Spinning beach ball of death problem

We already did that Carol. Verified and repaired. Didn't help. When I verified it said the partition maps seems to be OK. I verified and repaired both the startup disk and also the solid state drive. Both said everything seems to be OK. So nothing there.

Also did the permissions thing and nothing there either.

My Mac is brand new mid 2012 (non retina) with top specs maxed out 2.7GHz and 512 solid state drive. 16 gig so not by any means low on memory and I've only got some iTunes songs on it. Only using about 34 gigs as of now. No othe files, documents, no pictures just music.

Thanks Rack,

It sound positive like it's going to work just by the way your talking and the page you referred me to. I'm currently not at home right now and on a library computer but (stay-tuned) till tonight when I get home and try this. Then I'll post back with the outcome!

And when I say the wallpapers all vanished I'm not talking about any wallpapers that I've chosen that I've added or choosed. These are the default wallpapers that you get with the Mac. I'm on Galaxy on my desktop now but the default Mac wallpapers are blank. I also have no photos in iPhoto so I don't know why that showed up in the pane. I guess if you had a photo you could use that as a wallpaper but the movie with Jimmy Page of Zepplin showed up (It Might Get Loud) and I thought whats this doing showing up in here? So right after I click on that I thought maybe it was going to bring up the artwork for the (It MIght Get Loud movie) that I have in iTunes.

But all it did was start the blank screen and the beach ball of death! Ha!

The only thing I've ever installed on it is Adobe Flash Player. I do have Time Machine Backups dating all the way back to November 4, 2012 Do you think if I went into Time Machine before the problem happened and clicked on that (com.apple.screensaver.plist) file before the problem happend and then restored from Time Machine that that would fix it?

I'm turned off by creating another user account as I'm afraid that's gong to mess something else up like I won't be able to log in to something. Isn't that where you have to create a new Apple ID?

In System Preferences under Users and Groups I have no items to automatically start up at login. This also slows the computer down. I have guest account sharing only but don't use a guest account. It's there but I don't use it. It was created by itself.

Hi Linc. It worked but there's a catch! It all started working again and the Mac default wallpapers all reappeared again and I could set any wallpaper.

Now here's what's triggering it. I set up iCloud and that set up photo stream and so on etc. In the left pane under the desktop tab with the wallpapers, now in the left pane iphoto shows up as a list and has everything like events, places, flagged, last 12 months (all the stuff you would see if you had iPhoto open)

I don't have anything (any pictures in iPhoto, Nothing!) There something showing up in that list which is one of the extras from one of the movies I have in my iTunes. I don't even have that in iPhoto. That doesn't belong there. I clicked on everything under iPhoto in the left desktop tab pane and the second I clicked on that (It Might Get Loud Extras) it started the ball spinning again. This started all over again. Like I said in the real iPhoto I have not any pictures under any heading and this movie doesn't even appear when iPhoto is opened. Why is this movie extra in iTunes showing up in the list in the desktop tab in preferences wallpapers?

I fixed it again then I clicked on that movie again and that screwed it up again. I have in that pane all the things that you would normally see in iPhoto but that movie I don't even have in iPhoto and it's showing up with the rest of the things like events, places, last 12 months (you get the picture)?

That doesn't belong there and I don't even have that iTunes movie extra even with iPhoto open so what is a movie extra doing mixed in with the iphoto source list in the preferences under desktop? I double click on everything iPhoto and since I have nothing in iPhoto nothing happened, when I clicked on that movie extra that doesn't belong there. That's when the ball started rolling again and the screen went blank. Right now it's fixed as long as I don't click on that one movie extra.

I can't delete it out of there either. Would you know what's up with this? The problem is fixed as long as I don't click on a movie extra that I have in my iTunes that is mixed in there. Once that's clicked the ball of death and blank screen returns.

I also tried Racko's method and it didn't work. See above post. The screensave file recreated and came back with (lockfile) after it. Before it wasn't a lockfile. just com.apple. screensaver plist. Now it's recreated as (com.apple.screensaver.plist lockfile. Don't know what happened there.

Hi Racko see where I posted to Link Davis above.

The file Linc told me to move out to the desktop was com.apple. desktop.plist it did work but there's a catch

Your method woudn't work for me and when you said the com.apple.screensaver.plist file would recreate it did however it came back with (lockfile after it) and I remember it as

com.apple.screensaver.plist

Now it came back as (com.apple.screensaver.plist lockfile)

It does make more sense to use the desktop.plist like Linc mentioned because it's under the desktop tab not the screensaver tab.

