Icons disappearing/ Spotlight flashing

Tashi · #1 February 23rd, 2008, 03:40 AM

Hello, about half an hour ago all the icons in the top right corner of my Mac OS X (10.4.11) disappeared. The only icon that has stayed is the spolight icon, but it only shows up every five seconds. On top of all of that my keyboard will not work at all except for in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word. I have all the latest updates installed. The only thing I have tried so far is to restart my computer. Thank you in advance for all of your help.

Satcomer · #2 February 23rd, 2008, 04:33 AM

Click on the Apple in the top left corner. Go down to "Force Quit" and when it pops up Relaunch Finder.

Tashi · #3 February 24th, 2008, 03:04 AM

I really appreciate you responding, unfortunately when I did what you said nothing changed, but I honestly have no idea what to do at this point so all ideas are helpful.

Satcomer · #4 February 24th, 2008, 10:58 AM

O.K. Then reset your Pram, keeping the keys pressed down and let it "bong" three times". If this doesn't work try to go to System Preferences->Accounts and make a new test user account and reboot into that to see if the same problem happens.

Tashi · #5 February 26th, 2008, 12:36 AM

It seems that resetting my Pram did nothing, however, I created a new user and on the new account none of the problems are occurring. It is very strange, I was wondering if you think it is some sort of virus and I should take my computer in my local store to have it looked at.

Satcomer · #6 February 26th, 2008, 11:33 AM

Well it sounds as if you have a preference file that is corrupted. So boot into the trouble free account and do these steps:

1. Boot into your trouble free account.
2. Go to the folder /YourHardDrive/Users/YourUserName(the account with the problems)/Library/Preferences/.
3. Delete the files com.apple.finder.plist & com.apple.spotlight.plist .
4. Boot back into your own account and see if that helps.

Also if you want to reset spotlight to re-index your drives then open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal. In Terminal type sudo mdutil -i on /

hopefully this will help. If it does then go to System Preferences and delete the Test user account if you want to save space.

Good Luck.

Tashi · #7 February 26th, 2008, 11:44 PM

When I went to delete the files my computer said I did not have sufficient access privileges, would it work to do the same procedure from the account with problems?