Apple - eeeeeeeeeeeeesh.

[ceagle]

I still work on Apples/Macs, but I haven't seen this issue.

Volleyball iMac G4 System 10.4.11 ... a few programs launch, Office, AppleWork, Calculator.... but MOST suddenly do not work.

System Preferences, TextEdit, Disk Utilities, most everything starts, then quits a few seconds later.

I've done all the usual fixes, PeriodicWeeklyMonthlyDaily, tried a variety of individual program permission fixes, and command line permission overhaul via diskutil repairPermissions / (since the GUI app won't work)...

I've also tried the major overhaul suite of AppleJack via command line in single user mode, and the programs crash in the same way in safe mode also.

grrr.

The only things that are known to have changed is that they replaced the power supply last week, and the motherboard battery probably needs replacing (but I fixed the date via command line).

-

Input is welcome, but mostly just venting,......

Will probably have to do the Archive/Install thing.... *sigh*.

Comments

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

You might try asking on macfurs. Lots of Mac-savvy folx there. ^^

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

wooot! *hug* Thanks for the heads up! :D

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I have two G4's and they were really quirky about being turned off. If it was cold, you couldn't start them. If you warmed them up, they started just fine.

Try this: take the computer and warm it up-- put it in the sun for an hour or two or in a warm car for an hour and then try to start it up again. I've never figured out why this works, but I have my own theories. Just try it and see what happens. Once it's physically warmed up, you can bring it back inside and plug it in, re-hook the monitor up and press the start button.

(In the winter, I would just open it up and stick a hair dryer inside for about twenty minutes. Seriously.)

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

hehheh... no kiddin'! You've heard about the chilliin'-your-drive thing, right? Lotsa times folks can get a few more hours out of dying hard drives by refrigerating them for a bit...
So yep!... hot might work for other things too... Hardware can totally be affected by handling and temperature. I revived one older drive several times by swirling it back and forth a few times :D
Thanks for the tip!

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Chilling your drive has the propensity to make things a lot worse plus also allow condensation inside the drive. (kitty worked at a data recovery place*

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Interesting... we get the recommendation around here more often than you might think then...
Better than boiling it, right?

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

You'll only tend to have that kind of success with laptop drives that have crashed. Uh boiling yes perhaps not :)

[orv.livejournal.com]

Have you checked the console? Might give you an error message you can Google.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

oooo... no I hadn't yet... thanks for the reminder!

[yasha-taur.livejournal.com]

RAM? Flakey hard drive?

Based on what you have done, it does sound like probably a hardware issue. DiNo in Pasadena can do some repairs on old Macs, but Apple doesn't supply parts for them any more...

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's kinda fickle... the poor mac sat in water and under a ceiling water leak for a whole year unused... I usually send customers to Dino for hardware issues, but I guess they thumbed their noses at this one (according to the customer) and so he took it up north, where they replaced the power supply.

Right now I've found a good firewire external drive and am backing it up... then, I guess we'll see.... :>