Finder "refreshes" constantly

[izmec]

OS 10.4.11 iMac G5
The finder "refreshes" every minute or so--closing all its open windows. It stops any finder activity during this "refresh." For example, copying a file to another disk--it will interrupt the process. It does leave application windows open but leaves the program to go to back to the finder. It does not matter if I am actively using the applications or not. I have been interrupted during this post several times already. Any suggestions?

 

[rsabatino]

My system (an old Powerbook running OS 10.4.11) has also exhibited this "continual refresh" behavior for the last few days. All of the specific symptoms you describe are exactly the ones I’m experiencing. The only point I’d add is that the refreshes seems to occur very regularly, repeating roughly every 90 seconds (as measured using the clock in the menu bar). Some suggestions I found while researching this today call for:
1. logging in as a different user, or
2. removing the Finder’s preference file, or
3. checking to see what’s running with Activity Monitor application, or
4. reviewing the system and console log messages with Console application, or
5. running a “Bash alias” in Terminal to see what was executing when the refresh occurs (see moderator’s cmts at http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=96814).

I haven’t been able to see if the problem still shows up after trying any of these yet, but I’ll repost here once I do with my results. In the meanwhile, if anyone has any other suggestion or experience with this issue, I’d love to hear it.

Thanks Much . . .

 

[izmec]

What a relief!

Based upon your ideas I watched the Activity Monitor for a bit. The StuffIT AVR App seems to have been the offender. I Sherlocked it, clicked the STOP button in its window, and there have been no refreshes since--about 10 minutes ago. You saved me and the iMac a trip to the local Apple Genius. Thank you very much!

 

[BJMRamage]

Based upon your ideas I watched the Activity Monitor for a bit. The StuffIT AVR App seems to have been the offender. I Sherlocked it, clicked the STOP button in its window, and there have been no refreshes since--about 10 minutes ago. You saved me and the iMac a trip to the local Apple Genius. Thank you very much!

YES!!
that seems to have worked. The StuffIt AVR thing might have been it as once i hit "STOP" it stopped the continual refreshing.

 

[Mercellus]

Glad to see that this issue got resolved as a friend of mine was encountering the same thing and a quick Google search led me to this thread... although it's more of a band-aid fix than anything. I'm not surprised to see StuffIt cause things to act up, I've seen it happen before. May I suggest using The Unarchiver instead?