Frequent Serious Problems With New iMac - Advice Needed

I apologize for the delay in responding. I had a piano lesson tonight coupled with the fact that I am having a difficult time getting to the Apple iMac Forum -- very very slow!

I have never messed around with or deleted fonts from my iMac. I did find when working in the ApplePro Training Series of books that I did not have the Herculanum and another font. I have no idea how those fonts (and possibly others) disappeared. At that time (about two months ago) I formatted my HD, reinstalled OS X and then installed all system updates. At that time I did a complete backup to an external drive using Retrospect. I did this in order to have a virgin clean copy of OS X (plus system updates as of that time available)in order to completely repair my apparently messed up Mac HD>System>Library>Fonts.

After completly retoring my Mac HD from my nightly backups, I then used Retrospect to get at the fonts in the System from a fresh install. I copied all of those fonts to the Mac HD>System>Library>Fonts folder. I verified that I had every single font (and no extras that was in the virgin install of OS X) at that time. I have no idea how the fonts that Bee asked me to check for became missing. I DID NOT DELETE THEM! I apologize for shouting, but I am very very careful with my computers and have been especially so with this iMac.

Tom

Bee,

I was looking in the HD>System>Library>Fonts folder. Since these fonts are missing and since I should have them, I have (as described in another posting) retrieved those fonts from a clean virgin install of OS X made earlier and stored as a Retropspect backup. The above folder now contains all of the fonts you asked for and allof the fonts (and no others) in teh virgin OS X installation under HD>System>library>Fonts.

The real question is how did those fonts come to be missing. I cannot answer that. I certianly did not delete them.

Tom

DMullen,

I hope that you get your iMac repaired and it gives you good service. It is hard to find a way to reproduce a problem that has only shown up about once every 4-5 weeks and has never been produced in teh same way, i.e. within a given application or performing a specific task. I feel I have no recourse but to try and find the fix myself or at least determine if my HD has been the culprit.

Tom

Bee,

The folder I have been looking at and from which the fonts you asked me about were missing was under the System folder not under the Library (i.e. the Library folder in your picture above the System folder).

Again, I want to thank you for your help. Believe me, I really want this iMac to work. For the approximately one month between each of these failures and OS reinstalls, I have loved the machine, but i just can't go on taking the better part of a day once a month to reinstall the OS and restore my HD from my nightly Backup.

Tom

Bea,

Thank you again for hanging in there with me on this problem. I am gong to Kurt's link, get Pacifist and reinstall my system fonts (even though I think they are now OK).

Your friend's advice on using caution in restoring my machine from the Retrospect backup is well taken. I am aware that if my Restrospect backup has problems, then these problems are being returned with the restore. However, the thought of reinstalling all of my software, especially Final Cut Studio 2, is one that I do not relish. Final Cut Studio 2 is 9 DVD's and takes seven hours (I am not kidding!) to install. In addition to that, I have Photoshop CS3, Sibelius 5, Finale 2008, and several other pieces of software all of which are lengthy installs. So my plan is to reinstall the system fonts with Pacifist and hope that my problems (after zeroing the drive and this latest restore) are solved. Time will tell. If this iMac collapses again in one month, then I will do a clean reinstallation of both OS X and all of my software. If that fails to solve the problem, then I am simply going to take this iMac to my local Apple Store, tell them all that has happened and what I have done to solve the problems with the iMac and hope that Apple can solve the problem.

My 8-core Mac Pro purchase will remain on hold until I am confident this iMac's problems are solved.

Thank you again for your help.

Tom

Bee,

Each time I have reformatted and reinstalled my OS followed by a complete restore from my Retrospect backup, I have then removed the old Retrospect backup and begun an entirely new backup set. With that said, since the result is a restored HD as opposed to a fresh, clean install, it is possible that some problem has been carried through for some time on my machine. The only way to eliminate this as a possibility is to reformat and do a full reinstall and update of both OS X and all of my software. Because this is a huge task, I shall not do so until and unless I have further problems.

Incidentally, with Retropsect on the Mac there is no difference between a full backup and an incremental backup. All of my restores from Retrospect ton the Mac have been complete restoration of the Mac HD.

As far as "when all is working well", that is a conundrum because this iMac has typically gone 4-6 weeks between crashes and during that 4-6 week period there is absolutely no indication of a problem, i.e. no slowing down of the computer, no aberrant messages, no indications whatsoever of any problems until a lethal crash occurs. I shall, however, keep working and hoping that the measures I have taken will suffice to end the jinx on this iMac and in about 6 weeks, I shall add closure to this thread either with a tale of success or not.

Thank you once more for your kindness, suggestions, and help.

Tom

Jim,

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to analyze all that I have done and posted in this long thread and for your excellent comments and suggestions! I am extremely appreciative. You have asked several questions and I shall do my best to answer each of them concisely.

I have read carefully the Isolating Issues in Mac OS X document and feel that I have followed the advice in that document. My problems began almost immediately upon purchasing my iMac. For example, when I was importing my mail from Netscape mail off of my PC using the procedures suggested in an Apple document and involving Entourage the first week after getting my iMac, the iMac froze at least three times and I could not use any of the key strokes or procedures for quitting Mac Mail other than a power button reboot.

