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MattDell

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 2, 2006
278
9
London, UK
osxscreen.png


When I click on the "External HD" icon on my desktop, Finder opens up like this with the left side being absurdly wide. Now if I just open up Finder and click on External HD there, it displays fine. What's the deal?

-Matt
 
No, it still does it.


The first time it ever did it the other items on the desktop appeared under where "Pictures" was and one of them had a long filename. I'm not sure if that's related or not. Buut, this is pretty annoying. I'm starting to think I have a problem with my install of OSX, because I also have this little artifact in System Preferences:

osxscreen01.png


-Matt
 
Hello,

Ive seen this before in here, but I cant remember the solution, im sure that someone will be able to find you the thread that will sort this out for you.

Dont re install your os just yet.
 
No, it still does it.


The first time it ever did it the other items on the desktop appeared under where "Pictures" was and one of them had a long filename. I'm not sure if that's related or not. Buut, this is pretty annoying. I'm starting to think I have a problem with my install of OSX, because I also have this little artifact in System Preferences:

osxscreen01.png


-Matt

Send a PM to WildCowboy, he's got the solution to this problem on a post-it somewhere close by. Or, search the forums using that as a criteria.
 
I've seen a handful of inconsistent behaviors such as this in Mac OS X. Leopard better fix this kind of crap. This kind of stuff should never have made it past Jaguar. The finder/UI bugs are like finding typos in beautiful book. Please, Apple, give us a new, unified, polished, smooth UI in Leopard! It's WAY past due!
 
I had this thing where when I opened Finder it would open in the lower left of the screen, half off, I had moved it there once. Every time I open to moved it back to the middle. I did that for a couple days, it opens in the middle of the screen now. Maybe this is kind of the same thing.
 
I'm starting to think I have a problem with my install of OSX, because I also have this little artifact in System Preferences:

<snip>

Send a PM to WildCowboy, he's got the solution to this problem on a post-it somewhere close by. Or, search the forums using that as a criteria.

I didn't get any PMs, but fortunately I spend enough time here that I stumble across things like this. :D


Close System Preferences, then look for a file called "com.apple.preferencepanes.cache"...it's in <your user directory>/Library/Caches. Drag it to your Desktop and then try opening System Preferences again. If all looks well, you can go ahead and trash the file you dragged to your Desktop.

It's a very common bug on the Intel Macs...it's been around for quite a while now, but Apple doesn't seem to have addressed it.
 
Send a PM to WildCowboy, he's got the solution to this problem on a post-it somewhere close by. Or, search the forums using that as a criteria.

I'm pretty sure the solution is just to trash com.apple.preferencepanes.cache which is in the ~/library/caches folder....

This issue of cache and plist files becoming corrupt is one I hope Apple addresses at some point.

With respect to your original problem, my suspicion is that the file holding the default finder view for that drive is jacked... I think the solution is to delete the .ds_store file in the root of the drive, and then un-/re-mount it, but I'm not sure.
 
I didn't get any PMs, but fortunately I spend enough time here that I stumble across things like this. :D


Close System Preferences, then look for a file called "com.apple.preferencepanes.cache"...it's in <your user directory>/Library/Caches. Drag it to your Desktop and then try opening System Preferences again. If all looks well, you can go ahead and trash the file you dragged to your Desktop.

It's a very common bug on the Intel Macs...it's been around for quite a while now, but Apple doesn't seem to have addressed it.

Yep, that solved that! I'm glad I brought it up. :cool:


Now if only we could solve the first problem.
 
Looks like I skimmed over that suggestion, whoops!


How exactly can I delete the .DS_Store file within OSX? It's hidden in finder.

-Matt
 
Use something like TinkerTool or OnyX to enable viewing of hidden files. You should then be able to navigate directly to it on the external.
 
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