Liquefy freezing entire system

Mac OSX 10.10 using CC liquefy tool has started freezing entire system and requiring complete forced shut down and restart on every attempt to use it.
Anyone else have this or know how to fix it?

Liquify is one of the filters that uses GPU acceleration
Photoshop CC and CC 2014 GPU FAQ
Photoshop CS6 GPU FAQ
So check your video card drivers from the card maker's website. (If that is even possible with a Mac)

Similar Messages

Sharing system preferences freeze entire system

Hey guys!
I recently took the plunge and installed Lion after being content with Snow Leopard....well now I have quite a few issues. When I open system preferences for some reason it automatically opens to Network...why I'm not sure. When I click show all, then click sharing, I can't make any changes in the Sharing preferences without my entire system locking up. I can't force quit or anything. I can still use the mouse but all I have is the rainbow wheel! I have searched and searched and haven't been able to fix it. I have tried booting into the Guest account and the same problem happens there. I have trashed all the plist files everyone says to try. I have tried repairing permissions etc. I feel like I have tried everything. Is there anything else that I can do without have to do a clean re-install. I'm hearing if I do this that I won't be able to migrate my files from by backups due to permission problems?? I also took a look at my system log and it is full of this!? Does this have anything to do with it?
Thanks for anyhelp you can provide!
Jul 3 22:24:26 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service[1307]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:26 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jul 3 22:24:34 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.kdc[1309]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:34 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.kdc): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jul 3 22:24:37 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service[1310]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:37 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jul 3 22:24:44 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.kdc[1311]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:44 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.kdc): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jul 3 22:24:47 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service[1312]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:47 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jul 3 22:24:54 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.kdc[1313]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:54 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.kdc): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jul 3 22:24:57 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service[1314]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:57 jessica-himac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

See https://discussions.apple.com/message/19205099#19205099 for a possible solution.

Fix for Safari Freezing Entire System

You can read the EXPLANATION or just jump right to the SOLUTION.
EXPLANATION
So in the past two days my Safari started freezing after using it for a mere few minutes. I'd get the spinning beachball and my system became unresponsive. I couldn't force close anything nor could I even access the force-close window (command+option+ESC).
This problem was also affecting Apple Mail because it uses Safari/WebKit to preview HTML in the messages.
I tried repairing permissions, I tried disabling extensions, etc. Nothing worked. While I was doing this, I pulled my MacBook Pro out of my bag and started using it to try and get some work done in my office concurrently. Well, all of a sudden IT started crashing with Safari as well!
This got my thinking, perhaps there was a bookmark or setting issue that was being synced via iCloud. So I unchecked Safari sync from the iCloud Preferences panel and also inside iCloud Drive.
I then followed the instructions below, which basically removes all of my Safari prefs, bookmarks, etc and reverts it to a clean, pristine install. Yes I lost my bookmarks. I have backups and will manually add them again. I've been using Pocket (GetPocket.com) anyway so no big loss to me.
Regardless, I've been using Safari for the past 30 minutes with my extensions re-installed and no freezing, no issues at all.
Taken from: Reset Safari Settings/Preferences
Note: The following will make a backup of all of your Safari prefs and copy it to a folder on your Desktop. It will then reset Safari to default.
SOLUTION:
Open a terminal window and just copy/paste the following into the terminal window and press RETURN / ENTER:
mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState
Hope this helps other folks until the actual culprit is identified.
Best,
M.

UPDATE:
I copied my Bookmarks.plist file back to my Library/Safari folder from the copy that was created in the Safari backup folder on my desktop in the previous message. Safari continues to work and I have my bookmarks back.
Michael

Firefox freezes entire system then everything resumes running again

As above.Started occurring since v20 came out.Seems like many people have this error.
Reverted to v19.Problems occurs as well.
Tried everything ( starting FF in safe mode , creating a new profile, resetting FF, uninstalling and a fresh install, booting in safe mode Windows). Nothing seems to work.
It freezes again and again only to resume normal service only to freeze again. On and on and on. Really frustrating.
Can someone point to me if this FF's problem or is there a problem with my system itself?
My system doesn't seem to freeze when FF isn't running though.

