iBook boots to blue screen
- Thread starter facewax7
- Start date
ex2bot
Registered Bot
Macworks, if you didn't already figure it out, g/re/p was coughing because facewax had mentioned in his first post that he had already had two logic boards replaced by Apple's replacement program.
I think logic boards make him cough. Could be something stuck in his throat.
I would suggest to facewax that you contact Apple and say, "Two logic board replacements didn't work. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, pinch, poke, say no more, say no more. Wink, Wink! Is your wife a sport? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? How about replacing the logic board again for free. Cough."
Or something like that. Seems only fair to me. Fix it. Fix it right.
Doug
I think logic boards make him cough. Could be something stuck in his throat.
I would suggest to facewax that you contact Apple and say, "Two logic board replacements didn't work. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, pinch, poke, say no more, say no more. Wink, Wink! Is your wife a sport? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? How about replacing the logic board again for free. Cough."
Or something like that. Seems only fair to me. Fix it. Fix it right.
Doug
Lt Major Burns
"Dicky" Charlteston-Burns
right. today, i screwed my powermac. it now does all the things this ibook is doing. I noticerd the apple menu bar items (script, bluetooth, volume, time and spotlight) weren't responding (beachball). i went to activity monitor, and systemuiserver and loginwindow were not responding, as i thought they would be. knowing that force quitting login window would cause the computer to log me out, i force quite that too, as that was my only option by this point, as the system wouldn't let me restart.
i'm currently typing on the backup disk, running in the powermac. the volume is therefore fucked, by the sounds of things. the computer is fine, no apparent logic board problems, ram problams, or any hardware problems. however, this back up volume is far too old to use, and i really don't want to reinstall mac os. both options would take far too long.
i've tried fsck (macintosh HD appears to be ok), disk repair (twice, appears to be ok, but it fixed something the first time), permissions repair (nothing wrong).
I will now try PRAM and safe boot...
anything else? this is really urgent, obviously.... this is my livelihood!
i'm currently typing on the backup disk, running in the powermac. the volume is therefore fucked, by the sounds of things. the computer is fine, no apparent logic board problems, ram problams, or any hardware problems. however, this back up volume is far too old to use, and i really don't want to reinstall mac os. both options would take far too long.
i've tried fsck (macintosh HD appears to be ok), disk repair (twice, appears to be ok, but it fixed something the first time), permissions repair (nothing wrong).
I will now try PRAM and safe boot...
anything else? this is really urgent, obviously.... this is my livelihood!
macworks
Christopher Raymond
Well it sounds like it's some software that you are running on both machines, a device that you may have moved from one computer to the other, or a font conflict.
SAFE MODE: You can boot up into "safe mode" which is like booting Mac OS 9 with "extensions off". To do this, you would shutdown the computer if it's running. Then power it back on while holding down the SHIFT key. Keep holding it down. If you are presented with the login screen, you can let go of the SHIFT key while typing your login info but when you press RETURN or click the login button, immediately hold down the SHIFT key again until you are fully logged in and see your desktop icons, etc.
Booting into "safe mode" prevents any 3rd party software from opening (including your login items). If the machine seems to work fine in "safe-mode" then you have a software-level problem that DOES NOT relate to Apple software or the OS OR the hardware device that you've moved from one computer to the other is faulty.
OS X & FONTS: Often, designers have lots of fonts loaded and this is problematic due to the nature of fonts and how they interact with the OS. There are three places where fonts are stored:
1) /System/Library/Fonts: is a folder that should NOT be modified under no circumstances as it contains fonts that OS X and other Apple applications need.
2) /Library/Fonts: this folder doesn't really need to contain any fonts in order for the computer to operate. It is a place that fonts can be added so that all users on the computer have access to those fonts.
3) user home folder/Library/Fonts: this folder contains fonts that are added by the logged-in user and are only available to that user. You can empty this folder (or temporarily rename it) for testing purposes. If you have a lot of fonts (dozens) in there it's likely the cause of your problems.
