Apple applications don't respond

Question

Hi,
I have an iBook G4 running 10.3.9.
My main account, the admin account is corrupted. Apple apps don't respond. Mail, Addressbook won't start. Safari can't connect to the internet, endless rotating wheel. System preferences not responding. It happens only with my main admin account. I set up a new account to be able to access mail and the web and it works with that. I also set up a root password and i can log in as root admin and that works as well.
I tried to repair disk permissions. No luck. However i couldn't run it from the corrupted account since disk utility didn't respond there either.
Do i really need to wipe the disk and install everything from ground up? Or there are other ways to fix this?
Or can I delete my corrupted admin account and create a new admin account?
Thanks,
Luke
iBook G4   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

See if the following is helpful:
Originally contributed by MacJack:
1. Navigate to YourHome/Library/Fonts - drag this folder to the desktop.
    • Restart and test your applications.
    • If they work start adding the fonts back few at a time.
(Likely suspects are TimesRO & Helvetica Fractions, also if you do not use Classic you can trash the classic fonts.)
2. Check Preferences Thoroughly:
    • Go to Users/Your_Name/Library/Preferences and trash the files:
    - com.apple.ATS.plist
    - com.apple.BezelServices.plist
    Restart. If this did not help, go to Users/Your_Name/Library and drag the folder Preferences to the desktop. Restart and see if this solved the problem
    • Navigate to YourHome/Library/Preferences drag this folder to the desktop.
    • Restart and test your applications.
    • If this works, save the old preferences folder somewhere else or on disk, name it "old prefs."
** Note: A very important file is the "com.apple.Mail.plist" preference file located in the Preferences folder which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences (hold this one and replace if your problem is not with Mail).
You'll have to go through some of your System Preferences and apps to set the preferences back to how you like them. (Or if you have the time and inclination, "cherry pick" through until you find the problem one or two.)
3. Check Permissions Inside Home Folder
    • Navigate to yourhome/library.
    • Get Info (Command + i) on the "Applications Support" folder.
    • Open the "Ownership & permissions" disclosure triangle.
    • Make sure you are the owner, with "read and write" access.
    • Click on "apply to all"
    • If this is correct, open the "Applications Support" folder and do the same procedure (Command+I) for the folder names of the applications with which you are having trouble.
Note:
The reason to check this is because repairing permissions with Disk Utility doesn't touch permissions inside your home folder.