Can't force quit!!!

+I go and force quit the application and indeed the application leaves the desktop, however, the little light is still lit under the iChat icon and I can't restart the ** application again. What gives???+

The Application, or parts of it, are still active.
When this happens either:
a) Use command-option-esc again and tell it to Force Quit again
or
b) Run Activity Monitor and find what Application process is still running, select it and Force Quit from there.

As a rule I'd not recommend using Force Quit unless absolutely essential, best to find what's causing the hangs in an application and fix them rather than making this a habit.

Note: This option should only be used as a last resort, as loss of data within the app will occure:

1. Go into Terminal (Finder -> Utilities -> Terminal)
2. Type:

killall nameofapplication

So, for example, if you want to quit the iChat app, the command would be:

killall iChat

Hope this helps,
Dan

I have taken this to the Mac store several times and they replace this and that, but this continues to happen

If repairs were done under warranty I would notify Apple Customer Relations (800) 767-2775. See what they can do for you.

I am having the EXACT same issue! i, too, have taken my mac pro to the apple store...they say nothing is wrong with it and of course, it doesn't 'act up' while they have it. plus they treat me like i have no idea what i'm talking about. anyway...this is the first post i've found describing my issue too. activity monitor doesn't even show the 'frozen' app as active, so i can't use that. i tried the 'terminal' approach. didn't work either. the only thing i can do is do a hard shut down. right now as i type mail is frozen. if i try to shut down the computer it won't...all the stuff on the desktop will disappear, but it won't ever shut down. i'll just have to turn it off manually. then restart. then everything will run fine again until either mail or itunes or whatever freezes again. WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG??? my iMac and my macbook pro have NEVER had this issue. any help would be GREATly appreciated. thanks. 🙂

I've been experiencing the same symptoms for the last couple of weeks. Processes hang, show as not responding in Activity Monitor, and do not respond to any attempts to force quit them, by any means: Cmd-Escape, Option-click on the Dock, or via Activity Monitor. More than one app is usually affected. If I attempt to Restart, the attempt fails because the apps won't quit. Sometimes, if I am able to get the apps to force quit (if I catch it early enough), the shutdown hangs after the Finder disappears, and the computer has to be powered off. I'm forced to power off to restart almost every time.

P.S. I've today done a Disk Repair on all my volumes; no problems found. Repaired Permissions on the boot drive; two minor issues fixed. I also have tried zapping the PRAM. Have not been up long enough since to know if this has helped or not.

Just started having processes hang: Path Finder, Activity Monitor, Microsoft Entourage...At least one of them won't force quit.

I suspect I'll have to power off to get out of this.

I am having the same problem. When one app star to hang up and I force quit it you still get the little light under the icon on the desktop bar. After that other apps star to do the same thing until you poweroff the computer.

Helppppppp!!!!

I have the same problem. It started about a week ago and it seems like it's getting worse. Most of the core applications suffer from this freezing and even the finder and spotlight have joined in.

I have to force restart the computer. If we all suddenly had this problem it might be something more than just bad computer use. Could it be a patch recently installed?

/K

Check out this thread for more info

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9142280#9142280

Originally Posted accidentally in a diff thread...

hey, new to mac, basically sometimes i cant force quit itunes (which i think ive found the answer for but have not tried it yet, waiting for it to mess up again)... when this happens all other apps r fine but cant use itunes, so ive tried to restart but it wont have it, finder bar goes but it dont go off - i can't restart and have to use the power button. Any ideas?

FOLLOW-UP:

ok, i rang apple support.... said in home folder with a house by it - (not hd), open "caches" - delete what's inside cashes and then look at startup/login items - i had 3 things - one of which was itunes helper, person said keep that, delete the rest and now everythings fine - i rang support because after itunes stopped responding and would not force quit, (everything else was usually fine) mail and safari stopped responding too and i could not force quit them either so it obviously has a knock on effect after a while - said to delete cashes every 15 days or so too! Worked 4 me

btw - the thing i found to force quit itunes didnt work

I have the same issues for the past few month which has gotten progressively worse 5-10 hard restarts a day. Beach balls on most apps. I was on 10.5.6. Time Machine/LaCie drive with USB; TM's clock was always running. Software update would hang during the initial stage and would not list apps. Very difficult to restart. Tried the following:
1. Upgrade ram from 1g to 4g - no help
2. All the typical utilities and Memtest - everything ok
3. Apple HW test - OK.
4. Tried to clean up LaCie drive with time machine and twice got the grey-veiled restart - the infamous kernal panic.
5. Finally, shut down TIme Machine and disconnected the drive and upgraded to 10.5.7, and everything runs fine - it has to be Time Machine and that drive. I will clean-up the LaCie with disk Warrior off my Mac Pro and try Time Machine with one of those free clock applications that you can run it once a week.

I've experienced this problem a number of times whereby an app just cannot be forcequit, not even by forcequitting it via Activity Monitor.
So my only recourse is to do a hard shutdown by holding down the power button and then boot up again.
I've not yet experienced any data loss nor any other problems after doing a hard shutdown.
I've taken my MBP to an Apple sub-genius bar but the problem cannot be replicated there. The problem is very intermittent.