FONT MANAGEMENT: If you are using lots of fonts on a regular basis, you should be using a professional font management program like Extensis Suitcase or Fusion. These programs are capable of automatically turning on and off fonts as the user needs them. Having loads of fonts active all of the time almost always results in conflicts and software problems. It's best to only have the fonts that you're using at the moment active. Once you're done using them, they should be deactivated.
THE HELVETICA SAGA: Helvetica is a font that is widely used by designers. But it's also a font commonly used by software including Mac OS X and many web sites. As such, OS X includes Helvetica in the system. So when designers try to activate their own Helvetica, they run into a conflict that creates all kinds of crazy behaviors with their systems. For example, Mail will show really crazy text in place of the actually email message. My recommendation is to STOP using Helvetica in production files and start using Helvetica Neue because it will not conflict with the standard Helvetica installed by OS X.
I hope this is on target with what you're experiencing. If not, I'm sure other readers will find this information helpful.
SAFE MODE: You can boot up into "safe mode" which is like booting Mac OS 9 with "extensions off". To do this, you would shutdown the computer if it's running. Then power it back on while holding down the SHIFT key. Keep holding it down. If you are presented with the login screen, you can let go of the SHIFT key while typing your login info but when you press RETURN or click the login button, immediately hold down the SHIFT key again until you are fully logged in and see your desktop icons, etc.
Booting into "safe mode" prevents any 3rd party software from opening (including your login items). If the machine seems to work fine in "safe-mode" then you have a software-level problem that DOES NOT relate to Apple software or the OS OR the hardware device that you've moved from one computer to the other is faulty.
OS X & FONTS: Often, designers have lots of fonts loaded and this is problematic due to the nature of fonts and how they interact with the OS. There are three places where fonts are stored:
1) /System/Library/Fonts: is a folder that should NOT be modified under no circumstances as it contains fonts that OS X and other Apple applications need.
2) /Library/Fonts: this folder doesn't really need to contain any fonts in order for the computer to operate. It is a place that fonts can be added so that all users on the computer have access to those fonts.
3) user home folder/Library/Fonts: this folder contains fonts that are added by the logged-in user and are only available to that user. You can empty this folder (or temporarily rename it) for testing purposes. If you have a lot of fonts (dozens) in there it's likely the cause of your problems.
FONT MANAGEMENT: If you are using lots of fonts on a regular basis, you should be using a professional font management program like Extensis Suitcase or Fusion. These programs are capable of automatically turning on and off fonts as the user needs them. Having loads of fonts active all of the time almost always results in conflicts and software problems. It's best to only have the fonts that you're using at the moment active. Once you're done using them, they should be deactivated.
THE HELVETICA SAGA: Helvetica is a font that is widely used by designers. But it's also a font commonly used by software including Mac OS X and many web sites. As such, OS X includes Helvetica in the system. So when designers try to activate their own Helvetica, they run into a conflict that creates all kinds of crazy behaviors with their systems. For example, Mail will show really crazy text in place of the actually email message. My recommendation is to STOP using Helvetica in production files and start using Helvetica Neue because it will not conflict with the standard Helvetica installed by OS X.
I hope this is on target with what you're experiencing. If not, I'm sure other readers will find this information helpful.
I did a lot (and I mean a LOT) of research online today and have come to the conclusion that the whole iBook logic board thing is a crock. It seems that there are many folk out there in the Mac community who have had at least 4 replacement logic boards, most accompanied by some real horror stories. Trouble is, my iBook's over 3 years old and it's not a viable financial proposition to get this done. I appreciate the suggestion that Apple might be shmoozed into doing it for nothing as there's clearly something wrong, but my research today indicates that some of the poor saps who've had a board go down on them within 6 months of buying the machine have had a hard enough time to get Apple to do the decent thing, so I'm going to save my breath. The rest of the 'book is fine, so it'll probably appear on an ebay near you very soon as a set of spare parts. It's ironic that I'd had the new hard drive put in with the intention of selling it as it's basically surplus to my needs, but that plan's gone out the window. Like Maj Burns (above) I need this thing to earn a living and can't afford the sort of downtime that these tedious glitches create. The first time the logic board went down I learned my lesson, and when I got the iBook back I backed up all the "mission critical" stuff (hideous phrase, but it's legit when your living depends on it) onto a LaCie firewire hard drive which is what I still work on/from - I just have the programs, email client etc on the Mac itself and work on the LaCie, so that if the Mac dies I move everything over to a spare. And at a pinch, I can even work with most of it on the PC. Like they say, you can never be too thin, too rich, have too much RAM or have too many plan B's.
