Lately I've been having a lot of trouble shutting down and resetting my iMac. I'm running 10.4.8, and what happens is when I try to reset or shut down, it's like everything closes, but my desktop background is frozen on the screen and all I have left is the mouse (which can move freely). It'll sit there for as long as I have patience to wait (I've even stepped away for quite a few minutes and it was still there when I got back). I'm left only to hard shut down by holding down the power button. I've had to do this several times. Why is this happening and what can I do to fix it? It's incredibly frustrating.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
trouble resetting/shutting down
- Thread starter JonD25
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yeah, quite a few.
That's running at the time of shut down? Ummm.... Gmail Notifier is the only one that wasn't installed at all before. Everything else has been updated to the most recent versions. They all are Quicksilver, VirtueDesktops, and Yahoo Widget Engine, but I never had any problems with any of them before. Do you think the Gmail Notifier is the culprit?
Indeed. Take the time out and shut them down and see how it goes...you will be the able to find the bad seed...it could be itunes as well or any other apps making it hang.
Bless
Bless
Ok, I've been quite busy, but I finally had time to try and troubleshoot to see if I could find a possible culprit app that was hanging. Long story short, it's not an app hanging. I closed every single app that was open till all there was left was Finder, and it still hung on me. I've tried repairing permissions, verifying the disk, but neither helped. Any other ideas?
Do you mean the disk verify came back with no errors? Also, to test if it's a rogue user process, see if you get the same problems in a fresh user account. 
Ok, some extra things to throw in to the fray...
1) I created a brand new account, logged in to it, then went to restart. Same exact problem.
2) I tried holding down Apple+V, and it didn't boot in to verbose. I also realized that earlier when I was trying to boot from my install disk, it wouldn't boot from the CD when I held down C.
3) I ended up using Onyx to set it to boot in verbose mode. It boots fine, but then when I go to restart again, it doesn't even get to a verbose mode for me to see what's going on. It's still stuck on the background wallpaper for my desktop and the mouse, and that's it.
4) It seems shutting down is working, but resetting is where I'm getting all these problems.
I don't want to have to reinstall AGAIN.
1) I created a brand new account, logged in to it, then went to restart. Same exact problem.
2) I tried holding down Apple+V, and it didn't boot in to verbose. I also realized that earlier when I was trying to boot from my install disk, it wouldn't boot from the CD when I held down C.
3) I ended up using Onyx to set it to boot in verbose mode. It boots fine, but then when I go to restart again, it doesn't even get to a verbose mode for me to see what's going on. It's still stuck on the background wallpaper for my desktop and the mouse, and that's it.
4) It seems shutting down is working, but resetting is where I'm getting all these problems.
I don't want to have to reinstall AGAIN.
What sort of keyboard are you using?
Standard Apple keyboard that came with my iMac.