[X-Newbies] Corrupted User Prefs

[Alex]

On Jun 17, 2005, at 06:21, Tony Johansen wrote:

> Whatever the problem it may be affecting other new things. Tonight I 
> tried
> to install Corel KnockOut2. Several times in a row, each time I 
> clicked the
> install icon the CD ejected.

First, try not to make assumptions. You don't know that the two issues 
are related.
Second, try not to complicate things any further. This account has a 
problem; the problem may be trivial, or it may be serious; but, 
whatever the problem, installing yet another application does nothing 
to help. Fix the problem first, back up, then start installing other 
stuff.

Now, let's take it methodically.

(1) Startup Items. Obviously, you have plenty of stuff there. So reboot 
or log out and log in with startup items disabled, then try again. See

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151952>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106756>

(2) Permissions.

> I checked every item in tonyjohansen/Library/preferences and they all 
> have
> read+write.

Permissions are not so difficult to understand. Think of it like this 
-- your Mac is an office building, with many offices (folders or 
directories) containing lots of file cabinets (files). Permissions are 
a sort of lock system -- they are used to control which user can open 
which office and which file cabinet. Applications function as a user's 
agent -- they have the same keys (permissions) as the user who launched 
them. So what could be the problem here? Your agent (Toonwhatever) is 
given a job to do. To do the job, it needs to set up its own file 
cabinet in a room (Preferences) in your office. So it goes there, and 
discovers that somebody has changed the lock, and he can't get into the 
room. At this point, a well-behaved agent will send you a message, 
"Couldn't get into the office, so I gave up and went to have a beer." 
Toon is a bit more neurotic, so it has a nervous breakdown -- it 
crashes.

So, assuming that this is the problem, what do you need to do? You need 
to make sure you've got the right keys to the rooms in your office, 
but, instead, you made sure you had the right keys to every cabinet in 
a certain room. Toon doesn't need to access those cabinets -- it needs 
to access the room. So you need to check the permissions for ~/Library, 
for ~/Library/Preferences, and for any other folder where Toon may wish 
to install files.

(3) Fonts.

> There are 2 folders for fonts in tonyjohansen/Library  one called 
> fonts the
> other called fonts collection. In both cases I dragged all the 
> contents to a
> temporary folder on the desktop and then tried to launch ToonBoomStudio
> Express. In each case the program crashed as before.

The FontsCollection folder is not an issue. The other one is, and 
you've covered it. There is just one other thing. Mac OS X makes 
extensive use of caches, and especially font caches. Removing fonts 
from the Fonts folder may not have removed the problem, if the 
corruption is in your user font cache. The font caches can be cleared 
with FontFinagler, but maybe it's best to use a tool such as Onyx to 
clear all user caches.

So here's what I'd do. (a) Check permissions (I don't think that's the 
issue, but -- hey, I've been wrong plenty of times). (b) Move fonts as 
before. (c) Use Onyx to clear user caches. (d) Reboot and log in with 
startup items disabled. Try Toon again.

<0x0192>