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System preferences crashes at changing desktop picture

(My system MBP mid 2009) Yesterday I upgraded to Lion. All works fine. But when I try to change the Desktopwallpaper the System preferences crashes. I discovered this behavior only within my user account, the other account on my MBP works normally. Changing the screensaver works fine in both accounts as well. I have already deleted com.apple.desktop.plistfile. What else can I do?

Thanks.

René

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 12:23 AM

Reply
31 replies

Jul 21, 2011 7:16 AM in response to Rene1977

I am having the same problem on my Late 2008 MacBook with 2.4GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM after upgrading this morning to Lion. Not all of the Preference Panes seem to crash, but many do.




Process: System Preferences [643]

Path: /Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences

Identifier: com.apple.systempreferences

Version: 11.0 (11.0)

Build Info: SystemPrefsApp-211000000000000~1

Code Type: X86 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [119]


Date/Time: 2011-07-21 22:13:32.332 +0800

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7 (11A511)

Report Version: 9


Interval Since Last Report: 31767 sec

Crashes Since Last Report: 22

Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 4285 sec

Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 11

Anonymous UUID: BD1810C0-9B4F-47EF-B5BB-AD39EF88B63C


Crashed Thread: 12 Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority


Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000050000020


VM Regions Near 0x50000020:

IOKit 000000000c151000-000000000c313000 [ 1800K] rw-/rw- SM=SHM

-->

__TEXT 000000008f0c4000-000000008f7d9000 [ 7252K] r-x/rwx SM=COW /System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS/GeForceGLDrive r



Application Specific Information:

objc_msgSend() selector name: _cfTypeID

com.apple.preference.network v.2.5 (Network)

objc[643]: garbage collection is OFF

|DesktopPref|-[DesktopPref willUnselect]



Thread 12 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x90019d47 objc_msgSend + 23

1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x927c40f4 CFGetTypeID + 68

2 com.apple.SystemConfiguration 0x9ae6cb28 SCNetworkInterfaceGetBSDName + 60

3 com.apple.preference.network 0x0b84e468 0xb84a000 + 17512

4 com.apple.preference.network 0x0b8573e6 0xb84a000 + 54246

5 com.apple.preference.network 0x0b85727d 0xb84a000 + 53885

6 libdispatch.dylib 0x947ffe85 _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 15

7 libdispatch.dylib 0x94800ee4 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 231

8 libsystem_c.dylib 0x9a781b24 _pthread_wqthread + 346

9 libsystem_c.dylib 0x9a7836fe start_wqthread + 30

Jul 21, 2011 8:33 AM in response to JustSomeIdiot

Same at me! After succ. upgrading to Lion, i got some problems with the stability of "system preferences", spec. when trying to change some things in new "mission control"-Part. Even, when i try to change the "hot corner"-options or if i only want to reshow "all options", system preferences crashes :-( What to do?


---- the first lines of the crash report ------------


Process: System Preferences [1782]

Path: /Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences

Identifier: com.apple.systempreferences

Version: 11.0 (11.0)

Build Info: SystemPrefsApp-211000000000000~1

Code Type: X86 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [274]


Date/Time: 2011-07-21 17:08:10.245 +0200

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7 (11A511)

Report Version: 9


Interval Since Last Report: 33721 sec

Crashes Since Last Report: 24

Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1540 sec

Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 24

Anonymous UUID: 345C5F55-B397-4610-BE35-DB58A7EE8B80


Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread


Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000043dd8020


VM Regions Near 0x43dd8020:

__LINKEDIT 000000000d111000-000000000d112000 [ 4K] r--/rwx SM=COW cl_kernels

-->

__TEXT 000000008fe60000-000000008fe93000 [ 204K] r-x/rwx SM=COW /usr/lib/dyld


Application Specific Information:

objc_msgSend() selector name: menuRepresentation

com.apple.preference.expose v.158 (Mission Control)

objc[1782]: garbage collection is OFF

....

Jul 21, 2011 9:38 AM in response to ffass

Exactly, and it's not only desktop preferences. I discovered multiple crashes today all regarding system preferences similar to you all. Did anyone of you try to use another account on your system? That worked for me although I would like tu use MY account in future.

I will have a phone conference with apple support tomorrow morning. I will keep you in the loop if we are successful.

Jul 22, 2011 6:05 AM in response to Rene1977

Meanwhile system prefenrences chrashes always while I try to set preferences of any kind. I had a phone conference with apple support this morning. He told me to start the recovery parition and repair volume access rights (don't know whether this is the correct english term). Same problem afterwards. Then I should try to install Lion again out of the recovery partition. No success - download was cancelled twice only minutes before finishing after hours of download. And that without any keyboard action by me. I'm at my wits' end. Again, the account of my wife works like a charme...

Jul 23, 2011 1:28 PM in response to Rene1977

It has to do with a problem accessing the images on the home>images folder. To solve it, just move its content (iphoto library included) to another place. Then, restart System Preferences. Moving your iPhoto library to another location seems to fix the problem. I am sure Apple will issue an update to correct this problem. But, for now this seems to work for me.

Jul 24, 2011 1:16 AM in response to Michael Mebane

In reply to above, re: moving Users/Pictures/ contents somewhere else. First for the newbie...You cannot just move the pictures folder itself, it copies the contents. First create a new folder say on your desktop, name of empty folder is not important. Then move ONLY your "iPhoto Library" out of your pictures folder. Open System Preferences and it no longer hangs in the Desktop & ScreenSaver module. It's still a problem because if you actually want to use iPhoto, you need to move the iPhoto Library back into the pictures folder. When it's there, System Preferences crashes only when accessing the Desktop & ScreenSaver module. Definately a bug.

Jul 24, 2011 4:44 AM in response to Rene1977

Okay - problem solved, unfortunately with a sledgehammer method.

What I eventually did:

1. Backup of the System via Timemachine on an external drive.

2. Re-Download Lion-Installer with App-Store (move to "purchased"-tab, press "alt" and click on lion - now you are able to download it again).

3. Install Lion on an external drive (format it before as journaled and uuid)

4. Boot Lion from external Drive, delete internal Mac HD with disk utility (Sure you have the backup?!)

5. Use Lion Installer again and install Lion on internal Mac HD.

6. During installation recover the old system from time machine backup when it's asking (don't recover system settings, only user and apps/programms)

7. Boot Lion from internal Mac HD - that's it.


Note: Before you walk through this mess you can also try to boot (press "alt" before booting) from the recovery partition on Mac HD and try to re-install Lion from there. It is then downloading the Lion installer file and afterwards installing lion. All of your data and settings will remain. I tried this twice and the download stopped unexpectedly after 2-3 hours with a pop-up window which was asking to cancel the download. I denied that and the download was cancelled anyhow. Think that is some kind of a bug too.


That did it for me. Don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you all.

System preferences crashes at changing desktop picture

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