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Navigating to desktop hangs finder

I'm running 10.7.4 and everytime I navigate to the desktop, I get a beachball for 60-180ish seconds. Every. Single. Time. It doesn't matter if I'm in an open/save dialogue box in another app and click the desktop sidebar icon, in a finder window clicking the sidebar icon, in finder typing cmd-shift-G ~/Desktop, or double clicking through the gui. In fact the only ways I've discovered to navigate to the desktop without a hang are: 1) activate finder then "hide others" or 2) navigate through terminal. This guy seems to have solved a very similar problem http://www.macworld.com/article/1163227/fix_a_lion_file_opening_hang_in_mac_os_x _10_7_2.html , but when I go to ~/Library/Application\ Support, there is no "Unity" folder. I've also tried repairing disk permissions, repairing user permissions, rebuilding the desktop database, and restarting in safe boot mode. I'm not connected to any network drives or devices. I'm running out of ideas. Please help, kind internet patrons.

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 11, 2012 8:27 PM

Reply
13 replies

Jul 11, 2012 9:04 PM in response to Jason Conrad

While booted in Safe Mode, did the Finder crash?


1. If no, do this in Terminal:


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


2. If yes, remove any non-Apple files from


/Library/LaunchDaemons


(move them to your Desktop so that you can put them back later if it doesn't solve the problem)


3. In either case, after doing either 1 or 2 above, restart the mac and test.

Jul 12, 2012 7:44 AM in response to Jason Conrad

Good day Jason... I am no master of these devices... But I have been told several times about different issues, that sometimes one must quit one application to do another. Things that need all of the computer's effort, such as final cut, need NOTHING else going. I am not familiar with what you mean by "open/save dialog box"-- perhaps though, this could be the situation? Can you test one, not a valuable box, but quit and open finder to see if that operates as desired by comparison?

Jul 12, 2012 10:27 AM in response to Jason Conrad

My boss helped me fix it. Here's what I did:


Go to /System/Library/Core\ Services

open Directory Utility

Edit->enable root user, enter password, quit

logout

login as root

rename /Users/The_Problem_User/Desktop to something like DesktopCopy

create a new folder called Desktop, change permissions to match the old one,

logout

login as The_Problem_User


Everything works fine


Last, disable root in Directory utility.

Navigating to desktop hangs finder

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