OS X 10.4.11 gone nuts?

Hi Everybody!
I always have some problem with my iMac starting some months ago; this is the latest one and it's very annoying and really bad.

It all started with a problem with Bluetooth Setup Assistant which got to the point where everything in my OS started going wrong; BDAqua suggested using Applejack [(see this thread)|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2510383&tstart=0] which I did but, the same problems persist.

This is what happens:

Rebooted after applejack; flash of gray screen becomes black and stays black on for 3-6 seconds, then folder with question mark, then normal boot. This happens every time whether booting up or rebooting, either from applejack or not.
On an earlier reboot becasue I was not able to continue writing an e-mail; it was completely stalled, two alerts:
"Startup Items Security without proper security settings."
"/Library/Startupitems/" (can't remember what item it was)
"/Library/Startupitems/RetroRun"
Clicked both to be fixed; rebooted; folder with question mark first, then normal boot, again
Rebooted invoking Applejack (this was the 4th time I did it.)
I noticed that while Applejack is repairing permissions there is a line saying "All supporting Services are not loaded."
Rebooted; see first paragraph..
Beachball while Bluetooth Setup Assistant was loading, this happens in all volumes.
Help does not open an item in the Help Support articles list.
Bluetooth is set to open at login, but it stays in the background, it must be called up with Command+tab; this never happened before.
Command+spacebar to invoke spotlight would not work.
Beachball when clicking a textedit file to open it.
Beachball when opening spotlight.
Beachball when opening Safari.
Beachball after booting.
Beachball again when opening any application or file.
In other words, Beachball all over!

Also:
Trash is selected in Finder prefs to empty without warning; its behavior has changed and I get an alert "Items in trash will be deleted permanently. Do you want to proceed?" (it happened in safe mode, is it OK?)
Verdana font doesn't show in safe mode, is it OK?
Bluetooth mouse connection is lost (this happens too often.)

I have done an A&I some months ago because there were some glitches in the way the OS performed. Whoever has done an A&I knows that everything you have to do after the reinstallation is not only a pain in the neck, but it also is quite time consuming.

Now I wonder whether I need to do it again so as to be able to solve the problem, or the problem lies somewhere else (hardware malfunction? or something else?)

This last question comes up to me because none of the above seem to happen when booting from the clone FW HD.

I have not cloned the internal ever since the problems I've listed above started and don't plan on cloning it until the issue is resolved as both external FW HD's are not malfunctioning.

I do not include console logs with this post as they are basically the same already reported on the Bluetooth Setup Assistant (see above) and, mainly, because I am working from the clone FW HD and would have to go back and forth from the external to the internal.

I'll appreciate any and all the help I'm I'll get from you guys.

Thanks and regards.

iMac G5 2GHz PPC 2GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Maxtor 300GB FW HD; Maxtor 160GB FW HD; HP Deskjet 6980; HP Scanjet G4010

Posted on Sep 18, 2010 8:51 AM

41 replies

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 25, 2010 10:43 AM in response to Ruben Tomasov

I don't know how it came to be showing in the log; could it be that I hit upon it while surfing Version Tracker on the web?

Yes, some other Apps include APE to work their magic.

Where are these Airport kexts?

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort.kext

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort2.kext

After copying to the Desktop or such, you have to delete the originals since Move from the System folder only copies them.

(Spotlight doesn't look in the OS's folders)

I need to know whether to do an E&I before or after installing the original 1 GB RAM.

If you doubt the RAM, (I don't suspect it at this point, but if you do), then do the E&I with 1 GB.

Sep 25, 2010 12:53 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

I don't know how it came to be showing in the log; could it be that I hit upon it while surfing Version Tracker on the web?

Yes, some other Apps include APE to work their magic.

Where are these Airport kexts?

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort2.kext
After copying to the Desktop or such, you have to delete the originals since Move from the System folder only copies them.
(Spotlight doesn't look in the OS's folders)

Thanks, I've deleted both. *Am I right about not needing them as I do not have Airport connection?*

I need to know whether to do an E&I before or after installing the original 1 GB RAM.

If you doubt the RAM, (I don't suspect it at this point, but if you do), then do the E&I with 1 GB.

Is there any chance that things get all wrong if I try first to do the E&I with the current RAM?
I would do it if I can rest assured no problems would arise out of doing it with the current RAM as I am *not absolutely sure* it may be faulty; it was just guessing because of what I've read on your post about a Logic Board problem.

Thanks again.

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 25, 2010 1:28 PM in response to Ruben Tomasov

Is there any chance that things get all wrong if I try first to do the E&I with the current RAM?

No way to be 100% sure, I'd run one or both of these, if they report no problem, then chances are the RAM is good to use...

Memtest OS X...

http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php

Rember is a freeware GUI for the memtest ...

http://tech.kateva.org/2005/10/rember-freeware-memory-test-utility.html

Sep 28, 2010 1:20 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

Is there any chance that things get all wrong if I try first to do the E&I with the current RAM?

