Odd symbols.

gigapet

gigapet

Registered
Hello all. Just recently I've noticed that it's been taking longer and longer for my powerbook G4 to 'log-in'. The spinning rainbow wheel appears and just sits there for what feels like an eternity. I'm sure it never used to. At the same time it seems to have developed some 'odd' characters. Primarily they're in 'Mail' and also on some web pages that contain forms. I've attached a screen shot so you can see. Anyone got any ideas what this could be?
 

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Try to repair the disk permissions. Those characters in mail, do they show up on any mail message? You might want to move the com.apple.mail.plist file from home/Library/Preferences to another folder to see, if the default settings will fix the problem.
Good luck!
 
I've also noticed that all my macs (as well as all the other macs on the network) take aggggggeesss to log in, well start the Finder (all the other apps are ok), when I boot when i'm plugged into my network connection and the same happens when the Finder is restarted but doesn't happen when the network cable is unplugged.
Bizzare.
 
Yeah, it's happening to all my e-mails. I'll try what you suggested Zammy-Sam and see if that helps. It's currently taking 4 minutes 36 seconds to log in. That can't be right, can it?
 
Also you may have a a corrupted font cache. I once had this happen so there was a shareware program called Font Finagler and it fixed the messed up fonts.
 
In response to the slow log-in, have you checked your Startup Items (in your System Preferences->Accounts) to see if a startup program is trying to call home or auto mount a network volume?
 
I've considered re-installing the Mail application but I need to keep all my existing e-mails. Is it just a matter of ditching the application and the files in my 'user'>'library' & 'preferences'? Which file(s) do I need to save to keep the mails?
 
Your mails are located in home/Library/Mail. You can easily import the mailboxes to your new system. However, I am not really sure if your POP and SMTP settings and passwords are also stored in there.
Not even a new user account and a repair of the disk permission helped?
 
Repairing permissions didn't help but I haven't tried a new user account. How do I do that? I've noticed that it's affected my address book too now so it can't be local to mail can it?
 
I don't really know what's messed so it's a good step to simply go to the System Preferences and click on Accounts. The "+" stands for adding a new user account. Follow the assistant and then log into that account for testing the apps.
 
Hey that's worked! In the new account the problem has gone. Does that mean I can ditch the old one? How do I get all my files from one to the other? Thanks for your help with this guys.
 
make sure to not copy your Library folder yet. Otherwise you will mess up your new account as well. First copy folders such as Documents, Movies, Music...
Then import your mail into mail.app in the new account. You don't need to copy the folder as mentioned above. And what else? Simply ask. ;)
 
Hey, problem solved. Well both problems actually. It turned out to be a dodgy font and I spent at least three hours this morning trying them one by one. Got it sussed now. It also seemed to help my slow startup when I ditched loads of old fonts and disabled a few in Font Book. Cheers for the help boys 'n girls.
 
If it's still slower than normal, try removing Stuffit from your startup items.
 
I think I may have spoken too soon. I've cut the number of fonts I have in my user library down to 200 and switched a lot of those off in Font Book but it's still slow. I've also ditched all the startup items bar VirexLogIn and iCalAlarmScheduler but it's back to running slow. Quark also now keeps crashing when I try to .pdf a document. I seem to be having problem after problem with my Powerbooks. If the harddrive is knackered will Apple replace/repair it under warranty?
 
It's almost certainly NOT your hard drive. Once you're logged in, open Activity Monitor and watch it for a little bit out of the corner of your eye. See if anything you do seems to make it go crazy with activity.

As a matter of interest as well, how much RAM do you have?
If you're short on RAM, OS X will be dog slow.
 
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