Actually all icons on the Desktop are actually windows according to OS X, so yeah it had a hard time dealing with 2,575 windows. ;)

For the future you might want to set Stuffit or whatever you're using to always expand files into a subfolder.
 
Nym said:
YOU'RE A F*CKIN GENIUS :D

Not even safe booting allowed me to open a finder window, but as I logged in as root user, it allowed me to go into the desktop and trash all those 2,785 font files!! I guess I can understand why the Finder crashed... oh well, thx for all the help guys, it is now working great again :)
Click to expand...

May I ask how you managed to open yout Utilities folder, if Finder was totally crashed, and you say "Not even safe booting allowed me to open a finder window"
 
Yep, spotlight was also throwing me beachballs, and Quicksilver can perform many actions, one of my first was "Desktop, Select All, Move to Trash" but it didn't work out because the finder was being a bitch :D

The root user solution was perfect, I just had do drag all those fonts to the trash and when I went back to my desktop and re-launched the finder it was all good again.

But I must say, I never saw a Mac hang as much as I saw today, so.. avoid having 2575 files on the desktop! LOL! ;)
 
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