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Need help with PPC Apps

notredewey

notredewey

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 16, 2006
57
0
All of a sudden today, apps that normally ran on my Macbook stopped working. I went to get info and sure enough they were PowerPC apps but they used to work for me (apps such as Limewire, Clutter, etc.) The only thing I can think of was I downloaded the app Downsizer earlier just to have, and that may have interfered. I did not even run Downsizer, and I now have it deleted, however the problem is still occurring. Any suggestions would be grateful. Thank you.
 
They refuse to open. In the dock, they will bounce once and thats it. No message or anything. Any ideas?
 
I checked permissions and I can read/write all of these apps that are no longer working. I have also restarted many times.
 
Try to spotlight for a file with rosetta and plist in the name -- possibly something like com.apple.rosetta.plist -- and if you find such a file, drag it to the desktop and reboot.... and see if that helps.
 
mkrishnan said:
Try to spotlight for a file with rosetta and plist in the name -- possibly something like com.apple.rosetta.plist -- and if you find such a file, drag it to the desktop and reboot.... and see if that helps.
Click to expand...

This may sound like I'm a complete idiot but I searched for that exact phrase com.apple.rosetta.plist and spotlight found it. I clicked off and went back and now its not there. Spotlight won't come up with anything for "rosetta" at all anymore. I'm not losing my mind either, it really did come up the first time I searched. I'm so confused on why things just stopped working. Thanks for the suggestions so far.
 
Yea, I must not have that file. I looked for it, and no luck. Anyway to get it back/will that fix the problem?
 
Erm...no, sorry, that wouldn't help. Let me explain what that trick is about...it was a guess, first of all, because I don't have an Intel mac and I haven't seen many threads about Rosetta getting stuck like this.

Plist files are a universal way in which preferences and other app data are stored on Macs in a format based on XML (I think). This extends not just to preferences you set, but preferences one part of the system sets on behalf of another. Whenever a program is run for the first time, it creates the plists it will use based on templates internal to the application. Normally, life will be fine after this, and the app will refer to the plist as necessary. Occasionally, the plist file will become corrupt. This will lead to unpredictable or failed behavior when the app tries to use it. Unfortunately, OS X does not appear to be perfect at recognizing this situation for itself. In Tiger, for instance, a new feature was added in which, when a program crashes, you are given the option to delete preferences and re-start it.

However, a lot of times, it does not realize this problem, and you have to give it help. If you delete the file and restart the program in question, it will notice the file is not there, and then create a fresh (uncorrupted) copy of it. This solves a lot of miscellaneous problems in OS X....

But not yours, clearly. So back to square one. :(
 
Well krishnan thanks for trying to help. I appreciate your replies. Hopefully there is a way I can get things back to normal. Any more ideas please let me know but in the meantime thanks for your time.
 
I thought that too, although you did say at the outset you never ran it. Are you certain that it didn't do some downsizing when you installed it? Although I googled "downsizer rosetta" and found some incomprehensible discussions about stomping ninjas. *is confused* I was always on the side of the pirates anyway. LOL ;)
 
Yes, I did run Monolingual. So this is probley what happened to me. How would I go about restoring the Rosetta files for the apps? I read the link posted above but was kinda confused by it.
 
notredewey said:
Yes, I did run Monolingual.
Click to expand...

That would've been useful information earlier. ;)

Yes, that's a no-no unless you're very, very, very careful.

I am fairly certain you must archive and install -- I don't know of a way to undo the damage you did with this.
 
Yes sorry, I shoulda mentioned this before. I'm almost positive that these programs worked after running it however. But I could be wrong, Is there a way to restore back to a certain date like you can with windows?
 
drummerbooker14 said:
do PPC apps not run on intel?
Click to expand...

They do using emulation...that's what Rosetta is for, unless you delete components that it needs with Monolingual. ;)

And no, AFAIK, there is no roll back. You should be able to do Archive & Install with importing of apps and settings (after you start the installation setup process, a few screens in, there will be an options button; you can click this and then select this option from the list), though, and the impact should be minimal. You'll be left with a /previous systems folder, and when you are convinced you are not missing anything, you can delete it. The whole installation process is pretty low pain.
 
I'm sorry for being such a noobie. I made the switch about a month ago, so i'm still trying to learn mac. Which could explain how I got myself into this mess in the first place. :mad: So could you please elaborate on the Archive and Install process. I'm not sure I quite understand. Thanks again.
 
notredewey said:
I'm sorry for being such a noobie. I made the switch about a month ago, so i'm still trying to learn mac. Which could explain how I got myself into this mess in the first place. :mad: So could you please elaborate on the Archive and Install process. I'm not sure I quite understand. Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Of course, yes, I'm sorry. Archive and Install means that you will move everything that's in your current system into a "previous systems" folder and put in a new install of the system. There is no exact analog in Windows. But the process allows you to put your applications and users and settings back, as well, so that basically you just have this prev sys folder as a safety net, that you can delete later when you want to.

Although, technically, as always, you're warned that shame-on-you if you lose data that you did not back up (but that is rare).

As for how to do it, you put the disc in the DVD drive, open system preferences, go to startup disk, and then select the install DVD. Then you click the restart button in the sys prefs window. You follow the prompts, and as soon as an Options button becomes available in the lower left of the installation dialog (I think lower left) you click it, and then you will see an option that archives the old system but preserves settings. That should be the one for you. Then you just go back to following the prompts.
 
I still don't think I quite understand. What dvd am I putting in?? I think you are referring to the install disk that came with my computer. I did that and went to system prefs and did what you said, however it would not restart after clicking the restart button. Would going to the menu that pops up when you insert it and double click on install do the same thing? And I don't need to do anything before doing this reinstall correct? Just follow the prompts until the options and it will it recognize that I already have OSX installed or will it copy over it, saving my prefs?? I may need a step by step, for some reason i'm not catching on. Thanks.
 
I figured it all out. All is well and is back to working normal. Thank you for your help. Sorry for bugging you so much, but I do appreciate your replies. Is it now safe to delete my previous settings file and everything will stay the way they are now?? Thanks.
 
Oooh, so you did an archive and install? Sorry I didn't get around to replying again. :eek:

Mmmm, this is my recommendation. Unless your computer is very full, leave it alone for a couple of weeks. If those weeks go by and nothing seems missing to you, trash it. If it's very full, then trash everything in it except the Users directory.
 
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