icon keeps bouncing - app won't launch

[jwindhall]

So my imac running 10.6.3 has developed a bit of a problem. when a launch certain apps, the icon just bounces and the app never launches. I end up having to force quite and restart to get the app to work. Other apps freeze up (sarfari and chrome) and I have force quit and restart. then there is VLC which launches plays media then freezes. All of these are solved by restarts. Seems if i let the machine fall asleep, then all these bugs resurface.

My first solution was to create a new user and delete the old one as my "backup" username seemed to work fine. this did indeed solve many of my problems but now different apps have developed bugs. Should i just reinstall the OS?

 

[satcomer]

See if you can launch in Safe Mode. If you can luunach into there the restart again to restart in regular mode.

Then download either Yasu or Onyx and run all the cleaning routines. Let the program reboot your Mac. After that boot immediately manually reboot again to completely rebuild your startup/shutdown cache.

Doing this software maintenance about once every 3 months will keep OS X running almost like new.

Hopefully this will fix your launching problem.