quark8790
Level 1 (14 points)
Desktops

Q: Most apple apps don't work

Most of the apps that came with my Mac dont work. Mail, System Preferences, Firefox and Google Chrome all bounce for a bit in the Dock then dissapear again. System Preferences sometimes appears, but as soon as I click on something it dissapears again. Sometimes is appears twice in the Dock.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

P.S. my mac is an old DET model, and i got in  by cheating. (apple-s on startup, mount -uw /, rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone, shutdown -h now.)

Could that have much to do with it?

 

P.P.S This is a multi-account system and none of these problems are experiences in other accounts made the same way. there are 2 admins and the account with probs are one of them.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 9, 2012 9:08 PM

by quark8790,Solvedanswer
quark8790 quark8790
Level 1 (14 points)
Desktops
A:

I know its been a long time but i found a quick fix..

 

use terminal to completely erase everyhing in ~/Library,

Log out and log back in again and it's fixed! This also solved every other problem i've been having.

 

How strange.

Posted on Jul 8, 2012 10:36 PM

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Q: Most apple apps don't work

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  • by nerowolfe,

    nerowolfe nerowolfe Apr 9, 2012 9:27 PM in response to quark8790
    Level 6 (13,075 points)
    Apr 9, 2012 9:27 PM in response to quark8790

    quark8790 wrote:

     

    ...

    P.S. my mac is an old DET model, and i got in  by cheating. (apple-s on startup, mount -uw /, rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone, shutdown -h now.)

    Could that have much to do with it?

     

    I  believe you have answered your own question.

    You do not own those apps.

  • by MadisonP,

    MadisonP MadisonP Apr 9, 2012 9:27 PM in response to quark8790
    Level 5 (4,765 points)
    Apr 9, 2012 9:27 PM in response to quark8790

    Greetings,

     

    Perhaps I'll geekfail here but I don't know what "DET" is (and wikipedia couldn't help me with it either).

     

    As the issue is user specific we know its not the OS but rather something in your user account.  Did something change on the computer which precipitated this issue?

     

    Given that you restarted the setup assistant to access your account I would suggest bypassing normal user specific split / half issolation of your Library directory and try renaming your home folder which will reset the permissions on the files within (which may be the root cause of the issue): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428.

     

    If the issue persists after following that article then I would SafeBoot and see if applicaitons work better there: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

     

    Report back on your results.

  • by nerowolfe,

    nerowolfe nerowolfe Apr 9, 2012 9:32 PM in response to MadisonP
    Level 6 (13,075 points)
    Apr 9, 2012 9:32 PM in response to MadisonP

    I "read" DET as DEskTop

  • by MadisonP,

    MadisonP MadisonP Apr 9, 2012 9:46 PM in response to nerowolfe
    Level 5 (4,765 points)
    Apr 9, 2012 9:46 PM in response to nerowolfe

    I'll go with your translation

  • by quark8790,

    quark8790 quark8790 Apr 10, 2012 8:53 PM in response to nerowolfe
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 10, 2012 8:53 PM in response to nerowolfe

    Sorry

     

    DET = Department of Education and Training

  • by quark8790,

    quark8790 quark8790 Apr 11, 2012 5:12 PM in response to MadisonP
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 11, 2012 5:12 PM in response to MadisonP

    Cant help noticing that the tutorial in the first link page requires the root user, which can only be enabled through System Peferences, which we are trying to fix, which requires following the tutorial, which requres the root user....

     

    See the problem?

     

    And your first question, the only thing i can think of that has changed is that the account was made completely hidden. this was done like this:

     

    In a account with System Preferences working, the account's UniqueID was changed to 495 (used to be 502),

    in Terminal this was entered: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow Hide500Users -bool TRUE

    and the home folder was made hidden like this:

    setfile -a V /Users/AccountName

     

    Thats about it.

  • by MadisonP,Helpful

    MadisonP MadisonP Apr 13, 2012 7:13 PM in response to quark8790
    Level 5 (4,765 points)
    Apr 13, 2012 7:13 PM in response to quark8790

    You can access the Directory Utility directly by navigating to: /System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Utility.

     

    If the pad lock in this application is locked and you cannot unlock it you can enable the root user by resetting the root user password from Lion recovery as described here: http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/24/reset-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-password/

  • by quark8790,Solvedanswer

    quark8790 quark8790 Jul 8, 2012 10:36 PM in response to quark8790
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 8, 2012 10:36 PM in response to quark8790

    I know its been a long time but i found a quick fix..

     

    use terminal to completely erase everyhing in ~/Library,

    Log out and log back in again and it's fixed! This also solved every other problem i've been having.

     

    How strange.