Finder has gone away, won't come back

[mcgarry]

I have searched the forums (and beyond) to no avail, but if someone knows of an answer out there I'd be happy to be pointed in the right direction.

I have a Blueberry iMac (SL, no FW) G3 running 10.2.8. I don't use it that often, as I have a PowerBook for primary use, and had recently taken to even keeping it unplugged to free up wall space and such. Today I started it up to look for an old file, and almost immediately the Console screen and the Finder.crash.log appeared. Console displays the following message:

2005-01-02 14:16:31.156 Console[411] Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: *** NSRunStorage, _NSBlockNumberForIndex(): index (359613) beyond array bounds (359613)

It just repeats and repeats in <1 min. intervals, with the time advancing and the numbers in parentheses getting larger.

I can launch other apps, or at least the Disk Utility.

I have repaired the disk from a startup CD (10.2.0), repaired permissions (first mistakenly from the CD, then from the HD), reset PRAM, started up in safe mode, and even run fsck - f from single user mode. But every restart brings the same result.

I can guess that the computer needs a new battery, since the clock has been reset the last couple times I plugged it in and started it up, but would that be causing a problem like this?

Let me know if I should also post the info from Finder.crash.log

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

 

[cluthz]

I have searched the forums (and beyond) to no avail, but if someone knows of an answer out there I'd be happy to be pointed in the right direction.

I have a Blueberry iMac (SL, no FW) G3 running 10.2.8. I don't use it that often, as I have a PowerBook for primary use, and had recently taken to even keeping it unplugged to free up wall space and such. Today I started it up to look for an old file, and almost immediately the Console screen and the Finder.crash.log appeared. Console displays the following message:

2005-01-02 14:16:31.156 Console[411] Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: *** NSRunStorage, _NSBlockNumberForIndex(): index (359613) beyond array bounds (359613)

It just repeats and repeats in <1 min. intervals, with the time advancing and the numbers in parentheses getting larger.

I can launch other apps, or at least the Disk Utility.

I have repaired the disk from a startup CD (10.2.0), repaired permissions (first mistakenly from the CD, then from the HD), reset PRAM, started up in safe mode, and even run fsck - f from single user mode. But every restart brings the same result.

I can guess that the computer needs a new battery, since the clock has been reset the last couple times I plugged it in and started it up, but would that be causing a problem like this?

Let me know if I should also post the info from Finder.crash.log

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Reinstalling MacOSX will help you, unless its hardware related.

There is an "install & archive" option, this will preserve your user and your info on the disk.

 

[mcgarry]

This may take some work, as there is only 1.1GB free on the disk .... I guess I could back up stuff to the PB first to make room enough... although without Finder working, I don't know how the connectivity will work (no FW for target disk mode on this old thing).

Any idea what is happening, though?

Reinstalling MacOSX will help you, unless its hardware related.

There is an "install & archive" option, this will preserve your user and your info on the disk.

 

[cluthz]

This may take some work, as there is only 1.1GB free on the disk .... I guess I could back up stuff to the PB first to make room enough... although without Finder working, I don't know how the connectivity will work (no FW for target disk mode on this old thing).

Any idea what is happening, though?

You could try to use ssh to reach the bondi from you powerbook.

About the NS exceptions, I know it some kind of cocoa error, but I can't help you there.

 

[mcgarry]

Thanks for the advice. I am currently logged in as single-user mode and trying to delete enough files to do an archive&install of 10.2. I do have a lot of junk on there.

I think this may have been caused by my recent (as in, last time it was turned on) dumping of a couple more GB of stuff onto the HD-- ironically, this was serving as a sort of backup. It had never been that full before, and I have heard that OS X can be sensitive to full HDs. Just an idea.

 

[combatcolin]

Try luring him back with some munchies.

 

[point665]

Have you tried booting into Firewire Target mode and getting the files using the Powerbook? Hold T at boot.

 

[mcgarry]

Finder back

Thanks for all of your help, guys, the iMac is back. I was able to delete enough space in single-user mode to then restart from the 10.2 CD and perform an archive-and-install. I then deleted the previous system and now the iMac has 3.5 GB free. I didn't reinstall a lot of the optional stuff like printer drivers and language kits, to help free up space. (The iMac has a non-OEM 20 GB drive I installed a few years ago.) I wish I knew what happened, though.

So far it is running fine. I also replaced the 3.6v Lithium battery. I have heard that after doing so, I am supposed to reset the PMU manually or something. Is this true? On my older Macs, I never did.

And just to clear up a little unimportant misunderstanding, this is not a Bondi iMac, it is officially a "Blueberry," with a G3 @ 350 MHz, but it does NOT have FireWire. All of the slot-loading (no CD/DVD tray) iMacs from 1999 onwards did have FW except for the bottom-of-the-line one from 1999, which is my model. So, it is "SL" but not "DV." For more details see www.apple-history.com or Mactracker.

Thanks again.

Have you tried booting into Firewire Target mode and getting the files using the Powerbook? Hold T at boot.