Programs not opening?

[shiv]

Yesterday, I noticed that my msn messenger was not opening. I would press the toolbar icon for it. The icon would do its regular jumpin up, but then stop. Nothing would open. So, it just wouldn't open. I thought this might just thought that this was a prob with the program. But then today, I tried opening my limewire, and same problem. I would click on it on the toolbar and it would jump and that's it. It wouldn't open. The same thing happened with an ofoto (third party program) program icon on the toolbar. Funny thing is all the apple programs like safari, iphoto and such load up fine. It seems to be third party programs. I also tried to open them right from the applicartions menu. Still nothing.

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

I'm new to macs, it's my wife's MB actually.

 

[Oryan]

I'd recommend repairing permissions. Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select the Macintosh HD and hit the Repair Permissions button.

 

[shiv]

I tried that just now, and it's still not working... hrmmm

 

[Oryan]

Perhaps the permissions are corrupted. I'm not sure about Messenger, but Limewire seems to have different kind of permissions files than I'm used to. They are in Library>Preferences>LimeWire. If you delete them it should be able to regenerate them at start up. (I have not tried this!) If not you will need to reinstall.

 

[shiv]

It sounds elementary, maybe I should have tried this first off.
I restarted computer, and now the programs all load fine.

What could this mean? Why is it that I had to restart for these programs to work again? It reminds me of pc days... there is still so much to learn about mac os for me

 

[Oryan]

It sounds elementary, maybe I should have tried this first off.
I restarted computer, and now the programs all load fine.

Ha, I didn't even think of that. I guess I've been using a Mac too long. Something must have gotten messed up in the system. I'm not sure what though.

BTW, I like your photography.

 

[shiv]

Actually a couple of days ago, the hot corners wasn't working. So I restarted the computer, and it was working fine then. Does this sometimes happen with Macs or am I in an uncommon situation. (where you sometimes need to reboot to get things working properly again)-Is there a way to check my system, maybe some type of disk corruption?

Thanks for the help Oryan. It always helps getting second opinions.

Oh! and glad you like the photos!

 

[johnpocock]

I'm having the same problem.

But restarting is not sorting it out.

I have tried using the disc utility repairing permissions without success.

Basically can't use photoshop or word at all, they won't launch.

Also when selecting the finder instead of empty trash, the empty trash is labelled A3 and secure empty trash is A3.1

I have tried reinstalling Snow Leopard any other suggestion I would really appreciate.

Many thanks