Finder (and other) preferences wiped

S

sharris

Registered
No too often, but often enough to annoy me, I boot up my mac (OS X Tiger) to find that many of the system preferences are back to default. My dock has returned to its original size and default set of icons, my folder views and desktop view is back to default. All my bookmarks from safari have disapeared, my dashboard widgets are no longer open but have reverted to the original Tiger 4 (though the widgets are still available in the bottom bar). Even non Apple programs such as Adium (IM) loose some, but not all preferences. Yet most of the apps installed, including all of ilife, remain fine.

This happens about once ever 2-3 months, and I don't think for a moment that it's normal. It just Happens out of the blue, even when I havent made any changes to the system or installed new software, and I have shut it down properly. Any ideas what may be causing it please?

Thanks,
Sam
 
A few more questions:
What model of Mac are you using?
Are you sure it's logging into YOUR account when it does this?
How large is your Hard Drive, and how much space is available?
When was the last time you Repaired Permissions?
 
Thanks for responding.

My machine is a Powerbook G4 17" 1.5ghz. Yeah, i'm sure it's logging into my account - after the hang it eventually logs me in. My hard-drive is 80Gig, and i repaired my permissions as recently as yesterday. And no, i don't think I have ever changed the name of my home folder (but it is protected by filevalt if that makes a difference?)

Thanks again! :)
 
can you tell me what folders reside in the users folder when you open up the main hard drive?

are there any more than: one for you, and one shared? (assuming you are the sole user of the computer) i'm wondering if there's multiple versions of your account in here.
 
There is one other; guest. I use it for people in college to have a play on my mac without being able to damage anything - iv secured it using parental controls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top