I am using a full licensed version of Retrospect purchased about three months ago from my local Apple Store. When my iMac first failed to boot and I called Apple Support and was advised after more than 1.5 hrs on the phone to reformat the HD and reinstall OS X, I did not have any backup at all and I had to reinstall my software applications as well as OS X. Thank goodness at that time I did not have Final Cut Studio 2 installed. Another fact, is that each time I have been faced with a situation in which I could not boot the iMac and a call to Apple Support resulted in a reinstall of OS X, I have always tried Archive and Install with preserve User Settings checked. Never once has this worked. Once I was able to reinstall OS X and all of its updates, but then most of my software would not work, i.e. simply would not open when clicked on in the dock. It was at that time (after about one month of having the iMac) that I purchased Retrospect and began nightly backups once I had my machine up and running again. I chose Retrospect because I have used it for many years on PC's with great success and know the program to be reliable.

Retrospect offers me three choices when I select Restore: (1) Restore an entire disk to the state it was in at the time of the last backup; (2) Restore files and folders from a user selected list; (3) Search for files and folders. When it has been necessary to get my iMac up and running after a failed Archive and Restore, I have always selected option (1) - restoring the entire Mac HD to the sate it was in at the previous night's backup. Retrospect then deletes every file and folder (including system files and folders) and reinstalls all of the backed up files. Thus you are correct that my System files then become those of the backup and if there are system problems on the backup they get restored. I could selectively restore just any files from my Retrospect backup, but I would not know which files to select for the restore. Perhaps I should however look into this more and figure out how to tell which are system files, which are application files, etc. However, such a partial restore is obviously replete with its own problems when you don't know what is wrong and why your system is not rebooting.

You are correct that I have decided that restoring my system from the Retrospect backup is less work than reinstalling OS X, downloading and installing all updates, and then reinstalling all of my software. The former is an automated process that runs beautifully unattended overnight. The latter is a process that would take me literally several days to complete and is one I view as a last resort. With that said, it is the next procedure that I shall do if this iMac becomes unusable again. I thus do completely agree with you that another Retrospect total disk restore is not going to solve my problems.

I have been totally unable to associate the problems of this iMac with any activity or with any periodic timeframe (other than it seems to occur every 4-6 weeks). My problems are definitely not involved with any one piece of software. Each time the iMac has frozen and could only be rebooted after a power button forced reboot, I have been in a different program. The first freeze occurred when I was in Aperture (only application open) and simply rating images when I got the eternally spinning beach ball. The second time I was in Safari browsing the internet and reading a web page when I suddenly got the SBBOD. The third time occurred in iTunes when I was simply listening to a file. The final time (a few days ago) was when I had opened mail and was waiting for my e-mail to download. When the download was complete the system was frozen. I had not installed updates, used the computer hard, or executed any activity that I only do once every 4-6 weeks. I use these programs every day.

My plan is to hope that by zeroing out the HD before the last system restore, by correct font problems through the reinstallation of both the System and Library fonts folders using Pacifist, I MAY have solved the problem. Because of the periodic nature of the problem, only the passage of time can verify this. If the iMac freezes again and will not reboot, I plan to spend the few days required to reformat the drive, reinstall OS X and all of its updates, and reinstall all of my software. I will then immediately back up this virgin system using Retrospect. If the machine fails again after that then it goes back to Apple with a full accounting of all that I have done and been through.

Meanwhile my purchase (highly desired) of an 8-core Mac Pro remains on hold until I have more confidence in the reliability of Apple computer products and Apple Support.

Thank you again Jim for your help.

Tom

Bee,

Yes, I do realize that Apple employees do not read or respond to any of the Apple Forums -- or at least that is what has been stated in the Apple Forums many times. Mentioning that my purchase of an 8-core Mac Pro is on hold is simply the only venting that I have allowed myself in this thread. I trust you can permit that after reading the long tale of tribulations that I have had with this iMac and I trust that you can understand that I would be quite reluctant based on this experience to spend several more thousand dollars on a Mac Pro at this time.

I have, of course, checked out my RAM as part of the Apple Hardware diagnostics on the Apple Installation disks and it, like all of my hardware checks out fine. While that does not eliminate the possibility of a RAM problem, the 4-6 week interval between problems seems rather long if RAM is involved considering I use this iMac many times each day during that period.

I believe, and I think this was in my very first post in this thread, that my problem is a HD that did not (for whatever reason) have the bad sectors mapped out and that my iMac failures occurred when the cpu was trying to write to one of the bad sectors on the HD. Before doing my last restore I spent more than 2 hours zeroing out the HD before doing the full restore and I am hopeful that this may solve the problem.

It is also possible that restoring my System and Library fonts folders using Pacifist may help eliminate this nightmare of reinstalls and restorations.

I can assure you that future problems will find me in my local Apple Store where I have spent a ton of money over the last six months (iMac, iPhone, three hard disk drives, Final Cut Studio 2, Aperture, Retrospect, etc.) along with my iMac with a comlete printout of this thread which pretty much explains it all.

You and Jim may not be Apple employees, but in my humble opinion you should be. At the very least Apple should reward you both for you both for the help that you have provided me and I am sure others on these forums. the help you both have provided to me has been far far more useful than the scripted help that I have received from numerous calls to Apple Support.

It is not difficult to find numerous threads on the iMac forums with freezing problems similar to what I have reported. It is my hope that all of the contributions that have been made to this thread may be of some help to those individuals as well.

Tom