Finder is unresponsive

Try resetting your Finder Precerences by deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and then Force Quit (⌥⌘⎋), Select Finder and Relaunch

Create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the issue persists. BTW, it's impossible that the com.apple.finder.plist file's missing from /Users/your username/Library/Preferences/. Do note that your Library folder is hidden by Lion. Maybe you looked in the wrong place.

stevefrehley wrote:

That file wasn't there....any other suggestions?

Open Terminal (Applicatons->Utilities->Terminal)

enter: ls ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

if you see the file listed, then enter:

rm -i ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

To find the file, use the Finder's "Go" menu as follows. Hold the Option key down while selecting the Go menu. Contiue holding the Option key while you select "Library." This library is your user Library--which is hidden when using the Go menu unless you use the Option-key procedure. Be careful when in your user library; Apple has hidden this library because making mistakes while in the library can be very troublesome.

stevefrehley wrote:

donv - I tried this and found the file, deleted it, then it reappears when I go into the apple menu. It also freezes again at that point.

That't the new preference file being created. If Finder freezes again, then it didn't work.

Try baltwo's suggestion to Create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the issue persists.

(There are 3 Libraries. One for the User (~/Library) and one for Mac (/Library) and another for the System (/System/Library))

Try a Safe Boot. Hold the shift key while booting (hold until you see the grey progess bar), then reboot normally

Yes, you should have two libraries of "the" type you are thinking of. One is your user library. Generalling speaking you should stay away from the second one--the systems library. Try what the others have said and even other suggestions that come around before what you try the repair install procedure I mention later. Also, your last resort may be to use this link. Personally, I find the link to be very unlearly written for a variety of reasons--most likely because of the variety of points from which individual may be trying to reinstall Lion.

Ignoring the link, my basic idea is for you to reinstall Lion via the upgrade install procedure (i.e., do what at least used to be called a repair install by reinstalling Lion from within Lion). I have not tried a repair install on Lion. So proceed at your on discretion. Whatever you do, be sure that all your data are well backed up, and be sure and think ahead to whatever else you might need if the repair install does not work out (e.g., Safari bookmarks, Address Book archive, iWeb domain file, a copy of the Lion installer, etc., etc.) My educated quess is that if you were to install Lion from within Lion (i.e., the repair install procedure), then you would fix your finder problem without affecting your data, settings, or installed applications, etc.

Since you have installed Lion, you may not have a copy of the Lion installer. But, also since you have installed Lion, you may be able to download an installer using the procedure described below. Be sure and stop Lion before installing if it decides to start an installation before your are ready. Then, you can make a copy of the installer before doing the repair install. Note that the procedure below anticipates that you are going to be using the Lion installer to install Lion on an external drive. But, you would be using the installer to do the the repair install.

"Install OS X Lion

If you completed your installation of OS X Lion, your installer may have been removed after your successful first login to OS X Lion. Mac App Store's Purchases page should show Install Mac OS X Lion as being "Installed", and disallow its download, when viewed from a computer running OS X Lion.

"To redownload the installer on a computer running OS X Lion, press and hold the Option key while you click the Purchases tab. If the button to the right of the Install Mac OS X Lion item doesn't change to "Install" and allow you to download Lion, use Spotlight to search for "Install Mac OS X Lion" on your computer.

1. Launch the Install Mac OS X Lion installer you downloaded from Mac App Store. The installer should be in the /Applications folder.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Lion installation. Be sure you install Lion on the external storage device you've connected for this purpose, not your computer's boot drive.
3. When installation to your external device is complete, you can re-run Install Mac OS X Lion installer and upgrade the boot drive of your computer. A Recovery HD will likely not be created, but if you need to reinstall or repair your boot drive at a later date, you can connect the external drive you just prepared and hold cmd-r while restarting computer in order to boot from the external Recovery HD."

OK, I'll hold my breath. I can't imagine repair installs not working as they used to, but who knows for sure. I guess we will. Good luck to you.

Edit: I forgot to mention that you may have to burn the installer to a DVD before installing, but I suspect not since the installer installs over Snow Leopard on the drive it is downloaded to.

stevefrehley wrote:

I did create a new admin user account and it works fine, is there anyway to get all my music and all my programs over to the new account?? Is this the only way I'm going to fix things and do I have to abandon my current account?

OK. Since the issue is specific to your original user account, you can proceed in two ways. One is to log into your new account, make a list of the preference files (plists) located in /username/Library/Preferences/, including any in the ByHost subfolder, log back into the original account, move everything on that other account's list from the original account's Preferences folder into a newly created folder on the Desktop, log out and back in, and see if the problem goes away. If so, you can copy the ones in the Desktop folder (one at time) back into /Preferences/, restart, and see if the problem returns. If so, you've identified the corrupt/conflicting one. Continue with all of them until isolating the bad ones. That'll save you the trouble of resetting preferences.

The second way is much more detailed and I'll not burden you with the steps unless the above doesn't fix the issue.

Tony T1:

I checked out the repair install procedure I suggested above. It worlks as expected. My settings, data, installed apps, etc. were left alone. Just run the Lion installer from within the Lion installation to be repaired. There is no need to burn the installer disk image to a DVD for now, but using this approach should work too. I burned one (see procedure) and made a copy just to cover all the bases I wanted to cover. I hope the procedure fixed your finder problem. I think it is very likely to do so. Let us know how it works out.