No way to be 100% sure, I'd run one or both of these, if they report no problem, then chances are the RAM is good to use...
Memtest OS X...
http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php
Rember is a freeware GUI for the memtest ...
http://tech.kateva.org/2005/10/rember-freeware-memory-test-utility.html

BD,
I've run the memory test with rember and it gave me a clean report. I don't know whether rember runs exactly the same test as memtest; the only reason I used it is, I hate to use pay pal or any other system for web transactions, even when the dollar amount is almost negligible as in the case of memtest. (Would memtest have given me a different result I wonder?)

Based on rember test, I decided to keep the 2GB Kensington memory installed, performed an E&I on 9/25/10 and have some good news to report:
*both mouse and keyboard are detected after restarting, and I don't need to use bluetooth setup assistant to bring them up* 🙂

I also have some bad news to report 😟
*Beachball keeps on happening again:*
• when quitting the installer
• when installing HP DeskJet printer software
• with some installers (especially VISE)
• when trying to add a picture on an address book entry
• when opening the browser window in Printer Setup Utility
• when opening spotlight
• when opening 13 messages in mail
• when opening 10 files in TextEdit
• when opening Disk Utility
• when opening MS Office 2004 after installation
• when opening Adobe Photoshop
• when restarting after running Applejack
• and the list continues...

Other issues:
• the selected desktop picture was lost after running Applejack a second time to try and troubleshoot whatever may have gone wrong with the system;
• mouse bluetooth connection is lost but not as often as before;
• sometimes the screen saver running with images in my pictures folder does not start when it should.

*Panic early today*:
• opened Onyx to empty the trash because it always does it faster than the finder; Onyx apparently stalled; I tried to force quit Onyx as the dock indicated it was not responding but it wouldn't quit;
• tried to relaunch the finder but couldn't do it; finder stopped responding, showed the beachball, and I couldn't shut down nor restart the computer; I got a message in 4 or 5 languages on a black background telling me to hold down the power button for a few seconds until the computer shuts down.

This is the /library/directoryservice/panic,log:
+Tue Sep 28 00:06:26 2010+
+panic(cpu 0 caller 0x0023383C): HFS: corrupt VH on my stuff on Macintosh HD, sig 0xf6f6, ver 63222, blksize -151587082+
+Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:+
Backtrace:
+0x000954F8 0x00095A10 0x00026898 0x0023383C 0x002319D8 0x000F939C 0x000EC520 0x000E7060+
+0x002702CC 0x0027CDA0 0x002ABDB8 0x000ABD30 0x3C5F0FF8+
+Proceeding back via exception chain:+
+Exception state (sv=0x4FB2CC80)+
+PC=0x900C74E0; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x902012E5; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x00002918; R1=0xBFFFFE80; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)+

+Kernel version:+
+Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed Oct 10 18:26:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.24.17~1/RELEASE_PPC+
*******

I've also copied and have the following logs for 28/9/10 in case you should want to read any; just let me know and I'll post them individually as some are quite long:
• /library/logs/501/console.log 1
• /library/logs/501/console.log 2
• /library/logs/501/console.log 3
• /library/logs/501/console.log 4
• AppleJack.log
• var/log/crashreporter.log

Thank you.

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 28, 2010 1:37 PM in response to Ruben Tomasov

Would memtest have given me a different result I wonder?

Naw, I think the RAM is likely OK.

performed an E&I on 9/25/10

Did you Zero the drive first? How old is the Hard Drive?

Let' see the last minute or two of var/log/crashreporter.log

Sep 28, 2010 5:11 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

Would memtest have given me a different result I wonder?

Naw, I think the RAM is likely OK.

performed an E&I on 9/25/10

Did you Zero the drive first? How old is the Hard Drive?

No, I didn't since the installer indicated it would delete everything on the HD.

Let' see the last minute or two of var/log/crashreporter.log

+Tue Sep 28 00:06:26 2010 crashdump[108]: crashdump invoked as panicdump+
+Tue Sep 28 00:28:52 2010 crashdump[522]: crashdump started+
+2010-09-28 00:28:52.338 crashdump[522] * vmutils addRemoteMachHeader: no readable file at path: /Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X+
+2010-09-28 00:28:52.371 crashdump[522] * vmutils addRemoteMachHeader: no readable file at path: /Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X+
+Tue Sep 28 00:28:53 2010 crashdump[522]: Started writing crash report to: /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/PopChar X.crash.log+

Many logs show problems with PopChar, don't know why since it is working OK,

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 28, 2010 5:37 PM in response to Ruben Tomasov

No, I didn't since the installer indicated it would delete everything on the HD.

But if you write Zeroes to it once, it may get rid of bad sectors.

/Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X

Go to...

/Users/rtomasov/Documents/

Is there such a bizarre thing there as " ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/" & "0 iMac/"???

Just installed PopChar, there is something definitely wrong on your HD.

Sep 28, 2010 6:28 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

No, I didn't since the installer indicated it would delete everything on the HD.

But if you write Zeroes to it once, it may get rid of bad sectors.

So you say it's back to do an E&I but *writing zeroes before* installing?

/Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X

Go to...

