Some apps wont open

Do you have the latest versions? Check that first.

Applications -> Utilities

- Launch Console

- Then launch one of the apps giving you problems, see if the Console logs give you some ideas about what's causing the problems.

What have you changed or added recently? Something changed - you would know best what....

G

and that' why you should start by telling us what was added/changed recently.

Things rarrely "just break"

Try reinstalling the applications and hope for the best. Further steps that might help are rebuilding the user and system caches.

You did make a backup before defragging didn't you? Dragging OS X...generally bad news.

hmm. I dont know. I have never heard of defragging MACOSX drives.....

I guess that's water under the bridge. Do you do it regularly? Have you done it without issues before?

Unfortunately, de-fragging brings a danger with it. Things can get lost, mis-indexed, moved to the wrong place, or corrupted. Its nto supposed to happen, btu then.....

Try a re-install of the apps -- and if there's nothing previous in them, trash the prefs and data files int he library as well.

Adn, unless someone ha new info to correct me, dont defrag OSX. Or unix for that matter.

Grant

maybe, an "archive and install" (or whatever they call it under Lion)

No backup..penny wise and pound foolish. Get thee a USB hard drive and cloning software (CCC suggested)

G

hans.slang wrote:

I started up my Mac in SafeMode and then the applications worked just fine!

I don't use Lion, but, if the same apps work in Safe Mode, I don't see how defragging is responsible for it. Check for login items, launch agents, launch daemons, kexts—the usual stuff that's disabled when booting in Safe Mode.

hans.slang wrote:

I've tried reinstalling, and it doesnt work. No, I didn't back up. Do you think I should reinstall Lion and see what happens?

the only thing I might try is cleaning/rebuilding the user and system caches. Way in the dark ages of OS X (like 10.0 or 10.1) before I knew better I defragged. I fixed the problems by cleaning the caches. I tend to use the paid application TinkerTool System. But there are some free applications that can do it, like Onyx.

If that doesn't work, then yeah, what Grant said:

Grant Lenahan wrote:

maybe, an "archive and install" (or whatever they call it under Lion)

No backup..penny wise and pound foolish. Get thee a USB hard drive and cloning software (CCC suggested)

I forgot what they call it in Lion, it's a way of reinstalling the OS while leaving the old OS, applications, User directories, etc. on the HD. So you don't have to reinstall everything again.

Agree in principle with Grant about external HDs and backup/cloning software. I prefer Firewire because it's generally faster than USB. For clones I use SuperDuper! but Carbon Copy Cloner should be good to. I haven't used CCC in years.

After reading subsequent posts, i'd rethink. Hans indicated that in safe mode, things worked. Fane commented that in that case, the defrag is not likely the problem. Maybe yes, maybe no. If the defrag corruption impacted nly files that are turned off in safe mode, it could very well still be the result of defraging. However, what Fane pints out is still important - something new is running, and its not running in saf mode. At worst, you can boot both ways, and see what processes are running, and look at th deltas. But, as usual, i'll ask the perennial question that solves 90% of troubl;es: "What changed?" You installed something, or something updated likely. Or --- the defrag corruped something that is turned off in safe mode.

Now, if its the latter, think abotu this. Most OS components are ON in safe mode. Its mostly 3rd party stuff that is avoided. So an archive and install might not fix that.

You have soem more thnking to do - what changed and what processes are running in normal mode that are not there in safe mode.

Grant

Good points Grant particularly about safe mode. The caches may come into play there, which may be worth a go trying to clean those out and get fresh ones rebuilt.

See this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

Some caches are getting deleted and one isn't getting used.

I'm more and more convinced that you need to rebuild your system from scratch, but maybe an arch and install will help.

but do read my earlier notes carefully - you have some homework items, and it explains why doing only archive/install is at best uncertain.

Grant