See below where I posted back to Linc on what's going on here. There a movie extra mixed in with iPhoto not when iPhoto the app is opened but iPhoto under the desktop tab in Desktop and Screensaver pref.

Hey Rack,

I apologize but the you had the wrong file it wasn't the screensaver plist, it was desktop plist which was the correct one that Linc gave me.

I wanted to let you know I went back in Time Machine and looked it up back in time. It turns out the (com. apple.screensaver.plist (LOCKFILE) was always there. I told you that the file you gave me the (apple.screensaver.plist) file came back as a lockfile but I went all the way back to Novermber 14th 2012 and this (com.apple.screensaver.plist (LOCKFILE) has always been there.

What didn't happen was the com.apple.screensaver.plist file never re-created (the one you were telling me about) and I had to get it back by restore it through Time Machine.

So turns out there's 2 files

com.apple.screensaver.plist (I had to recover back through Time Machine)

com.apple.screensaver.plist (LOCKFILE) I found out was always there because I went back in time and I though the file you gave me came back with a lockfile added to it but there's actually 2 screensaver files.

What's happened is that in (desktop & screensavers pref) you should have given me the desktop plist because that's where the problem is not the screensaver.

What's happened is that in the left pane even though I never used iPhoto and don't have any picture on it. It's features (the source pane) like on the app shows up in desktop in case you want to add pictures even if you've never used iPhotos as a desktop the souce list like on the app is automatically put there either by iCloud or maybe by a system update even if you never used iPhoto. I opened the app before but don't even have a digital camera.

Well anyways here's whats triggering the problem. Like in the App the pref has the iPhoto source list on the left hand side pane.

Events

Places

Last Import

It might get loud extras WHAT???????????????? This is the killer. An iTunes Movie is being mixed in with the source list. I clicked on events, places, faces, last import etc. etc and since I have nothing in iPhoto it didn't do anything but the second I clicked on It might get loud extras the ball started spinning again and it said (looking for image) and all the default Mac wallpapers went off the screen and the ball started spinning and the screen said again looking for image.

The ball is probably spinning forever because it's looking for an image probably in iTunes when it's actually not finding anything and spinning forever because this stupid movie is mixed in with iPhoto and it can't find the image because the movie art is in iTunes so therefore it keeps looking forever.

Something definitely mixed up here. This movie shoudn't be part of the iPhoto source list mixed in with events, places, faces and well you know what I mean. so since I don't even use iPhoto when I clicked on all the other things it did nothing but when I clicked on this movie (which should never be mixed in there in the first place) naturally it started the ball of death again. So I forced quit and started to fix it again. Now as long as I don't click that movie I'm OK.

The thing to figure out now is what is that movie doing there when it's not supposed to be there and how do I get rid of it?

I tried to delete it but I can't.

Thanks for your help anyways. So now it works but there's a secondary problem of having movie extra mixed in my iphoto source list. This is one big mix up and now I have to figure out how to get rid of that.

That movie shouldn't even be there. It's not even there when I open the iPhoto app.

Do me a favor would you? Go to that location you gave me and let me know and confirm to me that there are 2 screensaver files one without Lockfile and one with locfile at the end would you please. Check that up for me on your computer and get back to me on that OK?, Thanks!

Thanks!

Hi Linc,

Thanks a lot for your help and support it's greatly much appreciated. I'll be away for the weekend but keep this e-mail notification open and I will get back to you probably by next Tue. or Wed.

It might take me a while to figure out how to use the screenshot because I've only used it once just to try it out but with the link to the screenshot page you gave I'm sure after I read it I'll have it figured out. So I'll get back to you next week and Thanks again. The movies extra that shows up in the source list was never added by me and doesn't show up as a photo that was added. This movie extra is just like a bold heading that part of the source list in iPhoto that somehow got there and doesn't belong there. We'll get back to you with the screenshot of that source list. Then I'll open up iPhoto as well and show you the source list and there's no movie extra in there. I never used iPhoto for anything. So naturally when I click on anything in that source list I get the (get started in faces), (get started in places), (get started in events) screens because I don't use iPhoto. Just trying to give you an example that iPhoto was never used. It there in the pref I guess if I had added pictures and wanted to use it as a desktop wallpaper but no, my iphoto is not part of my desktop backrounds and there's no picture in it. I will get back to you. Thanks for the help and your patience.