Leopard unable to force quit application

[tomdiesel]

I had the same problem as well since I switched to Leopard. I am not using TimeMachine. At work I am in a quite Linux oriented environment. I had to do quite a lot of things directly on a server. I used sshfs, expanDrive and MacFuse/MacFusion. Until today it looked as if the problem was related to being connected to the server. Right now I am experiencing the problem without being connected nowhere (except to the internet). The application does neither react to any of the standard Force Quit methods nor to kill via terminal.

[midijeep]

use vise-grips

[geordisjd]

Turning TimeMachine off isn't enough. I've had several apps one after another refusing to quit and not showing up in Terminal (running 10.5.4). I've had to force restart my MacPro 2 or 3 times a day for weeks, just like the good old times before Os X. My solution was to UMNOUNT the firewire HD where TimeMachine is backing up (not physically, but in the finder), then all the "zombie" apps will forcequit and can be immediately relaunched.

[b1hgaa88]

Same problem here too. An application starts to freeze with a spinning ball and then refuses to quit with "force quit." When I force a reboot in single user mode and run fsck I always get an "Invalid file and folder count" when fsck checks the volume information. The problem is fixed but recurs within an hour or two.

I have run Leopard Cache Cleaner and TechTool pro but with no result.

[Charlie12345]

I see it's been about a month and a half for you all since this thread's been hit.

I'm experiencing the same problem.

This is definitely not Time Machine, not DivX, etc etc etc. This is a more general issue, which I believe is associated with disk mounting and unmounting. OSX is especially picky about mounting and un-mounting filesystems. If you are experiencing "error -600" when trying to launch apps or are losing the ability to Force Quit, I think that these things are directly related to Finder's inability to perform some basic library functions because it is suspended some sort of activity until it can finish a disk action. It seems unable to finish this disk action for some unknown reason. We can hope this is a simple bug in leopard and will be fixed with an update. I am on the most recent version as of this writing, so I'm not sure what to do from here.

EDIT: When I say "unable to force quit", I mean that your application may "go away" but it's definitely not "quit" in the usual sense; it remains on the dock with a blue light underneath it and is visible when using CMD-Tab and in the force quit menu, however the application does not respond and is NOT visible in Top (via Terminal).

[Doctor X]

Can you quit it in the Activity Monitor?

--J.D.

[Charlie12345]

Actually I hadn't thought to try that. I guess I was assuming any kind of command through the GUI was really throwing a unix command, like 'kill', at the app. I will try Activity Monitor next time this comes up and post my findings...

Thanks for the idea

[Doctor X]

You are welcome!

Sometimes my Bittorrent will not fully quit--for my t3h aw3som3 and legal Genesis live torrents. Normally, clicking on "Force Quit" thought Finder will do the trick, but I did try it through Activity Monitor once, and it worked nicely.

--J. "666 is No Longer Alone!" D.