Funny Things Happening in OSX

A

aaronmacdonald

Registered
i downloaded some sketchy executables lately, and i did a few password authorizations without really paying attention to what i was authorizing (which may have been my mistake)... and now when i start up the two-tone grey apple screen seems to be taking longer than usual. whenever OSX (10.2.8) does boot up, things seem to be going slightly slower than usual, including internet. the first time i rebooted after doing those sketchy authorizations i noticed some of my preferences had changed... mainly the icon size was slightly smaller, as was the dock icon size, and my highlight color had shifted from green to blue. also my clock, while still displaying the proper time, was now displaying in 24hour mode, instead of the usual 12-hour AM/PM mode. I switched those things back to normal, and they have stayed normal, but still the system seems to be lagging. Another problem is that when i try to empty the trash, the system locks up. completely. i cant even force quit. i can't even power-off by holding in the powerbutton, i have to hit the main powerswitch. i have no clue why this is happening, never once have i had my OSX freeze to that point. There has been a few times that the trash freezed but i was able to force quit. not now. anybody know what's going wrong? is it a virus? or is it some other bug? any suggestions/tip/help is greatly appreciated. thanks.
 
Oh no...
I had this last week. I suggest you back-up and reformat, its the only way i could fix this.
 
Welcome to the forum, Aron! :)
Sorry it's under such conditions..
Well, there are two steps to take before you consider erasing the disc:
1. repair permissions (boot from the panther disc and open the disk utility)
2. setup another user account and see how your system behaves on that one.
Post your results and Good Luck!
 
Okay, as it is, everything has pretty much returned to normal. Applications are running at normal speed, my preferences stay the same, etc. etc. The start-up still seems to be lagging a little bit, but then again I don't usually sit around and watch the startup so this might just be my perception. The only thing that isnt working right is the trash can. I can put files in there, and empty works fine, but if there is a folder in the trash it freezes up. Like i can take FileA and FileB and put them in the trash, and empty the trash no problem. But if i put FolderC in the trash, bam, it freezes...
 
okay, i've found out what was wrong. 2 of the files i was trying to delete were corrupt applications. one, was an app that screwed up during installation, and the other never worked in the first place (hmmmm.....), i can delete anything else no problem, including folders. but when i try to delete either of those 2 files, it begins to hang up. repairing the permissions did make some difference though, now the trash hangs up at a later part (the 'emptying trash' progress bar now shows up... but freezes), and atleast now i can force quit the trash if it hangs up. right now i'm putting the two corrupt files in a .sit file and will then drag the .sit file to the trash and try deleting it. if that doesnt work, ill go try to force empty the trash from the terminal.

thanks for the quick response and help guys.
 
well, things have gotten worse, a lot worse.
while moving around some of those weird apps/packages (i discovered a few of the files that wont empty and cause the trash to hang are packages) i accidently opened what was a package. my computer froze, and the power button on the front of the case as well as the one on th keyboard did notihng, so i had to use the main powerswitch, i heard my computer make a weird noise ive never heard before. i booted up and major problems. the dock is there, and when i move my mouse over the applications they do magnify, but refuse to open. nothing shows up on my desktop. the finder bar is missing, although unusually enough the little chat bubble for iChat is there, as is the volume control, and the time (which is accurate). also strange is that i have my wallpaper set to change every 5 minutes, and this is continuing to happen, despite a non-functioning Finder/Dock/everything else. It's be on for about 20 minutes now, and still nothing works (except the clock, wallpaper changes, and dock asthetics like magnification). there has been that little colorful spinning pizza wheels, and thats about it... i restarted, booted from the OSX CD and repaired the permissions, and than rebooted again, and still nothing but the same problems that i listed before.. whats going on? (im very angry, i've been working hard to get some work done for a client and here i am sitting baffled on my old iMac i had to dig out of my closet).
 
... and things continue to get worse. now i can't even boot from a CD. so what am i supposed to do? i can only boot my powermac into a state of nothing-working. and my deadlines are fast approaching.... is there anyway i can make it boot from a CD or even from the seperate partition (my harddisk is divided into 2 partitions, both run OSX, one is corrupt, one works fine... the one that is corrupt is the start up disk, and holding down C while starting up doesnt result in boot from CD...)

HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!
 
try repairing permissions once more.. as long as there are no more errors reported. Sounds really weird what's going on, dude. :( How far would you go to avoid a reinstall?
 
i cant repair permissions because when i boot into OSX i cant access anything, and i cant seem to boot from a CD...

right now i am more than willing to completely reformat my hard disk and reinstall OSX... most of my work is already backed up, so within 24 hours i could have my computer pretty much as i had it before... assuming i can find a way to format/reinstall... ?
 
Boot and press Command-Option-P-R to reset parameter RAM (PRAM) and non-volatile RAM (NVRAM). Try this and see if you can boot into the osx CD.

And check this thread for some more ideas.
Some more things can be found here

Good luck!
 
Aaron,

Forgive me if I'm being too elementary here. Have you tried booting from your system cd by putting it in the drive, holding down 'C' and starting the machine? Hold the C until you hear it accessign the CDROM drive.

1. Try checking the integrity of the hard drive with the disk utility.

2. Then repair permissions, which you can do after booting from the system disc.

Try both steps in the order above. Let us know how it goes.

Doug
 
Press: Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup and choose the boot disc/drive that you want to try booting from.
 
aaronmacdonald said:
i downloaded some sketchy executables lately, and i did a few password authorizations without really paying attention to what i was authorizing (which may have been my mistake)...
Click to expand...

It sounds like you've been opening virus emails. These will have zero effect on the Mac, which is why the others here didn't bring it up, but we should remind all those PC-users out there of the following rules...

  • Never open attachments in emails that you did not expect to recieve.
  • Never EVER use a password to open a ZIP attachment unless you have discussed this with the sender IN PERSON. Encrypted ZIP files are a common way for virus makers to make it more difficult for antivirus software to recognise their virus' footprint.
  • Remember that virus generated mail may appear to come from legitimate sources.
  • If in doubt, ask your helpdesk or search for a sample of the body text on Symantec at: http://www.symantec.com/search_home.html

Just a reminder ...
;)
 
I don't think he's talking about X86 executables. They wouldn't have taken him to the "password authorization" stage. Instead, he would have seen the "no default application to open this file" message.

Doug
 
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