Finder Crashes, Restarts, Crashes, etc.

Question

I was coping a PowerPoint file from a co-workers memory stick and Finder crashed. When I restarted, the Apple Menu Bar flashes continuously and my hard drive will not appear. I am able to login into my admin account and the systems works fine. The reason I am assuming the Finder is crashing is when I logged into my admin account and opened up the Console, the console was showing the Finder.crash.log and every time Finder flashed the menu bar in my personal account and entry was posted to the log file.
Here is the top portion of the Finder.crash.log file.
Host Name: MacBook
Date/Time: 2007-08-07 12:16:43.876 +0800
OS Version: 10.4.10 (Build 8R2218)
Report Version: 4
Command: Finder
Path: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder
Parent: WindowServer [272]
Version: 10.4.7 (10.4.7)
PID: 404
Thread: 0
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERNINVALIDADDRESS (0x0001) at 0xbf7fffec
Thread 0 Crashed:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900057a2 szone_free + 12
1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9080e1aa _CFRelease + 253
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x908118b0 __CFArrayReleaseValues + 323
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9080e169 _CFRelease + 188
4 ATS 0x9024f28b FindFontFromName(__CFString const*, unsigned long, unsigned long const*, unsigned long*, unsigned char) + 421
5 ATS 0x9024efb1 _eATSFontFindVariationFromPostScriptName + 451
6 ATS 0x9024ed8c _eATSFontFindFromPostScriptName + 46
7 ATS 0x9024ed48 ATSFontFindFromPostScriptName + 62
8 com.apple.CoreText 0x901edfec TSplicedFontDescriptor::CopyCascadeList() const + 232
9 com.apple.CoreText 0x901d7ad8 TPhysicalDescriptor::GetDefaultFallbacks() const + 826
10 com.apple.CoreText 0x901e652f TPhysicalDescriptor::CreateDefaultDescriptorForString(__CFString const*, CFRange) const + 25
Any suggestions on how to return my personal account to proper operating condition without lossing all of my settings?
Jim

Answer 1

Hi there Jim,
I had a very similar problem. It was actually when I'd just done a security update which clashed with one of my startup apps. I'm guessing that something you have launching on startup is for some reason crashing the Finder, which is why you are getting an infinite loop, where it keeps trying to launch the offending app over and over again... Maybe M$ installed something there when you launched PowerPoint.
Can you gain access to your machine through another admin account? Or can you launch the System Prefs while this crash is happening? If so then make your way to the Users CP and remove all your login items. If this solves it you'll need to add them back in one by one.
I know there's a way of logging in as "root" but I can't remember exactly how you do it so I wouldn't try that unless someone very clever on here can tell you how.