bouncing icon, but no application startup...
Here's a solution to the problem of the bouncing application that won't start.
It seems that some file copying utilities don't preserve the permission bits (including the execution bit) of files under OS X. The result can be an application that is not recognized as an application by the file system.
A bit of Unix file system knowledge...
Every file under a Unix file system has several bits includeing: read, write and execute. These bits correspond to 3 positions: owner, group and everyone.
To see this, open the terminal and type "ls -l". This will give you a list view of the current folder. Note that each entry is preceded by a line that looks something like this...
-rwxr-xr-x <ownername> <groupname>
This is the permission setting of the file. Note that these letters represent 10 positions.
Position 1:
The first position designates whether or not the file is a directory. This is either a dash (-), which means file, or the letter 'd', which means it's a directory.
Positions 2,3,4:
These positions represent the read, write and execute permissions for the owner of the file. If the owner has full permissions on the file then these positions will show "rwx". If the owner only has read permission, it would show "r--".
Positions 4,5,6
These positions represent the permissions allowed by people who belong to the file's group.
Positions 7,8,9
These positions represent the permissions allowed for everyone else.
The position that is important to launching an application is the "execute" bit. If the "x" is not set for the user attempting to launch an application, the icon will bounce a few times but then nothing will happen.
*** BEGIN WARNING / DISCLAIMER ***
THE FOLLOWING DEMONSTRATES USE OF COMMAND LINE UTILITIES, WHICH IF MIS-USED, CAN SERIOUSLY CRIPPLE YOUR SYSTEM. USE OF THESE UTILITIES CAN ALSO HAMPER THE SECURITY OF YOUR SYSTEM. PLEASE FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE NOT GUARANTEED IN ANY WAY.
*** END WARNING / DISCLAIMER ***
To reset the permissions on your Applications folder, open the terminal Application. (If your terminal application will not start, you can also perform this operation from ther terminal application on another machine that has file sharing access to your machine.)
1) Navigate to your root directory by typing "cd /" (or whatever directory contains the "Applications" directory on your system)
2) Type "chmod -R 755 Applications"
This tells the file system to recursively change the file permissions on your Applications folder to -rwxr-xr-x. Basically, this will give full permission to the owner of the applications and will give all users read and execute permission for your applications.
To set up permissions differently (perhaps not giving everyone execute permission), I recommend that the user read up on the 'chmod' utillity. The "man page" for chmod can be read by typing "man chmod" at the command line. However, you might find the man page a bit difficult to understand. I'm sure someone's got a good tutorial on the net somewhere. Try google.
Another issue that can occur is when ownership of a file gets lost. This can be addressed by using the "chown" command. To change ownership of a file, type "chown <username> <group> <filename>", where <username> is the new owner username, <group> is the new group name, and <filename> is the name of the file you'd like to change. "chown" also takes the "-R" recursive flag.
[Edited by oldMac on 12-18-2001 at 10:17 PM]
( iM a mac user definitly )