Everything ran smoothly for the... ohhh 4-5 years I've had Mac OS X. Then, one day a couple of weeks ago [using 10.3.7], my internet magically "shuts down" while my computer is on [this is the only pretext to my finder problem]. Nothing I could do could restart the internet: power cycling the modem/router, creating new connection settings, whatever. So then, I decided to restart. This is when my Finder hung at startup. Soooo, I let it sit there for a while and after about 5 min of not touching anything [not trying to relaunch Finder] it will startup. However, if the Finder hangs [for me] at startup, the internet will not work at all. Soooo crap.
So I went through my basic troubleshooting scheme, rebooting from a CD and running the likes of DiskWarrior, TechTool4 and DiskUtility. The first time I did this, everything went back to normal. However, after another 12 hours of the computer being on, the internet mysteriously cut out again, so I knew the Finder would hang if I rebooted [which it did]. So I did what I had done before but this time nothing worked. Soooo I tried a combo power-cycling modem/router-while-booted-from-cd-and-running-repairs thing and it worked. So I went along my merry way and it happened again. This time after about 24 hours.
So then I boot up from my Panther disk to run repairs from there. This time, I only have my modem unplugged [in all/any way it can be unplugged] and upon restart it worked fine. Good. Great. Dandy.
Then after another unknown amount of hours [2 days or so] it happens [i]again. Sigh.....
"OK, screw this", I thought. I'll just reinstall and everything will be OK. So I boot from my Panther disk, zero my boot drive and reformat to Journaling ["Fine, if Mac OS X would rather have journaling then it might make my life easier"]. I reinstall only the BSD Subsystem as an option so I only have to use 1 disk. Then I go about re-customizing my OS to my liking, adding this time only LittleSnitch, MenuMeters and TransperantDock [as opposed to all the crap I had on before, with around 10 "other" system preference panes and a "full" Applications folder]. Then after another 48 hours the system craps out. Just long enough after I had everything to my liking.
"ARGH!"
So I go about reinstalling again, this time from a friends Panther disk, just to make sure. Instead of zeroing the drive again, I just erase and reinstall. Upon the very first restart, the Finder hung........ "Dear Mac Gods......"
So the next time, I try zeroing AND "8-way random write" to my drive just to make sure everything is nice and clear before I start again. Oh, by the way, did you know it takes around 13 hours to 8-way random write to a 30gb hard drive? Anyway, this time I get it started after and immediately [as I usually do] run permission repair and then update my OS. Then after reboot, I repair permissions again and proceed to get more updates. Oh, and at this time I had been recieving weird permission problems such as:
User differs on ., should be 0, owner is 501
Permissions differ on ., should be drwxrwxr-t , they are drwxrwxr-x
Owner and group corrected on .
Permissions corrected on .
and
Permissions differ on ./private/etc/slpsa.conf, should be -rwxr-xr-x , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/slpsa.conf
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/slpsa.conf
I repair my permissions regularly and have never seen either of those before.
Let's see.... where was I.... oh, 3rd reinstall I think.
Ok, so I continue to update my system [this install was when 10.3.8 came out, before the full combo update] and get it to 10.3.8. I happily chug along thinking 10.3.8 was a god send, and go forth and install LittleSnitch and MenuMeters [two things I can't live without] directly from the developer sites. Then the problem happens AGAIN after another 24 hours or so of no restart after installing LS.
So now I'm really angry. I search Apple's boards and google the problem to find that it's happened to more than a few people. They have suggestions such as to reset pram, delete user and system caches and delete certain user/system preferences. "How could I have a corrupt cache or pref on a fresh install?", I think. So I reboot and let the system hang until it finally boots up [but with no internet access] and I enable invisible items and proceed to trash all my caches [only this so far]. Since some are still in use, I have to reboot to empty the trash. So I do so. The Finder hangs the next start up, but I figure that's just a warmup for the files I just deleted. So I restart again. Finder still hangs. Luckily I had to leave at this point, so I keep my system running, getting ready to rein
So I went through my basic troubleshooting scheme, rebooting from a CD and running the likes of DiskWarrior, TechTool4 and DiskUtility. The first time I did this, everything went back to normal. However, after another 12 hours of the computer being on, the internet mysteriously cut out again, so I knew the Finder would hang if I rebooted [which it did]. So I did what I had done before but this time nothing worked. Soooo I tried a combo power-cycling modem/router-while-booted-from-cd-and-running-repairs thing and it worked. So I went along my merry way and it happened again. This time after about 24 hours.
So then I boot up from my Panther disk to run repairs from there. This time, I only have my modem unplugged [in all/any way it can be unplugged] and upon restart it worked fine. Good. Great. Dandy.
Then after another unknown amount of hours [2 days or so] it happens [i]again. Sigh.....
"OK, screw this", I thought. I'll just reinstall and everything will be OK. So I boot from my Panther disk, zero my boot drive and reformat to Journaling ["Fine, if Mac OS X would rather have journaling then it might make my life easier"]. I reinstall only the BSD Subsystem as an option so I only have to use 1 disk. Then I go about re-customizing my OS to my liking, adding this time only LittleSnitch, MenuMeters and TransperantDock [as opposed to all the crap I had on before, with around 10 "other" system preference panes and a "full" Applications folder]. Then after another 48 hours the system craps out. Just long enough after I had everything to my liking.
"ARGH!"
So I go about reinstalling again, this time from a friends Panther disk, just to make sure. Instead of zeroing the drive again, I just erase and reinstall. Upon the very first restart, the Finder hung........ "Dear Mac Gods......"
So the next time, I try zeroing AND "8-way random write" to my drive just to make sure everything is nice and clear before I start again. Oh, by the way, did you know it takes around 13 hours to 8-way random write to a 30gb hard drive? Anyway, this time I get it started after and immediately [as I usually do] run permission repair and then update my OS. Then after reboot, I repair permissions again and proceed to get more updates. Oh, and at this time I had been recieving weird permission problems such as:
User differs on ., should be 0, owner is 501
Permissions differ on ., should be drwxrwxr-t , they are drwxrwxr-x
Owner and group corrected on .
Permissions corrected on .
and
Permissions differ on ./private/etc/slpsa.conf, should be -rwxr-xr-x , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/slpsa.conf
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/slpsa.conf
I repair my permissions regularly and have never seen either of those before.
Let's see.... where was I.... oh, 3rd reinstall I think.
Ok, so I continue to update my system [this install was when 10.3.8 came out, before the full combo update] and get it to 10.3.8. I happily chug along thinking 10.3.8 was a god send, and go forth and install LittleSnitch and MenuMeters [two things I can't live without] directly from the developer sites. Then the problem happens AGAIN after another 24 hours or so of no restart after installing LS.
So now I'm really angry. I search Apple's boards and google the problem to find that it's happened to more than a few people. They have suggestions such as to reset pram, delete user and system caches and delete certain user/system preferences. "How could I have a corrupt cache or pref on a fresh install?", I think. So I reboot and let the system hang until it finally boots up [but with no internet access] and I enable invisible items and proceed to trash all my caches [only this so far]. Since some are still in use, I have to reboot to empty the trash. So I do so. The Finder hangs the next start up, but I figure that's just a warmup for the files I just deleted. So I restart again. Finder still hangs. Luckily I had to leave at this point, so I keep my system running, getting ready to rein