huffdesign

Q: Drop down menus changed to numbers

huffdesign

macrumors newbie

 

Join Date: Sep 2003

 

I have items in my finder menus that have changed to numbers. Example: cut is ME1, Empty trash is A3. The issue seems to keep expanding to new menu items as well. My sidebar lists my hard drive as SDS,  time machine as SD6, and places as SD8. My command click menu has numbers in place of items as well. I keep finding new things changing. What may be causing this problem problem?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 5, 2011 7:08 AM

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Q: Drop down menus changed to numbers

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  • by twtwtw,

    twtwtw twtwtw Oct 5, 2011 9:57 AM in response to huffdesign
    Level 5 (4,935 points)
    Oct 5, 2011 9:57 AM in response to huffdesign

    Does the problem remain if you restart the computer?  does it occur if you create a new user account and log into that?  it sounds like a haxie gone mad, but...

  • by huffdesign,

    huffdesign huffdesign Oct 5, 2011 10:02 AM in response to twtwtw
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 5, 2011 10:02 AM in response to twtwtw

    Normal things do not work, ie: restart, repair permissions, trash preferences file and restart. And no haxies on this computer; nothing abnormally installed lately.

  • by twtwtw,

    twtwtw twtwtw Oct 5, 2011 10:12 AM in response to huffdesign
    Level 5 (4,935 points)
    Oct 5, 2011 10:12 AM in response to huffdesign

    Did you create a brand new user account and log into it?  did you try restarting in safe mode (hold down the shift key during restart)?  Have you repaired the volume using Disk Utility?  These are important diagnostic steps.  If you just want a quick and dirty fix, reinstall the system; if you want something less drastic, you need to try these things and tell us what the results are.

  • by huffdesign,

    huffdesign huffdesign Oct 5, 2011 11:00 AM in response to twtwtw
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 5, 2011 11:00 AM in response to twtwtw

    Restart to safe mode and repairing volume gets no new results, but a new user account corrects the problem.

  • by twtwtw,

    twtwtw twtwtw Oct 5, 2011 5:41 PM in response to huffdesign
    Level 5 (4,935 points)
    Oct 5, 2011 5:41 PM in response to huffdesign

    That means it's something wrong in your home directory.  My first suspect would be a corrupt preferences file (when, for instance, the Finder preference file gets mangled, odd effects of this sort can happen).  Try moving your preferences folder onto the desktop and restarting.  the system and apps will new preference files on restart - you'll lose all your settings temporarily, but if the menus work properly again you know it's a corrupt plist and you can start testing likely culprits. (don't forget to move your preferences folder from the desktop back to its original position).

  • by X423424X,Helpful

    X423424X X423424X Oct 6, 2011 2:41 AM in response to huffdesign
    Level 6 (14,237 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 2:41 AM in response to huffdesign

    You might want to look at this discussion (which basically started going down the same path this thread is taking), or more importantly this discussion.

     

    There's a number of posts like yours and it appears it may be related to a Flash Installer Trojan floating around.  See this article for example.

  • by huffdesign,

    huffdesign huffdesign Oct 6, 2011 12:19 PM in response to X423424X
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 12:19 PM in response to X423424X

    I really think this is my problem (flash trojan). I followed this :

     

    Download the ClamXav anti-malware application and run it. It should find the trojan and remove it. If not, you'll need to remove at least the following files from your home folder, then log out and log back in:

     

    1. .MacOSX/environment.plist
    2. Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.SystemUI.plist
    3. Library/Preferences/perflib
    4. Library/Preferences/Preferences.dylib
    5. Library/Logs/swlog

    ClamXav did not find anythingthing, and deleting the above items caused my mac to not boot, so I am still working on the correct fix.

  • by X423424X,

    X423424X X423424X Oct 6, 2011 12:28 PM in response to huffdesign
    Level 6 (14,237 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 12:28 PM in response to huffdesign
    deleting the above items caused my mac to not boot

    Those items are all local to your home directory.  So deleting them should not have prevented you from booting.  The worst case could only be preventing you from logging into your account.  But IMO those items wouldn't prevent that either.

  • by huffdesign,

    huffdesign huffdesign Oct 6, 2011 12:38 PM in response to X423424X
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 12:38 PM in response to X423424X

    Moving my preferences folder out of my home directory did the same thing - restart froze up. I am going to try these things again soon, maybe one at a time.

  • by huffdesign,

    huffdesign huffdesign Oct 6, 2011 1:47 PM in response to X423424X
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 1:47 PM in response to X423424X

    Can you clarify #1 and #5 on the list - I do not see either of these:

     

     

    1. .MacOSX/environment.plist
    2. Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.SystemUI.plist
    3. Library/Preferences/perflib
    4. Library/Preferences/Preferences.dylib
    5. Library/Logs/swlog
  • by X423424X,Solvedanswer

    X423424X X423424X Oct 6, 2011 2:03 PM in response to huffdesign
    Level 6 (14,237 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 2:03 PM in response to huffdesign

    1 is a finder invisible file (all files beginning wit a dot are usually invisible although you can overide that in the finder using something like OnyX or Tinkertool).  5 would be visible if it is there unless it was made finder invisible.

     

    A quick and easy way to remove them and not worry about seeing them is to just delete them using the following terminal command (cut/paste the following line):

     

    rm -rf ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist

    rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/swlog

     

    You shouldn't see any messages when doing these.

  • by huffdesign,

    huffdesign huffdesign Oct 6, 2011 2:24 PM in response to X423424X
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 2:24 PM in response to X423424X

    YES! Success. It all worked perfectly and corrected the problem. Thank you so so much for your patience and time to help. I am so glad to get this one solved.

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Oct 6, 2011 4:18 PM in response to huffdesign
    Level 5 (4,801 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 4:18 PM in response to huffdesign

    huffdesign wrote:

     

    YES! Success. It all worked perfectly and corrected the problem. Thank you so so much for your patience and time to help. I am so glad to get this one solved.

    I think there is pretty solid evidence now that the name gets changed during installation. I would like to know what it currently says. Please open it up with Console, which is in /Applications/Utilities/ or with TextEdit. If it's text then copy and paste it here. If it's garbage then Trash it.

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Oct 6, 2011 4:20 PM in response to X423424X
    Level 5 (4,801 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 4:20 PM in response to X423424X

    X423424X wrote:

     

    deleting the above items caused my mac to not boot

    Those items are all local to your home directory.  So deleting them should not have prevented you from booting.  The worst case could only be preventing you from logging into your account.  But IMO those items wouldn't prevent that either.

    That has happend to at least three other people who went through this. Nobody seems to know why, but restarting a second time seems to solve it.

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