OSX 10.5.5 Shutdown/Restart issues

[lincolnparkjok]

Hello all. Long time viewer, first time poster. I am troubleshooting a 12" PowerBook G4 1.5 Ghz Aluminum running OS X 10.5.5. Problem is: the laptop will not Restart or Shut Down from the Apple menu. Holding down the power button is the only way to shut down. ?? Any ideas?
Thanks!!

 

[djackmac]

Sounds like a software issue. Did you go to disk utility and try to repair permissions and verify the the drive? How much free HD space is there?

 

[Scoops98]

Why not try updating to 10.5.8 and seeing if that fixes it?

 

[lincolnparkjok]

Thanks for the replies. I tried repairing permissions and verifying the drive. No change. the HD has about 25% free. Updated to 10.5.7 but still no change. Anything I can do short of an archive and install?

 

[djackmac]

Try a safe boot by booting holding the shift key and then try to shut down/restart. You'll need to hold the shift key for quite a while for a safe boot which is basically starting up without start-up items and kexts. But sometimes one safe boot can correct a variety of issues or at least give you an idea what might be causing the issue. There are also some free cleanup utilities such as Onyx which have many useful cleaning utilities that are worth trying. If that doesn't work I'd try creating/logging into another user account to see if it still behaves the same.

 

[lincolnparkjok]

Tried safe boot already. Thanks though. Just tried fsck -fy. will see if that did any good. And I'll check out Onyx. Thanks

 

[Natobasso]

Have you tried restarting and shutting down from a different user account on the same machine?

 

[lincolnparkjok]

tried different user. same results. i was going to reinstall leopard, but i can't even get it to restart from the installer. :-(

 

[djackmac]

Just boot holding the option key to go to boot manager and then pick the installer. Might want to do a backup before the archive and install just in case it is the HD failing that is causing the issues. The extra wear and tear on the drive doing the archive and install might cause it to fail completely and then you'll really have problems if it was the drive all along.

 

[lincolnparkjok]

thanks. I'll try that tonight after work. Just a side note...in the console app, I get the following message repeated over and over:

"Apr 25 09:58:39: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Apr 25 09:58:39 Trust12 com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.InternetSharing): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Apr 25 09:59:09: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Apr 25 09:59:10 Trust12 com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.InternetSharing): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Apr 25 09:59:40: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Apr 25 09:59:41 Trust12 com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.InternetSharing): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds"

What the heck does it mean?

 

[djackmac]

Check system preferences/sharing and see if internet sharing is selected. If it is, turn it off and then try to shut down/restart.

 

[lincolnparkjok]

I'm at a loss, guys. everyting i try to do has no effect. I still can't restart or shut down unless i force it to. :-(

 

[djackmac]

You can go digging around the ~/library folder and look for that .plist file, blow it away, restart and see if it acts better.