I've been having the same issues as others. It runs up high % of CPU, a couple GIGS of RAM, and oddly, it runs up my "Inactive memory", two or three times what any other browser does, up to almost 4 GIGS! So it runs down my total RAM availability, as well. It runs slow, freezes, even will freeze when I simply try closing it, requiring a force quit, then when I re-open it LOSES all my previous session, so I have to hunt all over the place to try and manually, laboriously reconstruct it, because for some odd, very frustrating reason, it doesn't show all the pages in HISTORY, when it does work, and open them, unlike every other browser, which makes zero sense to me.
I am obviously very unhappy & frustrated with the totally lousy performance of version 22, and will end up having to use Chrome or Safari....

Why does my entire system freeze shortly after I open iTunes?

Hi!
So I have OS X Lion installed on my new iMac 21.5" desktop. I don't know if I'm having an OS problem or an App problem here. Everything seems to run fine (a little sluggish at times though) UNTIL I use iTunes. Within a couple minutes of having iTunes open, the entire system freezes up. I can't do anything except for move the cursor around. If I wait around, every 45 seconds or so, it unfreezes itself only for a brief second or two and then freezes again. After waiting around for several minutes of it doing this, I can eventually manuever around to force quit iTunes.. OR I can simply turn the power off from the back of the iMac and restart... Either way, I haven't even been able to submit crashes to Apple to alert them of a problem. Once iTunes has been force quit, everything runs fine again. I have had this happen at least 15 - 20 times already and am very frustrated! Does anyone have a good idea what's going on here? Any suggestions of what I should do? I haven't contacted Apple about this problem yet.
Also, I've experienced this iTunes problem with both a small library (fewer than 100 songs), and with a very large library (1000s of songs). I usually won't have more than 4 apps opened at one time anyway as to not over burden my system.. So I don't believe I'm having a memory issue here. I've had this problem happen when my iPod was syncing, and when it was not even connected or turned on. I've tried several things including 1) reinstalling Lion, 2) resetting my iPod, 3) having all other items disconnected from my iMac, 4) I verified permissions and performed a disk repair in Disk Utility 5) turned Time Machine off & on... I haven't noticed problems with other applications.. other than once my DVD player froze up for a few seconds (along with the rest of my system) while on the dvd main menu. I really don't use many applications often and Lion is still new to me. So I'm not aware of having problems with other applications yet. Thanks.

Flash Player
Flash Player may cause higher CPU activity when playing a YouTube video.
Possibly related to disabled hardware acceleration.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/905/cpsid_90508.html#main_Flash_Player
No Lion verson - http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/
How to install the Java runtime (JRE) | Mac OS 10.7 Lion
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/909/cpsid_90908.html
You'll need this - Java for OS X Lion

Wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

Hi everybody.
So, i just installed Arch on my laptop, and everything went fine, more or less. during the installation process, i was using the manual connection method using netcfg which works pretty well. but once i got a desktop manager installed and working (LXDE, in case it matters which i doubt), i thought it would be nice to have a gui front end to make things quicker.
i installed and then network manager (nm applet et al) but there were a bunch of issues so i just uninstalled it and got wicd.
wicd works mostly, but it VERY frequently hangs the system. when i boot up into a gui, it freezes entirely for a few seconds, but then unfreezes again and i'm able to log in. if i open the gui tray thing for it and ask it to scan, disconnect from all, or connect, four times out of five the CPU usage will skyrocket to a hundred percent and i wont even be able to move the mouse or switch to a virtual terminal and i have to power down with the physical switch.
the (/var/log/wicd/wicd.log) shows nothing interesting when its doing that but when i reboot it has a line "Exception KeyError(140400652642048,) in <module 'threading' from '/usr/lib/python2.7/threading.pyo'> ignored". probably nothing.
if i take it out of my daemons array everything is fine. i can connect without it using only the wireless tools package but it would be nice to have it working.
sorry for the long post. anybody know anything about this? the problem also happens when i use wicdcurses too, so it's not just the frontend.

realteck (spelling is wrong) 8188 is the card. i think i was using nm-applet for a very brief while, but it didnt work either (wouldnt connect to wireless) so instead of dealing with it i just went to netcfg, which works quite well indeed.
as for the freezes, occasionally i would be able to get top open before it happened and it said that wicd was using obscene amounts of CPU time right before the system locked up. for whatever that's worth. not much, really. yeah i've never known a linux machine to crash in that way before.
anyway, i would suggest, if you're down with command lines, that you might give netcfg a try for a while. i cant really call that a solution to the problem, but it did work for me and i didnt have to do anything with new kernels or the like.
good luck

