Pop Up HELL! American Psycho won't go away!

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Vic T

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I'm submitting this question for my computer savvy, but frustrated mother.
She's using newer generation Imac with the 17" swivel screen, running OSX 10.2.2 and uses Netscape as a browser.

In her words: " While I'm in the middle of emailing or browsing a site, my entire screen suddenly goes black, I lose the dock, bar at the top of the screen, everything -- not just black within the browser screen, but my entire monitor to the edges goes completely black. Creepy music starts to play and I'm met with what appears to be an ad for 'American Psycho". In the center of the black screen is a weird man who speaks strangely, "you do not know me, I don't have a name," crazy stuff. He's in a small movie in the middle of the black screen.

To get rid of it I hve to hit "escape" or "delete" and everything goes back to normal, but within seconds or minutes, he returns. I cannot pinpoint exactly the keystrokes I am making at the time he returns. There's no pattern. Sometimes a week or more goes by and nothing -- then he'll come back six times in a row over a few minutes.

I've been in contact with five different service techs from Apple and each suggested different things: clean boots, booting from disk, repairing permissions, emptying the cache, etc.

The American Psycho made his last appearance this past Monday. I emptied the cache since then and I don't know if he'll reappear. So far, not yet.

Has anyone else experienced this dilemma? The people at Apple think I'm slightly nuts."

On behalf of my mother, thanks.
 
Anything in the "auto start" ?
(see System Preferences... > Accounts > Startup Items)
 
Is her "home page" in Netscape possibly set to the American Psycho trailer?

It sounds like the version she's seeing is the "Full Screen" trailer for American Psycho. That would explain the entire screen being black (since it's playing full-screen). Hitting escape would return the movie to a windowed mode, and she would see the Dock and Desktop fine after that.

Did she ever download the American Psycho trailer, or could it be on her Desktop or something?
 
First, I thank all of you for replying. I am the "mom" mentioned in the question and this darn thing is still driving me crazy. I have NEVER used a screen saver, so it couldn't have come from that. Incidentally, this has only been happening for a few weeks, but just now my screen went black and there it was again. Then I have to hit "delete" or "escape" and I am returned to the original page. I have gone so far as to completely empty the cache on Netscape and Internet Explorer. I just now (about an hour ago) downloaded Safari; spoke with my daughter about all of this and she, too, says use "Safari". I am no spring chicken and will have to learn a lot of things over again I guess. But if there is anyone out there with other suggestions, I'm more than happy to try! Thanks again to all! Meghd
 
Hi Meg,
when it plays, (when you hit escape) is it playing in Quicktime, or Netscape?
If it's playing quicktime, I'd do a search of the computer for everythign of the Quicktime Movie kind. or with a .mov extension.
Hopefully it's something that's on the system (that you can delete), and not downloading itself to play when it wants to.

If you leave your computer running, but without netscape or IE open (meaning completely quit-out of) does the Am Psycho thing pop up at all? or does it definitely seem to have some relationship with Netscape/IE?

Safari will go a long way to helping against pop-ups.
good luck. let us know and hopefully somone can help stop the madness (sorry, couldn't help the pun) ;)
 
Hello there and thanks for writing! As I was looking at your reply, the damned thing showed up again! I am in Netscape as I write this; am ready for my bed, but I am totally freaked out about this thing showing up on my screen. Got any more suggestions? Thanks, Meghd
 
Do a search for anything with "netscape" in the title, Apple F. You should get a list of about a dozen items, normallly. Look for any items that have p.list anywhere in the name. Click the mouse and drag the item(s) to the trash (make sure netscape has been quit first). Empty trash and re-open netscape and see if the problem happens again.

After that, use Safari *should have been bundled with the computer applications as it's from Apple*.

It's a much cleaner and easier to use as far as interface than Netscape and if you elect to block pop-ups, you should not be plagued by Christian Bale any more.
 
Randman said:
After that, use Safari *should have been bundled with the computer applications as it's from Apple*.
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure that safari came with earlier version of macosX... I remember that when I have Jaguar installed, I also needed to download it....
 
Sounds pretty strange :confused:

If you can't get it to go away, it may just be easier to do an archive+install. This will keep all your user settings and programs but will reinstall the operating system.

Before doing that, you can try creating a new user account and using that for a while to see if it happens with that account as well. If not then you know it is something to do with your old account.

You can also check at /System/Library/StartupItems and see if there are any new ones listed by sorting them by date in list view.
There will be a lot of startup items there but they should be mostly system related.

You can check the same by going to ~/Library/Startupitems where ~/ means your user account's home directory.

This is definatly the weirdest thing I've heard of. Also, does it only happen when you are using Netscape?
 
Thanks again for all the replies. I am unsure of all the Mac lingo used, but will try your suggestions to the best of my ability. I am using Safari at the moment and so far all is well, but I won't count on it. I forgot to mention that when I use "delete" or "escape" the black screen disappears rapidly; in fact, so quickly that I am unable to discern the icon which shows on my dock, but which also repidly disappears. I cannot seem to "see it" because of the rapidity. It does look as though it is a pink background with a white letter on it, but it is gone so fast, I cannot save it or click on it. And, I do believe it is mostly when I am in Netscape. I'll appreciate all the suggestions you care to send me. Thanks, Meg
 
the icon you're speaking of sounds like it could be Flash Player. don't hold me to it though...

yeah, make sure safari is the only browser running, and wait and see. if netscape doesn't get launched, and this doesn't happen again, you might consider deleting netscape altogether.
the idea someone else mentioned of creating another user account and using it for a while to see if it happens to that account was a good one. you might try that too.

does anyone know if there's a way to track this occurance via the console log app?


on a related note:
Have you decided to watch American Psycho yet? ;)
 
I'm back again! Thanks for all the suggestions. First, I have not watched American Psycho, but probably should after all this trauma. Now I have something interesting to relate. Last night as I was once again seeing this thing pop up on my screen, I hit escape...it left my screen, but this time there was the icon on my dock. Pink with what looks like a white gear in the middle of it. I clicked on it, was immediately or almost, in Mac OS9 and there on my upper left hand screen was a fairly large application called Mac Saver and it indicated I had a screen saver (I have never installed a screen saver in my life). And it indicated that it should be activated every 3 minutes! I left the minute block empty; checked mute; and checked "no" to the screensaver. I then went into my OS9 applications and there are 4 icons which refer to Mac Saver. Should I wait to see if this thing returns, or should I simply drag the Mac Saver stuff to the trash? I am unsure of what to do. I have owned this 'puter for exactly two years, having a Performa before now, and this is all a mystery to me. Please, somebody, let me know if I should drag all this to the trash or what? Once in a while I use Mac OS9 and don't want to mess it up. Thanks again, Meg
 
Maybe a grandchild playing a trick on Grandma(sorry if you're not that old ;) )

It's safe to delete it anyways.
 
Yes, I am the Grandma!!! Granny Meg they call me. And now that I have disenabled the darn screen saver thing, all is well.......at least thus far. I truly hope this is the end of it. Thanks again, everyone. Meg
 
Maybe there's an American Psycho in the family? Or Christian Bale broke in and installed the screen saver to get you to watch his movie? :)
 
Methinks one of your kids or grandkids downloaded and installed that Mac Saver program for their own amusement, maybe at your expense, maybe they just didn't think to tell you. Anyway, good catch there. If you're running OS X most of the time, you might want to create an account with lower priviledges for the kids to use so they can't pull that on you again.
 
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