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I can login to my iMac but no icons or dock

I can log into my iMac the dock does not appear and neither do the icons. I have a mouse cursor and the normal background but nothing else.

As a test I plugged in another usb keyboard. The normal configuration dialog box appeared but nothing else.


Rebooted but no change.


Ideas?


Thanks


Tad

Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Mar 24, 2015 12:15 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Mar 24, 2015 1:57 PM

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.


(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive & clear caches.)


Any change?

3 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 24, 2015 1:57 PM in response to lloving

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.


(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive & clear caches.)


Any change?

Mar 25, 2015 7:59 AM in response to lloving

OK, on that...


One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...


PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive


Reboot, test again.


If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts (Users & Groups in later OSX versions)>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed. Or an errant process eating up RAM.


Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.


Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...


/private/var/run/StartupItems


/Library/StartupItems


/System/Library/StartupItems


/System/Library/LaunchDaemons


/Library/LaunchDaemons

I can login to my iMac but no icons or dock

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