/Users/rtomasov/Documents/

Is there such a bizarre thing there as " ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/" & "0 iMac/"???

"Ä¢rubeÃÅn" It's text in the var/log/crashreporter.log.rtf that I copied from console as I said before.
"0 iMac/" is a subfolder in a Rubén (my actual name) folder in /Users/rtomasov/Documents where I save anything relating to the iMac. The zero prefix makes the folder stay near the top of the subfolder for easy access. The accent on the "e" makes it show as "rubeÃÅn" in the log; not my fault, rather the fault of people who believe English is the only language in the universe.

Just installed PopChar, there is something definitely wrong on your HD.

Please clarify: are you saying you've just installed PopChar?
And you found that PopChar is behaving correctly on your computer; and that by comparing with what my computer's log tells you, you come to the conclusion that there is something definitely wrong on my HD?

Thank you.

Message was edited by: Ruben Tomasov

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 28, 2010 6:38 PM in response to Ruben Tomasov

So you say it's back to do an E&I but writing zeroes before installing?

That's what I'd try...

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the Erase tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journalled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion hopefully you'll be able to install.

after highlighting the drive, click on the Partition tab, Options button will be down below...

"Ä¢rubeÃÅn"

The only reasons I can see for that sting of characters being there is bad RAM, Bad spot on HD, borked install of something, maybe OS, maybe PopChar???, or other HW problem.

Please clarify: are you saying you've just installed PopChar?

Yes, installed it, ran it, no crash log for it, but since your crash log had that strange string in it, it would seem that something is not right, just not sure what. If it's the OS install/Crash Reporter, why? If it's PopChar, why is it working?

no readable file at path: /Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X

There's no readable file there because there is no such path.

Sep 29, 2010 6:34 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

So you say it's back to do an E&I but writing zeroes before installing?

That's what I'd try...

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the Erase tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journalled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion hopefully you'll be able to install.

after highlighting the drive, click on the Partition tab, Options button will be down below...

"Ä¢rubeÃÅn"

The only reasons I can see for that sting of characters being there is bad RAM, Bad spot on HD, borked install of something, maybe OS, maybe PopChar???, or other HW problem.

Please clarify: are you saying you've just installed PopChar?

Yes, installed it, ran it, no crash log for it, but since your crash log had that strange string in it, it would seem that something is not right, just not sure what. If it's the OS install/Crash Reporter, why? If it's PopChar, why is it working?

I really don't have an answer to any of your questions; let's see what happens after my next E&I.

no readable file at path: /Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X

There's no readable file there because there is no such path.

Why not? I see this path:
+Macintosh HD/Users/rtomasov/Documents/ •rubén/0 iMac/iMac problems/ •iMac problems after E&I/ logs after E&I/var/log/crashreporter.log.rtf/2010-09-28 00:28:52.371 crashdump[522] * vmutils addRemoteMachHeader: no readable file at path: /Users/rtomasov/Documents/ ‚Ä¢rubeÃÅn/0 iMac/PopChar X.app/Contents/MacOS/PopChar X+

Will keep you posted; thanks a lot.

Sep 29, 2010 9:13 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

So you say it's back to do an E&I but writing zeroes before installing?

That's what I'd try...

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the Erase tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journaled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion hopefully you'll be able to install.

after highlighting the drive, click on the Partition tab, Options button will be down below...

BD,
I'm running Mac OS X 10.4 and there is no DUPartitionTab.
Erase tab/Security Option gives me these options:
Don't Erase,
Zero Out Data,
7-Pass Erase, and
35-Pass Erase

I believe the image you show must be from an OS X version later than 10.4; am I right?
Thanks

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 29, 2010 7:20 PM in response to Ruben Tomasov

Nope, that was from 10.4.11

Sep 29, 2010 9:52 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:
Nope, that was from 10.4.11

BD,
What I said before is exactly what I get when I click on *Security Options.*

You gave these steps:

+3. Click the Erase tab.+
+4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.+
+5. Select your Mac OS X volume.+
+6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journaled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion hopefully you'll be able to install.+
+after highlighting the drive, click on the Partition tab, Options button will be down below...+

The only way I could understand what you show comes from 10.4.11 is if you rephrase paragraphs 6 and the following one this way:

*6. Highlight the drive, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journaled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... After erasing the drive, highlight it, click on the Partition tab, Options button will be down below...*
*After completion hopefully you'll be able to install.*

Only after the disk has been erased, you will be able to click on the partition button, not before.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thank you.

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Sep 29, 2010 11:52 PM in response to Ruben Tomasov

Only after the disk has been erased, you will be able to click on the partition button, not before.

I think that would only apply if the Disk weren't already Formatted, will try tomorrow in 10.4.11 to be certain.

Oct 4, 2010 10:40 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

Only after the disk has been erased, you will be able to click on the partition button, not before.

I think that would only apply if the Disk weren't already Formatted, will try tomorrow in 10.4.11 to be certain.

Hi BD,
Have you tried it yet?
Thanks.

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OS X 10.4.11 gone nuts?