Very strange...all apps unexpectedly quitting

[Cooncat]

A few days ago my computer (dual 1.25 MDD, panther 10.3.3) began acting very strangely. Applications are crashing all over the place, among other things. Basically it seems that whenever an application tries to show a warning dialog box (like when resetting an application, or when safari can't find the server you're looking for) the application will unexpectedly quit. It happens *almost* every time a dialog box pops up, in every application. Even "do you want to save?" dialog boxes cause unexpected quits. I should clarify...save boxes only cause crashes if i am saving preferences, not documents or files.

I have a second account that I use to troubleshoot, and the problem does not appear in that account. I'm thinking that some of my user preferences got screwed up, but I don't know which plist to trash...i'm still a bit of an newb on OS X...

Also, I have Cocktail and have nothing it can do has helped, i.e. clearing caches, repair permissions, etc.

It also might help to know that the crash log this problem gives me always has this line: Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000006

That "kern protection failure" part sounds bad...kernel panic???

 

[Cooncat]

ok, upon further inspection, it seems that any javascript message box in safari also causes the app to crash, not just error messages. Anyone know what to do?

edit--I should also say that I haven't installed any new software recently, and i'm not running any shady haxies or anything like that.

 

[cjc343]

You said that this was local user only... so....

Go:

./Your_User_Name/library/preferences

Drag the entire preferences folder to the trash.

Restart.

go into System Preferences

Manually reset all of your preferences... (do this for every app you start up for a while.... most of it will be reset)


IF you are still having trouble:


Log into your backup account (make sure it is admin)

Delete your user (after backing it up, just in case) and save it into the "deleted users" folder...

Create a new user, customizing everything how you want it.

Move your documents, pictures, movies, etc back to your NEW home folder..... DO NOT MOVE THE LIBRARY

You will have a bit of trouble either way, but the latter will be harder, and could possibly ruin (ruin as in remove every single photo from your library and force you to add each and every one of them again....) any iPhoto library.... (I am not certain)



Good luck! tell me if it works....

 

[Cooncat]

good news and bad news

ok, the entire preferences folder has been trashed, problem seems to be solved. I was trying to figure out which specific plist was causing the problem, but the shotgun approach seems to have been the better solution in this situation. Now it's only a matter of resetting all the preferences to how I had them...

thanks!

BTW, does anyone really know how preferences files can get so screwed up as to cause all these problems? It seems like trashing plists are very often the solution to problems in OS X.

 

[cjc343]

ok, the entire preferences folder has been trashed, problem seems to be solved. I was trying to figure out which specific plist was causing the problem, but the shotgun approach seems to have been the better solution in this situation. Now it's only a matter of resetting all the preferences to how I had them...

thanks!

BTW, does anyone really know how preferences files can get so screwed up as to cause all these problems? It seems like trashing plists are very often the solution to problems in OS X.

Files can become corrupted..... just be glad it is only preferences.. on my windoze box, the MBR has become corrupted 8 times now.... forcing a clean install each time... (yes I have checked the hard drive for bad spots, and "fenced off" all bad areas....)


Also: preferences are editable by any app... any haxie, mod, or 3rd party software program could screw up some files.... Apple programs could too.... but it is less likely.

 

[joeyroyal]

I am having similar problems, but when i try to delete the preferences folder, I get the error message:


"'Preferences' can't be modified or deleted because it is required by mac OS X"


I'm running 10.5.5 leopard

Any ideas would be appreciated.

UPDATE: This is system wide, created new account and problem persists.

 

[sickmacdoc]

To the OP- you really might find it helpful (not in this particular case most likely but for the future) to go ahead and update your Panther installation to the last update (10.3.9) since I noticed you are currently running 10.3.3.

There were, as all updates go, a LOT of changes in the system updates leading to 10.3.9 and it remains a pretty darn stable version.