MacBook will not shut down

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Level 1

27 points

MacBook will not shut down

My white MacBook occasionally will not respond to the shut down command either from the Apple menu or from the panel brought up by a brief press of the power button. The shut down process starts - the option to shut down in 120 secs panel appears and the top menu bar disappears - but then the set just hangs. After a minute or so a panel appears with the message that shut down has been cancelled because one or other app failed to quit. The relevant app is not open (I double check using Force Quit) and the only way to shut down is to hold down the power button. I have run repair permissions and verify disk and there are no problems shown. Does any one have any idea please what the problem is and how I can cure it? Thank you.

iMac Intel, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Jul 4, 2009 2:54 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 4, 2009 3:53 PM in response to Roy Pembroke

You will need to note which applications failed to quit at shutdown. There is an obvious problem when this happens, and the problem is associated with the indicated application(s). There may be a problem with a corrupted preference or cache file that is causing the application(s) to hang.

You can start by deleting the preference file(s) of the suspect application(s). You will find them in the /Home/Library/Preferences/ folder. Usually they are in the form of "com.author.applicationname.plist." Then download and install AppleJack - VersionTracker or MacUpdate. Read the documentation carefully then use the program as instructed. See if that helps.

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Answer 2

Roy Pembroke Author

Level 1

27 points

Jul 5, 2009 2:33 AM in response to Kappy

Many thanks Kappy. I have a couple of suspect apps and I have deleted the plist folder for one. I will see if that works. Regards

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Answer 3

Roy Pembroke Author

Level 1

27 points

Jul 5, 2009 10:39 AM in response to Kappy

Applejack requires starting in single user mode. The set does not recognise the command and s keys being held down on start-up and just starts normally. Just to double check, I tried starting holding down the command, option, p and r keys to zap the PRAM. That didn't work either and the set started up as if no keys were being held down. Somewhere there is both a problem with start-up and shut down - but where?

I do not have any rogue software - all third party apps come from recognised suppliers (ie no sneaky copies).

I have tried repairing Launch Services with onyX but that made no difference.

Any suggestions will be very welcome.

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 5, 2009 12:55 PM in response to Roy Pembroke

I'm not sure what to tell you to do if the computer does not respond to the various startup shortcuts. This would be indicative of some sort of hardware problem.

If you are unable to use AppleJack, then you can try using one of the various utilities like TinkerTool System to clear caches. But this would not do anything to "fix" the inability to use startup shortcuts. This problem would be related to the keyboard in some way. Startup shortcuts are recognized by the computer's firmware and should not be dependent upon OS X.

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