I had those same problems a few months ago and from what I know about your problems its the Hard drive, Apps would crash, I would get hang ups and when I tried to do a "Archive and install" it didn't work only made it worse then I did a clean install and a few weeks later.. flat line it was dead.
So take your computer to be repaired and also have your ram checked and changed if needed... because my ram also died 4 weeks after I had gotten the HD repaired
Anyways now I have joke, whats going to fail next... I'm betting the other ram module or the combo drive
Sorry to hear that you have problems again. The main question, however, is whether all the problems you described now were also there right after the reinstall. If not, some software you have added after the reinstall (including Apple's updates, see below) might be to blame for causing those problems. That should not happen, no question about that.
1. The hanging on sleep problem is most probably related to a PMU (power management unit) weirdness. Try resetting the PMU (search Apple's site for doing this on your specific notebook model). There were also some firmware updates and/or other updates released for certain machines. Be sure to use the latest software.
Another thought just to make sure: some people disable the safe sleep feature (that writes the RAM's content to the hard drive). You didn't do that, did you?
2./3. The desktop icons weirdness happens also on my machine from time to time. I have not found a cure for that yet. Logging out or rebooting always helps, as you said. You might want to use Onyx or a similar utility to clean out the cache files (although that should normally not be necessary) and use Disk Utility to repair all the permissions on that start up drive.
4./5. The safari screen shot is a weird one. Did you use any kind of "enhancement" software for safari? Why does the address bar look weird? Normally, there is a white box where all the "http://..."; stuff comes in and not the gray background...
Try resetting Safari (in the Safari menu), that might help also.
Unfortunately, the latest 10.4.8 update has not solved all the problems that existed before - and has caused some more bugs. There are several threads in the forums here about that.
Again, the problems you describe should not occur, regardless of whether you're a switcher or not. But no software will ever be perfect, particularly when one adds a lot of third-party apps to the system that might not be fully updated yet.
Please do not give me BS such as 'It is a computer, you cannot expect it to be perfect.' Such random problems are not even tolerated on Windows XP.
There is no need for BS. A healthy Mac does not crash, and you should not be experiencing any of these issues. Unfortunately, computers can go wrong, even Apples. So, it's been said before, but clearly you need to have it said again:
If these problems happen right after a reinstall of the OS with no third-party software installed and no third-party hardware (including RAM) attached to the machine, you have a hardware problem and need to contact AppleCare.
Well, to check the hard drive, you insert the installer DVD that came with your harddrive. Reboot while holding the C key (like when you were reinstalling the OS). Right after the language selection screen, go to the menu bar and open Disk Utility. Then select your drive's name and choose "Repair Disk". You can also verify it first, but in case there are any minor problems on that disk, you'd have to run repair after that, so go to "repair" first. If it finds nothing, then quit Disk Utility and choose "Shut down" or "Quit Installer" from the Installer / Apple menu.
Second suggestion: create a new user account on that machine. Log out from your current user and log in to the new user. If Safari is looking and behaving correctly there, the problems might, I repeat, might (and not are) be caused by the Saft extension or any other third-party extension either to Safari or the OS. As was said before, Mac OS X runs perfectly when it is used the way it was installed. Of course everybody needs other applications too, but to have a stable machine, install only what you really need and keep everything else out of your system.
Third solution would be to delete Safari's preference file: remove Saft first (see the documentation that came with it on how to to this), then go to your main user account's Library folder. Then go into the folder "Preferences" and delete the file "com.apple.Safari.plist". It will be generated again as soon as Safari is opened the first time. (Btw, the file containing all your bookmarks from Safari is stored in: ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist, so you won't lose them when deleting the safari preferences).
Here's how you know if a third-party app is benign - if it asks you for a password to install, that means it is trying to install into the System folder or the Library folder. If you added any of those, then all bets are off.
Why should the operating system malfunction due to misbehaving applications? Isn't that a Windows trait? Doesn't Apple claim that in case of some applications causing problems, the system does not get affected by it? I have installed several third party applications - thirty eight, to be precise. How am I supposed to know which, if any, of the applications are causing the problem?
The majority of third-party applications should not be able to cause widespread quirky problems like you describe. There are two exceptions to this:
1.) "Haxies"
2.) Third-party drivers (that install items into the System/Library/Extensions/ folder).
Haxies are third-party software that alter basic system or application behaviour. They make use of unpublished API specifications and/or directly modify the system/applications. Apple can not be blamed if such an application causes problems.
Drivers install kernel extensions. Processes running outside the kernel are all protected from one another, so a problem with one should not affect any other. However, a problem inside the kernel will cause system-wide problems and most likely a kernel panic.
I don't think you need to worry about whether you can reproduce the problems on demand or not. You have a long enough list of weird problems that they should take the machine back. As long as you have tried everything* that's been suggested here, and the problem is still not solved, you have a hardware problem that needs fixing.
