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Mountain lion crashes opening any app; works fine on guest user

I really am at a loss for what might be the issue. I've tried verifying and restoring permissions as well as my hard disk, and clearing the pRAM. I have most of my important files backed up however when I try to back anything up now, finder crashes while "estimating time remaining" to copy the items. Also, everything seems to run fine under the guest user account; which I thought was also strange. I'd like to try to find the issue instead of having to do a clean re-install of mountain lion, if at all possible.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 22, 2012 7:05 PM

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Posted on Oct 22, 2012 7:13 PM

If your apps function correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Users & Groups >> Login Items and remove them. Boot normally and test. Use the "-" sign not just uncheck. You can also put them back later.

If that works you'll need to sort them out by replacing them one at a time and testing.

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Oct 22, 2012 7:13 PM in response to saforem2

If your apps function correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Users & Groups >> Login Items and remove them. Boot normally and test. Use the "-" sign not just uncheck. You can also put them back later.

If that works you'll need to sort them out by replacing them one at a time and testing.

Oct 22, 2012 9:24 PM in response to macjack

I guess I worded my question incorrectly. I'ts more like after logging in I can open a finder window, navigate to a folder and attempt to view the contents before finder stops responding. So, relaunch finder. Try opening, say mail. Mail icon bounces, screen pops up, after a couple seconds, quits responding. Force quit mail. Try opening finder again. Finder window opens after long delay, attempt to access folder, finder quits responding. Manually restart, nothing changes. Sometimes finder will let me navigate through a couple folders before entirely failing. Same with chrome, safari or any other app I've tried to open. I've tried all the solutions I've came across online, all to no avail. Also worth noting: everything seems to be running smooth on the guest account. I'm also able to SSH into the admin user account and transfer some files manually to a jump drive temporarily, without any issues.

Oct 23, 2012 11:18 AM in response to saforem2

If possible, launch the Console application in any of the following ways:


☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)


☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.


☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.


Step 1


Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.


Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Post the messages from the time of the last crash, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot.


When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.


Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.


Step 2


Still in the Console window, look under User Diagnostic Reports for crash reports related to the process. The report name starts with the name of the crashed process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report and post the entire contents — again, the text, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

Mountain lion crashes opening any app; works fine on guest user

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