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Sloooow open / save dialogue boxes

D

dave76

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2004
14
0
Hello,

Anyone have some advice on this problem? When I try to open a file or save a file using the File/Open or File/Save dialogue boxes in certain apps (Powerpoint / Excel / Word are the worst offenders, but also Firefox and Photoshop Elements) my Mac hangs with the spinning beachball for over a minute (I just tried to open a file in Word, and it took 64 seconds for the dialogue box to appear)! Other apps (e.g. Preview, Quicktime, Safari) work just fine with dialogue boxes opping up pretty much instantly.

Using the latest versions of all apps and 10.4.4 on both a 15" 1.33Ghz Powerbook with 1GB RAM, and a 20" 2.0Ghz iMac with 1.5GB RAM. It's been doing this for a while, so it's a not an issue with 10.4.4 - I upgraded in the vain hope it might improve the situation... Also, the default file location is a folder with about 250 files in it - so not an excessive number)

Any ideas why this might be happening? And what to do about it!?

Cheers

Dave
 
First step here is always to repair permissions IMO, even if it does nothing, it sometimes helps. :)

Next step is to open Activity Monitor in the background, make sure you can see All Processes, not just My Processes and then see if there's a particular process that's causing trouble (red writing for crashed process or maybe using a lot of RAM or CPU cycles).
 
Still no joy...

Alas - have tried repairing permissions and it has no effect. Neither has turning off auto syncing with my iDisk (which I found as a suggestion via some Googling.)

As for checking activity monitor - the only process that locks up (In red with Not responding noted) is the application that is currently trying to open or save a file (e.g. Word)

It does seem a daft problem - might try the Genius bar at the local Apple store. If I get anywhere, I'll post it here!
 
Well, considering it's happening on two machines, have a look over the this party apps (and maybe even third party hardware) installed on both. There could be some sort of corruption. Also, can I assume you've got a nice chunk of free hard drive space (8GB plus) on both machines? :)

bugmania, if it's just the one machine for you then start by creating a new account and seeing if the problems carry over. This is generally a good start for troubleshooting because it can quickly show whether it's a system-wide problem.
 
mad jew - it's interesting, I just tried creating a new account on the Powerbook, and Word is snappy as anything in that account...so I guess that narrows it down to something to do with my user account. Also worth noting is that when I got the iMac, I used the Migration assistant to copy over my account from the Powerbook, so they're going to have lots in common.

On the hardware front - loads of space on the iMac, less on the Powerbook. No third party hardware (obviously loads of apps - including the guily parties from MSFT and Firefox).

Maybe a reinstall of Office is called for...
 
Do you have DivX or 3ivX installed? I know that plays havoc with Office if Flip4Mac is also installed. Although a reinstall of Office may help, if it's just these two programs (Office and Firefox), then I'd try removing the preference files. This means running a quick search for Firefox coupled with PLIST and then for Office, do the same for each app and then cleaning out pretty much everything within a folder named Microsoft in your user's Preference folder. :)

It may help. If there are settings you don't want to lose then keep all these files on the Desktop and put them back if this solution doesn't help, otherwise your preferences for these apps will be reset to their defaults. Only remove PLIST (or preference) files whilst the app in question is closed. :)
 
I used to have exactly the same problem and it took me months to work out the problem. For me turning the auto iDisk syncing functionality off fixed it.

It seemed like everytime a save or open dialog was opened, it would try and connect to iDisk and take 30+ seconds (especially the first time, i think after that it caches the data)

M

(Edit) Oops, I didn't read that you'd already tried this...
 
iDisk?

Is your iDisk mounted?

That's what does it for me - Microsoft apps (and Quark in Classic) seem to want to know everything about the iDisk before they'll open a save/open dialog box. And we all know how long that takes....

Very annoying.

If I unmount the iDisk, all good again.

Hope that helps.


Chris

EDIT: Sorry - more haste, less speed. Just be clear, it's unmounting it, dragging it to the Trash, that does it for me. I stopped the iDisk syncing thing very quickly, as I actually wanted to be able to use my Mac...
 
The iDisk does it to me too.

But generally I get this too with or with out the iDisk mounted. The same applies with printing. Its annoying but I deal with it because later on when you go to save/print it becomes almost instant. Does this happen to you too?
 
Damn iDisk - more trouble than it's worth I think sometimes. It won't let me unmount it - insists thats it's in use still...grr...don't know why - it's not syncing at the time or anything

DeSnousa - yeah, it's quicker after the first time...but it seems to reset back after a while so it doesn't help in the long run.

Mad jew - nope, don't have Flip4Mac installed, so I guess that isn't it. Deleting the prefs doesn't seem to help either, but many thanks for the suggestions.

I guess it probably is the iDisk...although why would it work fine on a new user account?
 
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