clueless

S

surferscottie

Registered
Hi,
I'm not very computer literate.....Twice now when I've started my new (not Intel) imac G5 I've been told that there was a problem with this file "comapcpcpestart" and do I want to "fix" it, discard it, or decide later. I've chosen the latter as I have no idea what I should do. Any ideas as to what is going on? More importantly why this is happening as I'm a very simple user....no delving deep into the computer but simply checking email, using itunes and iphoto. Lately all I've been doing is sending a few emails.

Actually, osx tiger has not worked properly from the start.....my "mail" program comstatnly has problems (freezes) to the point that I don't use it any more (bummer). Everything else has appeared to work fine but now with this I'm a bit concerned that somethings up......

Any ideas? If so, please keep the expenation simple......talk to me like a child if necessary....I won't be offended.

Until, Scottie
 
I know this might sound a bit drastic, but you might want to reinstall the operating system. Thankfully, yoiu can do what's called an "Archive and Install" installation by choosing "Customize" as you start the installation. This will backup the old System folder and create a new one. Everything else (applications, home folders, and files) stays intact and isn't deleted. But you have to make sure you select "Archive and Install" otherwise you'll end up wiping the drive. Either way, backing up important documents would be your best bet before attempting anything.
 
Thanks for the responce...I'm a bit curious as to what it is and where it came from. Have you heard of this before? When I get the warning on start up it says that it's in the startup forlder.
Scottie
 
no, i don't have OSXvnc. i had actually seen that thread from macosxhints....the problem is that i don't know how to do what they say to do. since you're still willing to help me....i hope....here is the exact message that i get on start up:

an item in the startup items folder ("/LIBRARY/STARTUPITEMS/COMAPCPCPESTART") does not have the proper security settings.

i'm then asked what i want to do....fix it, disable it permanently or decide later.....i keep chosing to decide later as i don't want to delete something that should be there. however, it is rather mysterious that it has suddenly appeared when i've done nothing out of the norm....check email, etc. i don't like the fact that "coma" is part of the name...
 
I've searched through three different search engines and with the exception of the one I showed you, none of them had anything bad to say about that file. Honestly, I don't know what to tell you. I checked my Mac for it and I don't have it anywhere as far as i can tell. Hopefully someone else here might be able to shed some light on this situation. :eek:

EDIT: I just noticed something. I'm running Tiger, and the user with this file on one of the forums that I found was running Panther (10.3.4 was the version he was using to be exact). By any chance are you running Panther?
 
i, Scottie

if you are still clueless... here is the answer.
comapcpcpestart goes for
com apc pc pe start
communication APC PowerChute ?? startup
this was installed in /Library/StartupItems by the installer of PowerChute a software from APC the UPS Batteries company. If you don't use any of their UPS you do not need that piece of software. Check in your System preferences if you have PowerChute in the section "others..." at the end of the window.
If not I would trash the folder "comapcpcpestart" in /Library/StartupItems.
My guess is you may have installed inadvertently...
Or you already know why...

hope it helps, jeanc
 
Wow! Nicely done! Kudos to you, yobrigado. Although I didn't know that APC had software like this for OS X. Guess you learn something new every time. :)
 
Good question, Surferscottie. And Great answer, Yobrigado. I just swiched to Mac from many years of pc use. I got an iMac 20 w/ Intel Duo Core. I was getting the same message and giving the same response as Surfer. One of the first things that I had done was plug in my trusty APC unit. Got that problem fixed, thanks to y'all. Now if I could only get the APC utilities to display on this Apple.....
 
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