Lost all DASHBOARD info on Macbook Pro. Need it back. Please help.

[Queenredspecial]

Hello!

I am new to this forum, and I appreciate your help in advance.

I have a Macbook Pro (about three years old,) and I'm running OS X (10.4.11)

It has been fantastic and perfect, but in the last few days, mysterious things have begun happening, such as it refusing to shut down, restart, or log out, and my dashboard issue. The first problem seems to be fixed for now, but I need some help with Dashboard.

More specifically, I had lots of stickies on Dashboard, which contained lots of information that I really really really don't want to lose. Suddenly, (after doing something in disk utility called "repair disk permissions," I noticed that dashboard was completely empty. I can drag all the widgets and star all over again, but what I want is the INFORMATION. Is there some sort of autosave cache in there somewhere for such things?

Please help...

For any of you answering the question, (thank you,) please keep in mind that I am not a computer person. So if you are telling me to 'safe restart' or something, please include some directions. Thank you.

I eagerly await responses.

 

[rorschach]

Hello!

I am new to this forum, and I appreciate your help in advance.

I have a Macbook Pro (about three years old,) and I'm running OS X (10.4.11)

It has been fantastic and perfect, but in the last few days, mysterious things have begun happening, such as it refusing to shut down, restart, or log out, and my dashboard issue. The first problem seems to be fixed for now, but I need some help with Dashboard.

More specifically, I had lots of stickies on Dashboard, which contained lots of information that I really really really don't want to lose. Suddenly, (after doing something in disk utility called "repair disk permissions," I noticed that dashboard was completely empty. I can drag all the widgets and star all over again, but what I want is the INFORMATION. Is there some sort of autosave cache in there somewhere for such things?

Please help...

For any of you answering the question, (thank you,) please keep in mind that I am not a computer person. So if you are telling me to 'safe restart' or something, please include some directions. Thank you.

I eagerly await responses.

Try going to your Home > Library > Preferences folder and see if there is a "widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist" file.

If there is, open it and see if you can find anything recognizable in it. That's where all of your notes are stored for the Stickies widget.

 

[Queenredspecial]

Try going to your Home > Library > Preferences folder and see if there is a "widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist" file.

If there is, open it and see if you can find anything recognizable in it. That's where all of your notes are stored for the Stickies widget.

Thank you, Rorschach. I will try that now.

Do you know why this would happen in the first place??? And what I can do to prevent it from happening?

 

[Queenredspecial]

Ok! So -- I found them in Library as you said -- at least from what I can tell.

But... It's mostly gibberish. (I guess all the programming to make them look like stickies is now just letters and symbols.)

Is there a way to convert them back to stickies?

I opened the info with Word, and it's... Almost unreadable.

Thank you again for your help...

 

[Simmerl]

I thought your issue has taught you not to store important information in Stickies widgets?

Just delete the gibberish with TextEdit and save it as a text file.

 

[Queenredspecial]

I thought your issue has taught you not to store important information in Stickies widgets?

Just delete the gibberish with TextEdit and save it as a text file.

Thanks... I meant for the purpose of reading it -- the gibberish is a LOT, but I think I can manage if I devote enough time.

As far as storage goes -- I have learned my lesson. Had no idea stickies were vulnerable this way.