G4 Desktop sick after Panther upgrade

O

OrganLeroy

Registered
I just bought Panther and upgraded my G3 iBook from Jaguar with no problems.

After installing it on my desktop G4, however (also an upgrade from Jaguar), the finder and all desktop items flash on and off immediately upon login.

I can try opening apps from the dock, but they immediately quit with a "quit unexpectedly" message.

I've already tried re-installing Jaguar and archiving the old System. Same results. Can anyone help? I'd rather not have to wipe the whole hard drive and start over.
 
Run disk Utility and verify and repair permissions. Make sure you do not have any third party enhancers. If you do, check for updates on them.
Did you install a new RAM chip? Panther is sensitive to some chips. Remove the odd ram and see if it behaves better. Did you get the Hardware Test CD? That will tell you if it is the ram.
 
Cheryl said:
Run disk Utility and verify and repair permissions. Make sure you do not have any third party enhancers. If you do, check for updates on them.
Did you install a new RAM chip? Panther is sensitive to some chips. Remove the odd ram and see if it behaves better. Did you get the Hardware Test CD? That will tell you if it is the ram.
Click to expand...

I fixed the permissions, but the problem remains.

I have no 3rd party enhancers or new RAM.

Any other ideas?
 
I can only offer suggestions:

1) It MAYBE a bad RAM module. OS X (especially Panther) is real picky about RAM. Try to remove your added modules first to see if the problem is still there.

2) In the install progress did you do an upgrade or something else like Archive & Install? A wipe or a Archive & Install may help.

3) IMHO you may want to invest in a disk utility like DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro 4.
 
OrganLeroy said:
I just bought Panther and upgraded my G3 iBook from Jaguar with no problems.

After installing it on my desktop G4, however (also an upgrade from Jaguar), the finder and all desktop items flash on and off immediately upon login.

I can try opening apps from the dock, but they immediately quit with a "quit unexpectedly" message.

I've already tried re-installing Jaguar and archiving the old System. Same results. Can anyone help? I'd rather not have to wipe the whole hard drive and start over.
Click to expand...

Turns out the problem is different than I thought. The computer only flashes/freezes if I log on as my original Admin user account. Since I know the Admin password, I've now logged on as another user and given the new account Admin privileges.

However, if I log out and log back in with my original account, the freezing/flashing problem returns.

Does this mean that the previous Admin account was corrupted somehow? And if so, how can I now copy over all my old preferences, mail, etc. from the previous Admin account to this new one?

Many thanks for any help.
 
Do you have any 3rd-party haxies like Application Support installed? I had trouble with AE when I upgraded to Panther (which I didn't know was the culprit at the time).
 
Another option is to try resetting your preferences for that user. Their is a thread hanging around somewhere about what file to rename &/or delete. This may / may not fix your problem as well...
 
diablojota said:
Another option is to try resetting your preferences for that user. Their is a thread hanging around somewhere about what file to rename &/or delete. This may / may not fix your problem as well...
Click to expand...

Yep, removing the old ~User->Library->Preferences folder turned out to be the key; I found that previous thread as well. Don't trash the old Preferences folder, though; I later replaced the file "com.apple.mail.plist" (from the old to the new Preferences folder) to restore my Mail preferences.

It was a lucky thing I had another account set up on my computer (even one with very limited privileges), since logging on with the corrupted account caused a complete system hang. As long as you know the Admin password, you can get in to make changes if preferences get corrupted. Had that other account not been there, it would have been a much bigger hassle.

thanks for the help...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top