Appleshare Illegal Instruction PM7100

[justashooter]

I have a PowerMac 7100 running OS 8.1 that I use to operate a high end film scanner. It has worked great for many year but now when I boot it up I get an Appleshare extension error, Illegal Instruction, with directions to reboot holding down the shift key so extensions do not load. What is this error and how do I fix it?

 

[r6mile]

Sorry, I really can't help you with your issue, but just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading stories of people who find actual professional uses (not just as hobbys) for these very old machines! Always good to hear they still serve a purpose for people.

 

[repairedCheese]

I can't say what the error means, what with old Mac errors being opaque and all, but if it's happening out of the blue for no reason, the drive you have installed in the PowerMac may be dying, and this is just a symptom of that. At the very least, ruling that out would be a good idea.

 

[XaPHER]

Extensions bombing at boot are sometimes transient. Otherwise, does it get to the desktop when booting with extensions disabled?

If you could upload a shot of the system error dialog (or the precise text) that may be useful. At this point it also should be useful to give more context (is it the first time you booted it in a while or this happened suddenly, list installed nubus cards if any, connected devices and/or networking,something new etc.).

Hopefully the drive is not failing. SCSI drives are much less common, and in general more a pain to replace than PATA. A few years ago I accidentally killed one of my three compaq 72GB ultrascsci drives and I still want to cry when I think about it.

 

[justashooter]

This is the error.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, a system error occurred.
"AppleShare"
illegal instruction
To temporarily turn off extensions, restart and
hold down the shift key

{Restart}
-------------------------------------------------------------

If I shift key and restart OR if I remove the AppleShare extension from the extension folder, I can scan images without a problem, the computer runs normally.

 

[eyoungren]

This is the error.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, a system error occurred.
"AppleShare"
illegal instruction
To temporarily turn off extensions, restart and
hold down the shift key

{Restart}
-------------------------------------------------------------

If I shift key and restart OR if I remove the AppleShare extension from the extension folder, I can scan images without a problem, the computer runs normally.

Is there perhaps some sort of networked drive that you once saved scans to or that you would connect to upon booting that no longer exists?

I'm asking because I use to use a G5 at work that I had placed network shares into the sidebar. Eventually those shared drives were repurposed and whenever I logged in Finder took a full 3-5 minutes before letting me use the computer. That was because it was attempting to load those network shares that no longer existed.

I'm thinking something along those lines in your case, only Finder is actually showing you an error instead.

 

[XaPHER]

Okay, if it boots without, and you don't experience stability problems like that, there could be an issue with your prefs files. You can try moving your appleshare, file sharing-related preferences files out of System Folder: Preferences: so the system creates brand new ones. Honestly it's not necessarily obvious when this happens. You can always try moving other prefs, but that depends on how much time you're willing to spend. If prefs are not the culprit, you should put them back in place. This kind of thing is way easier to catch with a spare system folder or external drive.

Zapping the pram (boot keys command+option+P+R) should not hurt to try otherwise.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

One idea is that it might be a corrupt extension, maybe try reinstalling the extension to see if that fixes it?

 

[justashooter]

I removed the appleshare extension and the computer boots just fine. Put it back and I get the error. How do I reinstall this extension, I do not have the install CD's.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I removed the appleshare extension and the computer boots just fine. Put it back and I get the error. How do I reinstall this extension, I do not have the install CD's.

Do you have Conflict Catcher installed? I thought it might be a corrupt extension, but I wonder if an extension conflict would do something similar.