I erased my drive when I set up a Dual 2.7GHz G5 tower for sale, and installed Leopard. Updated to 10.5.4. Then found that when I open System Preferences, I get a blank white window. I can go to the dock item and click to select a particular tab, but it only changes the window size. It is still all white.
The menu bar items also display only white. Any ideas??? I'm stumped. Also sold the G5, so must get it fixed ASAP.
PowerMac G5 Dual 2.7GHz,
Mac OS X (10.5.4),
4.5GB RAM
Disk Utility->Repair permissions. If that doesn't fix the problem, create a new admin user account, log into it, and launch System Preferences. Report back.
Thanks for the suggestion. I repaired permissions, which did not fix the problem. I am not sure how I can create a new admin user account, if the System Prefs window is a blank white page. Am I missing something?
Did it, no help. Still see the System Preferences window as a blank, white nothing. If I click around blindly, the window changes size, as it does if I click on the dock icon and select a specific preference.
I don't know if this will help: it used to work well in 10.3 and earlier, and quite often in 10.4.
Strange behaviour by System Preferences can often be fixed by trashing
com.apple.preferencepanes.cache in Home > Library > Caches folder. Trash
com.apple.preferencepanes.searchindexcache as well if you have it.
If this alone doesn't fix things after a logout/login, then trash them again (because it will have regenerated more bad files), together with
com.apple.systempreferences.plist in Home > Library > Preferences folder, and in the Home > Library > Preferences > ByHost folder, the files
com.apple.systempreferences.xxxxxx.plist, where xxxxxx = a hexadecimal numeric string.
You need to log out and log back in again for this to have any effect (or restart if you prefer).
If none of this helps, you will need to look in your log files to find out why your preference panes are not opening: the simplest way to do this is to use Console.
Open the Console application from /Applications/Utilities. It will default to showing the "Console Messages" and possibly the "system.log". Use the File menu if necessary to get both these logs open, and use the Broom tool to Clear both windows.
Now try to open System Preferences and see what appears in either of these windows. Copy and paste it here.
You may see a message saying "Crash report written to <pathname of crash.log>". If so, click on the "Logs" icon at the top left in the tool bar (preferably in another window). Then, depending on the <pathname of crash.log> in your message, look under either ~/Library/Logs or /Library/Logs by clicking the disclosure triangle, then click the disclosure triangle for "CrashReporter".
Find the crash log corresponding to your message and select it. It will open at the end of the log. Look back for the last line of asterisks in the log, then post everything after that to the end of the log.
I think I have it. I removed all RAM modules except the 2 512 MB that came with the machine originally and was able to see System Prefs. Why the machine would work perfectly until I wiped the drive and set up for sale is beyond me. I am swapping out modules to see which are bad, or if all are a problem. Will report back.
Thanks to all who answered. I hope this is the end of the matter...
I'm having the same issue with a blank system preference screen and terminal is also blank. I found that by starting in safe mode that the system preferences are then visible and work. Now I'm trying to figure out what extension or preference is causing the issue. Anybody have ideas on how to systematically eliminate the items that do not load in "Safe Mode"?
Resolving conflicts in an account, requires creating a new admin user account, logging into it, ensuring that the problem's gone, and then deleting the bad account, selecting the save data option, recreating the bad account using the same username/password combo, logging out and back into the recreated original account. If the problem's solved, open the saved data dmg file in /Users/Deleted Users/, open the /Library/Preferences/ folder from the saved data, open the current /Users/restored account/Library/Preferences/ folder, and slowly copy plist files from the saved data folder to the current one that don't exist in it. Log out and back in to ensure there's no conflict and things still work correctly. Resolving conflicts or identifying corrupt plist files is a laborious process. Good luck.
After discovering that the G5 could properly display the System Preferences window correctly only after removing 4 GB RAM modules, leaving only the 2 256 MB modules that came with the machine, I tried the new account solution. Created a new admin account, shut down, replaced the 4 modules (I played with them to see if one pair or another would work, without success) and started up. Opened System Preferences, got a blank window again. Shut down, removed the modules, repeated the process, and could see System Preferences window correctly.
I ordered 2 more 1 GB modules, will try them when they arrive, and report.
I just installed 2 new 1 GB RAM modules. No fix. The System Preferences window is blank with the RAM installed, not blank with only the 2 original Apple modules installed.
I used this computer for years with the extra RAM in it. I must admit to being baffled by this one.
Have you tried resetting the computer's PRAM? That holds some RAM information that may help the problem if this is indeed a RAM issue, which it seems to be...