Classic Startup hangs

[David Rodger]

Has anyone else experienced Classic Startup hanging?

I installed 9.2.1 on one partition and OS X on another. To begin with, I did not install a "cut down" version of 9.2.1 for Classic to use. For the last week, when I try to start Classic, I get a white screen (no display of 9.2 starting up). The progress bar gets stuck at about 1/4 of the way through.

I tried installing a cut-down 9.2.1 on another partition (previously I just used the main 9.2.1 partition.) Now, when I try to start Classic with that, I get the blank screen and the progress bar does not even light!

Rob Griffiths from MacOSXHints suggested I trash the three extra files that OSX inserts in the OS9 System Folder. Those are Classic, Classic Support, and Classic Support UI. When I next tried to start Classic, OSX re-installed these and it made no difference with either of the OS9 installs (blank screen and progress bars as before). ProcessViewer shows the TruBlue Environment hogging between 50 and 100% of CPU time even though it is apparently doing nothing!

I read about a Classic Startup grey or white screen problem with PowerBooks and some iMacs at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106572 after Security Update 19-10-01 is installed. However, I have a G4/400 and have not yet installed the Security Update.

Now, this is where it gets tricky...

Thinking that 10.1.1 might fix this, I tried the Software Update and found that it seemingly did nothing. While it claimed it was "installing", Internet Connect showed no data transfer. So I downloaded the Security Update and 10.1.1 packages instead. These may well solve my problems, but now I find that Installer quits unexpectedly after I enter my administrator password! I tried an incorrect password to see what would happen. It caught the mistake, so the problem is post-password.

Another thread in this forum suggested that Pacifist could be used to re-install applications from the 10.1 CD. So I downloaded Pacifist, which comes as a fully built app.

My 10.1 CD has every default OS X app in the Essentials.pkg except Installer. (Goodness knows where Installer came from!) Anyway, despite my reservations about using it to install the Security Update and 10.1.1, I used Pacifist to open the Security Update and I found it has a new Installer.app. However, after I entered my administrator password, Pacifist began installing and then quit unexpectedly.

So it would appear that I can't install anything that might fix my Classic Startup problems (well, I can't install anything!). I haven't changed anything in my login since I installed 10.1. There's only a rough correlation between Installer breaking and my last installation (MySQL 3.23.45, which I have yet to get working, but that's another story).

Round and round we go! Sorry about being so long-winded.

[genghiscohen]

I don't really have any helpful info for you, except that Pacifist had a bug in it, and a new version should be released very soon (if it hasn't already been).

[edX]

look here
and/or here
for starters. Somewhere there is also a good tutorial for making your 10.1 install disk a complete install rather than an upgrade which might help with reinstalling as well.
I get the white classic sreen on a rare occasion, ussually when rebooting from 9.2.1. I just stop loading or let it time out and then it seems to launch normal when i launch a classic app. I have never caught classic hogging all the memory. It may do it, but I never see it happen when i check.
Of course don't forget to check for disk damage using fsck or a good disk repair program like diskwarrior.

[kaos]

It could have something to do with what partition you have OS X installed on.

Mac OS X must be installed within the first 7.xGB of the partitioned hard drive. If it's not, it causes all kinds of wierd errors somewhat like the errors you're describing.

If this is the case and you have a hard drive with 2 partitions and OS X installed on the second partition, you'll have get OS X on the first partition and OS 9 on the second partition.

Good luck

-kaos : ]

[David Rodger]

Thanks to all those who replied...

kaos wrote:
It could have something to do with what partition you have OS X installed on.

Mac OS X must be installed within the first 7.xGB of the partitioned hard drive. If it's not, it causes all kinds of wierd errors somewhat like the errors you're describing.
-kaos : ]

My OS X partition is the first partition and it's only 5 GB.

And Ed Spruiell wrote:
I get the white classic sreen on a rare occasion, ussually when rebooting from 9.2.1. I just stop loading or let it time out and then it seems to launch normal when i launch a classic app. I have never caught classic hogging all the memory. It may do it, but I never see it happen when i check.
Of course don't forget to check for disk damage using fsck or a good disk repair program like diskwarrior.

Neither Disk Utility nor fsck revealed any problems.

On another forum, a respondent wrote:
Hmm, sounds like something that both Installer.app and Pacifist both use is messed up, making both of these apps crash on you My guess is that it could probably be either the Security framework, pax, or something used by one of these two utilities. You may need to do a reinstall from the CD-ROM, since things you launch from the hard drive are crashing.

That is a route I didn't really want to go down if I could avoid it. Will such a re-install leave changes I've made unaffected?

Thanks for your continuing help,
David

[edX]

I take it you installed the installer update a while back. if not, find it and install it. supposedly you cannot install 10.1.1 without it.

sounds like you've got my kind of luck - screw everything up trying to fix something and then they release an update a day later. 9.2.2 may not even have the original problem.

reinstalling 10.1.1 over the top of your existing system should leave all your preferences intact - it did mine recently. didn't even mess up my internet settings or my mouse speed. I think I did have to reset the clock. I was thinking of stopping at 10.1 for awhile and found several programs including mail would not work right until i went all the way back to 10.1.1.

btw, i have caught a classic app hogging all the cpu since my first post, which i also realized was not exactly what you said. still, it seems unusual for anything to need to hog it all.

[David Rodger]

Hello Ed...

Originally posted by Ed Spruiell
I take it you installed the installer update a while back. if not, find it and install it. supposedly you cannot install 10.1.1 without it.

The only Installer I have is what came with 10.1. This Installer does not work and neither does Pacifist (probably not due to these programs). The only Installer update I know of is the one in Security Update 19-10-01. I can't install that either.

Ed again
reinstalling 10.1.1 over the top of your existing system should leave all your preferences intact

I take it that the 10.1 Installer CD would do the same (since that's all I've got that I can use right now).

More information: For those who are wondering, I did not migrate from Public Beta or 10.04 or anything. I was waiting for 10.1 before I went to OS X, so, as far as I know, there are no remnants of previous versions which are causing my problems.

Regards, David

[edX]

yes it should work the same.

but you may not need to do this. you may just need the installer update. it was available thru software update. it was released 11/08. I can't remember if it was x or 9 update. try running both if you can. or you can download it at apple recent downloads
it specifically said it would be required for all future osx updates. on the other hand you should have been able to install the security update without it.
if you do the reinstall as a final resort, be sure to get the installer update bfore you try adding anything else to x. hopefully that will keep you from going thru this again.