4.) Re-install the OS and don't install any third-party software (obviously you aren't expected to never use third-party software, but you need to eliminate possible causes. If the machine runs fine for several days with no third-party software, then you need to install one piece of software at a time until you discover the culprit)
Comments
BTW, I did an archive and re-install and the whole system got messed up. I got two sets of each application and Safari stopped working completely
How did you do the Archive and Install? That should not happen. Did you do it in two steps or something, or interrupt it in some way?
How did you do the Archive and Install?
Indeed. I can't help feeling that there may be a bit of PEBKAC going on here.
So take your computer to be repaired and also have your ram checked and changed if needed... because my ram also died 4 weeks after I had gotten the HD repaired
Anyways now I have joke, whats going to fail next... I'm betting the other ram module or the combo drive
1. The hanging on sleep problem is most probably related to a PMU (power management unit) weirdness. Try resetting the PMU (search Apple's site for doing this on your specific notebook model). There were also some firmware updates and/or other updates released for certain machines. Be sure to use the latest software.
Another thought just to make sure: some people disable the safe sleep feature (that writes the RAM's content to the hard drive). You didn't do that, did you?
2./3. The desktop icons weirdness happens also on my machine from time to time. I have not found a cure for that yet. Logging out or rebooting always helps, as you said. You might want to use Onyx or a similar utility to clean out the cache files (although that should normally not be necessary) and use Disk Utility to repair all the permissions on that start up drive.
4./5. The safari screen shot is a weird one. Did you use any kind of "enhancement" software for safari? Why does the address bar look weird? Normally, there is a white box where all the "http://..."; stuff comes in and not the gray background...
Try resetting Safari (in the Safari menu), that might help also.
Unfortunately, the latest 10.4.8 update has not solved all the problems that existed before - and has caused some more bugs. There are several threads in the forums here about that.
Again, the problems you describe should not occur, regardless of whether you're a switcher or not. But no software will ever be perfect, particularly when one adds a lot of third-party apps to the system that might not be fully updated yet.
Please do not give me BS such as 'It is a computer, you cannot expect it to be perfect.' Such random problems are not even tolerated on Windows XP.
There is no need for BS. A healthy Mac does not crash, and you should not be experiencing any of these issues. Unfortunately, computers can go wrong, even Apples. So, it's been said before, but clearly you need to have it said again:
If these problems happen right after a reinstall of the OS with no third-party software installed and no third-party hardware (including RAM) attached to the machine, you have a hardware problem and need to contact AppleCare.
- running the hardware test
- removing each DIMM in turn and seeing what happens
- booting to DVD and checking the hard drive
Second suggestion: create a new user account on that machine. Log out from your current user and log in to the new user. If Safari is looking and behaving correctly there, the problems might, I repeat, might (and not are) be caused by the Saft extension or any other third-party extension either to Safari or the OS. As was said before, Mac OS X runs perfectly when it is used the way it was installed. Of course everybody needs other applications too, but to have a stable machine, install only what you really need and keep everything else out of your system.
Third solution would be to delete Safari's preference file: remove Saft first (see the documentation that came with it on how to to this), then go to your main user account's Library folder. Then go into the folder "Preferences" and delete the file "com.apple.Safari.plist". It will be generated again as soon as Safari is opened the first time. (Btw, the file containing all your bookmarks from Safari is stored in: ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist, so you won't lose them when deleting the safari preferences).
Saft hacks the internals.
Here's how you know if a third-party app is benign - if it asks you for a password to install, that means it is trying to install into the System folder or the Library folder. If you added any of those, then all bets are off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lundy
- booting to DVD and checking the hard drive
How do I do that?
1. Put DVD in drive.
2. Restart computer by choosing Restart from Apple Menu.
3. Hold down "c" key on keyboard until you see the blue progress bar.
4. After DVD finishes booting, choose "Disk Utility" from menu and choose "Repair Disk" after selecting the main Hard Drive.
Why should the operating system malfunction due to misbehaving applications? Isn't that a Windows trait? Doesn't Apple claim that in case of some applications causing problems, the system does not get affected by it? I have installed several third party applications - thirty eight, to be precise. How am I supposed to know which, if any, of the applications are causing the problem?
The majority of third-party applications should not be able to cause widespread quirky problems like you describe. There are two exceptions to this:
1.) "Haxies"
2.) Third-party drivers (that install items into the System/Library/Extensions/ folder).
Haxies are third-party software that alter basic system or application behaviour. They make use of unpublished API specifications and/or directly modify the system/applications. Apple can not be blamed if such an application causes problems.
Drivers install kernel extensions. Processes running outside the kernel are all protected from one another, so a problem with one should not affect any other. However, a problem inside the kernel will cause system-wide problems and most likely a kernel panic.
I don't think you need to worry about whether you can reproduce the problems on demand or not. You have a long enough list of weird problems that they should take the machine back. As long as you have tried everything* that's been suggested here, and the problem is still not solved, you have a hardware problem that needs fixing.
* to recap:
1.) Run hardware test
2.) Check/repair HD
3.) Re-set SMC and PRAM.
4.) Re-install the OS and don't install any third-party software (obviously you aren't expected to never use third-party software, but you need to eliminate possible causes. If the machine runs fine for several days with no third-party software, then you need to install one piece of software at a time until you discover the culprit)