Finder not responding - keeps restarting

[qtluvsjc]

i have recently been doing some things to my system as in this faq i found at http://www.index-site.com/Macosxspeed.html to "speed up OS X". and then not long after, i tried to move something out of my trash, and the finder locked up, my icons dissapeared, and it kept restarting! I rebooted my machine and the problem persists. it tries to run, freezes, not responds, then restarts. meanwhile, i can only get into programs that are on my dock.

i restarted, typed cmd-s, then fsck -f, and there were no problems there.
I put my osx panther install disc in, to try to do an archive & install(to reset prefrences) however i do not know how to get it to run, because i can't use my finder.

I do not know what i'm doing on a mac. please explain very detailed how i can fix this-- thank you!!

[Mikuro]

From the sound of it, it might be that you have a file with a "weird" character in its name that the Finder can't handle properly. The Finder is buggy like that.

If this is the case, you can fix it from Terminal, like this:

cd ~/Desktop
ls

Look at the list of items that appears. If one has a weird-looking name, copy the name, and then type this:

mv ./<paste the name here> ./normal_name

That should change the name of the file to "normal_name" and allow the Finder to work again.

[barhar]

If the 'com.apple.finder.plist' file is corrupted, such as the 'WindowState' -array list within it - 'Finder' will launch, crash, relaunch, crash, etc.

To delete the 'com.apple.finder.plist' file, launch 'Terminal', enter ...

rm -rf $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

... and press the <return> key.

Hopefully, this will have resolved your 'Finder' problem. If so, select 'Finder's 'Finder, Preferences...' menu item and make any needed changes.

-----

'... been doing some things to my system ...' is too vague. If the 'Finder' problem persists, after performing the above suggestion, reply - stating exactly what 'things' you did do.

[qtluvsjc]

Thank you for your help, finder is working fine now, and i can get to all the items in my finder windows. I just typed both of those strings into the terminal and rebooted. but my desktop icons are not showing up. sorry i was so vague before, i was in a hurry when I typed this morning. what i did that i think caused the problem was deleted two japaneese fonts. and they were stuck in the trash. it would not let me empty them, so i moved them out of my trash onto my desktop, and that is when the finder stopped responding. they are "japaneese Pro W3.otf" and "japaneese.ttf" where "japaneese" is a bunch of japaneese symbols. but now i just tried to delete them from the trash they deleted fine. so now, how do I get my desktop back? my desktop items show up in the finder window, but not on my desktop. I went to finder preferences, but nothing shows on my desktop- and when I click on the desktop, it isn't even registering it as the desktop. i have to click finder on the dock in order to see finder.

[shawnaleabrown]

help!!! i am having the same problem but tried the terminal thing and it didn't work. please help!!!

[Doctor X]

Give the details of your Mac--see the Read Before Posting--and then tell us what happens when you boot on your Installation Disk that came with your computer.

--J.D.

[Satcomer]

Plus an older version of a Stuffit plugin also caused the Finder constantly restarting problem. So you might to check for that.