[Solved by moving to Ubuntu] VirtualBox freezes the entire system

Hello everyone,
I have some major issues with VirtualBox, I have recently installed it for the first time, but it just randomly freezes my entire system. There shouldn't be any load on the processor for this to happen. I don't really know what the cause is. I tried both Windows XP and Windows 7 as guest systems with the same sad outcome. The host and guest freeze and I have to do a hard restart. There always is some noise that comes from the sound card and, in the case of VMWare, from the case speaker.
I tried disabling AMD-V - using a Phenom II x4 955 - but it didn't work. I also tried adding nohz=off to the grub line but it also didn't work. I have recompiled the kernel modules after the last kernel update - 2.6.32. I can't really say whether it's only related to the last kernel update or not as I only started using it after the update.
It seems that I have similar issues with VMWare player.
Here's my system information:
Arch64
Kernel 2.6.32
Phenom II x4 955
4 GB of ram
Virtualbox 3.1.2-2 from the AUR
This only issue occurs with VirtualBox and VMWare, I did test the memory and it's okay. I also have plenty of fans - 2x120mm + 2x80mm - and my system temperature (using k10temp) never goes above 48 c under load. So, it isn't an issue with overheating.
Does anyone have any similar issues? Do you have any suggestions for this?
Thanks!
Last edited by DavidR (2010-01-21 23:54:22)

Should I ask to have this thread moved to the 'Pacman & Package Upgrade Issues'? Will anyone be able to help there? I am seriously starting to consider downgrading the kernel once again and seeing whether it will work.
Does anyone have a machine with another 64-bit distro with this kernel version? If so, can the problem be replicated there? I don't know whether this is really related to Arch or the kernel. Should I file a bug report somewhere? and if so, where can I do it?
http://www.archlinux.org/news/477/
May it be related to the xen support that has been added to Arch64?
Last edited by DavidR (2010-01-14 08:18:30)

Safari pinwheels and freezes the entire system.

Safari pinwheels and freezes the entire system.
I've read numerous threads with this Safari pinwheeling theme, but none of the posted solutions I've found work for me.
The problem:
Safari will almost always on opening, and frequently when filling in forms on websites, start pinwheeling. The whole system then slows down, and then eventually freezes. Even the dock bar freezes. When this happens, I can't even bring up the Force Quit bar. The freezing will often last several minutes, then all of a sudden, all my various previously ignored mouse and key clicks cycle through. When Force Quit finally starts, then everything freezes again. Eventually, Force Quit will show Safari as not responding, and once in a while the system then will start responding, but usually I have to kill Safari.
The problem subsided a little bit on the opening the application problem when I switched my start page from Apple.com to Google.com, thinking that maybe it was just too much graphics crap coming in on the Apple site.
The problem happens on both my Airport and cell modem network connections.
I may have seen this behavior once with Firefox, but haven't been able to reproduce it.
Generally I only have a few things running: Excel, Messenger, Safari.
Things I've tried to fix this:
Reset Safari
Clear Safari Cache
Delete Safari folder in the system cache folder
Went into the Energy Saver in Preferences and unchecked, "put disk to sleep when not in use" for both the battery and power adpater settings
Limit number of tabs open
I'd try restarting Safari occasionally, but the problem usually happens on opening.
I've emptied the trash, and made sure there is ample open disk space (10gb right now).
Resolved duplicate fonts.
I have no third party apps to affect Safari or networking.
I've reset the machine by unplugging it and holding the power button.
My computer is a MacBookPro 15" with all the latest software and firmware updates and 2gb RAM. This has become so frustrating, it's been very tempting to just throw the laptop at the wall and go back to my Windows laptop...

I'd say the bad blocks were behind the problems you were seeing. Their existence points to either a defective HD, or directory corruption. The latter usually can be repaired by using a Utility such as Disk Warrior, or as you did, reformatting the drive.
Best approach to minimizing directory problems is to do routine maintenance twice a month. Have a look at this MacWorld article for suggestions.
For routine maintenance I use OnyX. There is no charge for the software, but I believe the developer asks for a donation.
It's very easy to use. I run it twice a month. Once it is installed, you would double click on the OnyX icon in your application folder (or drag an icon to your dock for quick access) to open the application. After entering your administrator password, you would select "automation". The panel looks like this:
Select the same items I have checked. The program takes about 5 to 10 minutes to run. Leave your computer alone, that is, don't use it for anything else until OnyX is finished. Once complete, restart the computer and you're good to go.
Lastly, the most effective maintenance is having a full backup of your system on an external hard drive. All machines fail eventually, despite the best maintenance. If you had a hard drive failure without any backup, then you would lose all your information, including documents, images, songs, etc. Not a pretty picture.
For your system, you would purchase either a USB or Firewire Drive for your new Intel Machine. The key here is creating a "clone" backup on the drive, which you back up regularly, or at least once a week. For the backup process I use SuperDuper. Very easy to use. The initial backup takes about 1 to 2 hours. Subsequent backups take 5 to 10 minutes. Total $$$ investment can be anywhere between $100 - $250 depending on the size of your Hard Drive.
Post back if you need any other information relative to your questions here.

