Mail and Safari keep crashing

[Blurb]

I could use some help with this. Ever since installing Panther (easy install) on my G4 800 iMac some months back, my system has been slow and I noted I was always working on the same errors in repair permissions. Got a new FW HD and used CCC to clone my HD. Planned on doing an archive and install, but archive process would repeatedly hang up at 13% and shut down. So, did erase and install, and things went smoothly, including software update downloading and installing multiple updates including 10.3.4.

Now, when I start Mail or Safari they start to load and "suddenly quit". All the other apps seem to work fine. I'm on a home wireless network and can use IE on the net without problems, and my other macs (one with 10.3.3 and one 10.2.8) on the same network still work fine. Only other weird thing is when I startup Virex gives me an error msg: "Virex cannot connect to the internet....it requires an internet connection...." But it I click on eUpdate it downloads updates or notes they're uptodate.

I've repaired permissions, added a second admin acct., removed font folder and even preferences folder to the desktop, but none of these have worked. Anyone got some good suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[LeeTom]

Hi,
Have you tried deleting your Safari and/or Mail preferences? (warning... I don't know what deleting Mail's prefs will do to any stored mail, so keep that in mind.)

Go into (your home folder)/Library/Preferences/
and delete com.apple.mail.plist and com.apple.safari.plist

That's my first thought...

Hope that helps!!!
Lee Tom

 

[King Cobra]

Have you tried deleting your Safari and/or Mail preferences? (warning... I don't know what deleting Mail's prefs will do to any stored mail, so keep that in mind.)

Stored mail is located in: ~/Library/Mail, not ~/Library/Preferences/[anything]. So deleting the preferences will not delete any emails. But you will lose some application-specific preferences (of which I'm not sure).

 

[Blurb]

That's what I did with the preferences folder that I mentioned in original post. Well, actually I didn't delete them, but dragged the entire pref folder to my desktop and rebooted. I just tried the same thing but with the specific folders: com.apple.mail.plist and com.apple.Safari.plist, left them on the desktop and rebooted. Still both apps crash.

Shouldn't matter with those files that they were not deleted but moved to desktop, should it?? I posted this prob on apple website/forum, but nada. Keep trying!

 

[LeeTom]

Try it again, but move them into the Trash instead of the desktop.

Lee Tom

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Have you deleted any fonts? Or has any system fonts been corrupted (should be possible to check in Font Book)?

My girlfriend deleted the original Helvetica font, replaceing it with one in another set, and Mail, Safari and iCal stopped working... (Even the iCal icon in the Dock got scr*wed up, since it's using Helvetica to display the Date...)

Worth a check...

 

[Blurb]

I put both folders in the trash, but both apps still crash. And, no, I had not messed with any fonts before (did as a way to try to find a fix after finding the problem only).

This is getting old real fast. Is there a way to "un-install" the sw update for 10.3.4? Without having to do a full erase and install?