Finder and apps crashing constantly.

Question

This problem started when I downloaded an archive file. I downloaded The Unarchiver to try and open it, but there was a password on the archive which I didnt have, and I quit and deleted it. It was pretty inconsequential.
From that moment on, EVERY app crashed, most of the time when I went to save files. Some of them, like Spotify, would just not open. Most frustrating of all is that Finder just will not relaunch. Every time I went to shut down or restart, my mac would just hang on the grey shutdown screen and do absolutely nothing from that point on without holding the power down.
It seems like it's probably finder that is causing the other apps to malfunction, but I've tried a few different things to fix it. Obviously the first thing I did was get rid of the arhive and The Unarchiver, I tried to use TimeMachine but for some reason it was asking for a server password which I've never had. I found this command useful online:
sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force
This command allowed me to shut down, but I had to use it every time or else I'd end up with the grey screen hang again.
Since all of my files are on a wireless HDD, I decided to just do a clean reinstall. It was all fine, until I started updating the OS/Re-loading all my software. Never had a problem with any of the software previously, and I dont remember any updates being the cause of the issues...
Please help? I'm lost.
OS X version 10.8.4

Answer 1

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
Still in the Console window, look under User Diagnostic Reports for crash reports related to the process. The report name starts with the name of the crashed process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report and post the entire contents — again, the text, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.