removing services?

hazmat

hazmat

Rusher of Din
All of a sudden a Quake3 service appeared in the menu. I have never installed Quake. No clue whatsoever where this came from, nor how to remove. Any suggestions? There is nothing in ~/Library/Services nor
/System/Library/Services.

Thanks.
 
first off, neat avitar!

What shows up in the services menu for quake3?

And, if you restart does it go away?
 
Sup gents.
I'll assume you see the Quake3 service menu in the Finder. Check these threads for my explanation of System Services.

http://www.press3.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12195
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13170

As you see there are still some unknowns. This could be a good opportunity to find out which one of the 3 LSxxx files are responsible for the collection of apps offering services that the Finder events make use of (assuming of coarse you see the Quake3 service menu in the Finder).

Make a copy of all 3 LSxxx files for safeties sake (found in ~/Library/Preferences/LSxxx). Then I would try deleting the LSApplications file first, log out/in and check to see if the Quake3 service menu is still there. Still there... return your copy of LSApplications file to the Preferences folder. Try deleting LSSchemes next (logging out then in with each file deletion). Still there... return you copy of LSSchemes to the Preferences folder. Lastly, try deleting LSClaimedTypes. Still there?

At this point you're probably tired of toying around so delete all 3, log out/in, and that should be that. Maybe, hopefully, yes.


Caution note: Deleting the LSxxx files will break all your file associations you have built up over the coarse of using your user profile.
 
Kilowatt: thanks for the compliment. The symbol is a very old BMW Motorsport emblem. I love that one. And I am 99.9% sure that I had rebooted since seeing it with no change.

Klink: removing any or all three of those LS* files and logging out and back in did nothing. But, after all that, I decided to reboot. Unless it was like this before, this is weird. Or not? Quake3 is in the Service menu of Finder and IE at least. In TextEdit, it is not.

Now I am more confused as ever.
 
Haven't we had this discussion before? Well, it's probably a variant, so I'll explain again.

While klink may be right that those LS* files store the paths to your services-providing applications, when you log out or restart and then log back in again, those LS* files will be REBUILT, so when you still have the offending application in your applications folder or your offending service in your services folder, it will remain in the Services menu.

With that said, I must point out that applications sometimes provide services as do service files themselves. OmniWeb gives you an "Open URL in OmniWeb" service. So by this, it's probably fair to say that you have Quake in either your /Applications folder or your ~/Applications folder (the Applications folder in the root directory or the Applications folder in your home directory). Simply remove it from there (you could probably move it to a Games folder), and the service will be gone the next time you log in.

Since you said that you don't have Quake 3 installed, you might check anyway. Services can be present if the corresponding app/service is in /Applications, ~/Applications, /Library/Services, /System/Library/Services, or ~/Library/Services. Check all of these directories for anything that has to do with Quake.

Also, do a Sherlock or Locator search for Quake to see if you have anything related installed.


What does the service do, anyway?
 
It is a cool emblem. Almost looks like the effects of a spinning propeller. Cool for BMW's roots in airplanes.

Well there goes that theory for the LS* trio and it's involvement in registered NSServices. Fiddle sticks! I'm confused as well now. I wish I could have some littered service menus myself. It would make things so much easier.

I'll have some more time tomorrow to delve into this again. I'll report back when I find the answers.

Ohh, you should check all your file system domains for remnants of Quake3. Could have been a mounted share etc.
 
No, no Quake at all on the local system or any shares I might connect to. I have never even played that game. Its options are "Connect To Server" and "Perform Command". I haven't seen them active at all, though. Always grayed out.
 
Hah! Found it! I did a recursive grep on the whole system and found references to Quake in OmniWeb and Quake3 in the beta of Wolfenstein I had installed. Good thing it wasn't OmniWeb, since I tried moving it out of Applications and logging out and then back in. I then tried Wolfenstein. Bingo! Removed it since I never played it, anyway. Quake3 service gone.

Now there are others there I won't use, but come from apps that I do use. Would be nice to have control over that.

Thanks for all the help, guys.
 
Ah ha! Well, so there WAS something giving you that service, and probably klink's theory about the LS* files is still correct. :)

Good detective work. I'm glad it all worked out.
 
Excellent hazmat! Gold star for you. :)

You can have control of the Services menu but you would need to hack it. If you have the dev tools installed, you can use PropertyListEditor.app to edit an applications info.plist which holds the services advertising parameters. The services advertising is done with the NSServices class. In an applications info.plist file, you will find an array class named NSServices which holds a (or several) dictionary class(es) with values you can edit and effect what NSServices advertises.

Where to find the info.plist file...
/Applications/TheAppInQuestion.app/Contents/Info.plist

Happy hacking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top