Lt Major Burns
"Dicky" Charlteston-Burns
Right.
the faulty boot sequence appears to boot quite a way into mac os x before buggering up. what works:
the cursor, accross both screens
volume control buttons, including the translucent screen alerts
eject command, also including screen alert
cmd-option-esc produces the 'funk' sound.
cmd-option-eject puts the mac to sleep as normal.
what doesn't work:
the desktop, or the menu bar. i have a feeling it's the menu bar, as that's what crashed to cause this. the system appears to work fine, and as normal for that stage of the boot process, but gets stuck there. is there a way of fixing the boot method?
safe boot works (i'm here), back up works (previous post). i'm really determined however to fix this problem, not just give in to it. is there any way to find the faulty item in the boot process and replace just that? is there a way to bless this volume to verify and fix the boot process?
the faulty boot sequence appears to boot quite a way into mac os x before buggering up. what works:
the cursor, accross both screens
volume control buttons, including the translucent screen alerts
eject command, also including screen alert
cmd-option-esc produces the 'funk' sound.
cmd-option-eject puts the mac to sleep as normal.
what doesn't work:
the desktop, or the menu bar. i have a feeling it's the menu bar, as that's what crashed to cause this. the system appears to work fine, and as normal for that stage of the boot process, but gets stuck there. is there a way of fixing the boot method?
safe boot works (i'm here), back up works (previous post). i'm really determined however to fix this problem, not just give in to it. is there any way to find the faulty item in the boot process and replace just that? is there a way to bless this volume to verify and fix the boot process?
If Safeboot gets you up and running fine then you need to remove whatever is in your Startup that is bi-passed in Safeboot.
Try this article......
Your Mac won't start up in Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.3.9 or earlier)---Empty Blue Screen
Try this article......
Your Mac won't start up in Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.3.9 or earlier)---Empty Blue Screen
Lt Major Burns
"Dicky" Charlteston-Burns
Fixed it!
i knew it wasn't something faulty that i'd installed, because i'd not installed anything recently. i had installed two type fonts, but these were reinstallations.
I ran the Mac OS X 10.4.5 Combo installer (125mb download) while in the safe boot environment. it was a long a long shot, but the theory of what i wanted to do, which was to somehow 'force-bless' the start up disk boot process worked. i've not lost, uninstalled, stop using or turned off anything, i've just let mac os fix the corrupted files that were as a result of the bad crash.
[permission to be smug...?
]
i knew it wasn't something faulty that i'd installed, because i'd not installed anything recently. i had installed two type fonts, but these were reinstallations.
I ran the Mac OS X 10.4.5 Combo installer (125mb download) while in the safe boot environment. it was a long a long shot, but the theory of what i wanted to do, which was to somehow 'force-bless' the start up disk boot process worked. i've not lost, uninstalled, stop using or turned off anything, i've just let mac os fix the corrupted files that were as a result of the bad crash.
[permission to be smug...?
]Don't know if this will help, but...
I was having the identical problem and found (don't ask me how) that if I hit the 'shift' key twice, at the point of hang, the boot would exit the blue screen and move onto login. This happens often (but not always) on my iBook 700 G3.
ttfn
I was having the identical problem and found (don't ask me how) that if I hit the 'shift' key twice, at the point of hang, the boot would exit the blue screen and move onto login. This happens often (but not always) on my iBook 700 G3.
ttfn