What is causing Time Machine to momentary freeze my system?

Every 60 minutes when time machine starts its backup routine my entire system momentarily freezes. Audio stops, cursor freezes, then a few moments later the system is running as usual. I have disabled drive sleep, display sleep. The backup drive is an internal drive. Memory is usually between 45% and 65% capacity - not maxed out. CPU usage is minimal. Most of the time I am programming, so this is happening during basic text editing, not during cpu/memory intensive audio/video/3d processing. I'm on a late 2008 mac pro with 10gigs of ram, and a new radeon 5770 video card. It was also happening with the stock video card that died on the reboot after I updated to 10.8.3 :-{.
3/27/13 8:10:42.488 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Starting automatic backup
3/27/13 8:10:43.076 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Spruce/Backups.backupdb
3/27/13 8:11:00.900 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Using file event preflight for Pine
3/27/13 8:11:01.090 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Will copy (4.1 MB) from Pine
3/27/13 8:11:01.092 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Found 117 files (4.1 MB) needing backup
3/27/13 8:11:01.113 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: 1.04 GB required (including padding), 1.3 TB available
3/27/13 8:11:40.093 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Copied 4413 files (48.9 MB) from volume Pine.
3/27/13 8:11:40.119 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Using file event preflight for Pine
3/27/13 8:11:40.123 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Will copy (341 KB) from Pine
3/27/13 8:11:40.124 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Found 14 files (341 KB) needing backup
3/27/13 8:11:40.125 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: 1.03 GB required (including padding), 1.3 TB available
3/27/13 8:11:42.876 PM mdworker[25875]: Unable to talk to lsboxd
3/27/13 8:11:43.000 PM kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(25876) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd
3/27/13 8:11:44.725 PM sandboxd[25876]: ([25875]) mdworker(25875) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd
3/27/13 8:11:46.272 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Copied 709 files (3.1 MB) from volume Pine.
3/27/13 8:11:46.886 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Created new backup: 2013-03-27-201146
3/27/13 8:11:48.315 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Starting post-backup thinning
3/27/13 8:11:55.958 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Deleted /Volumes/Spruce/Backups.backupdb/Pine/2013-03-26-191143 (17.8 MB)
3/27/13 8:11:55.958 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
3/27/13 8:11:56.095 PM com.apple.backupd[25861]: Backup completed successfully.
I beleive this has started since the 10.8.1 update. It is happening every hour on the hour so to speak - exactly when time machine is starting. It has become very intrusive - just in the middle of some important coding and then I'm frozen. I'd prefer to set a timer to take a break instead of being forced to do so!

The log shows nothing unusual.
Some "eco" or "green" drives may spin down when idle regardless of the Energy Saver setting. The application "KeepDriveSpinning" from developer Jon Stovell may help in that case, or there may be a way to change the behavior in the drive's firmware settings.

Mac OSX 10.6.7 update causes iTunes and entire system to be unresponsive?

Hey all,
I updated to the latest OS X patch today and I've been having problems with iTunes crashing the system ever since.
iTunes would open and the entire system cease to be responsive: the mouse cursor does not respond to movements on the touchpad and the functions keys no longer do anything.
Is this a problem that anyone else is experiencing?

Sam problem here, all use of the latest iTunes freezes my whole computer, this has never happened to me with OS X before.
But I have friends who are not having this problem, so it is not affecting everybody. Could it be some other installed app that causes this?
Is there any simple way to downgrade to 10.6.6?

Installing Illustrator from CC freezes my system

I've easily installed CS6 InDesign and Photoshop from Creative Cloud on my MacBook Pro using OS Lion, but when I try to download and install Illustrator, my system freezes halfway through the installation. I get no error message. The entire system locks up, and I can't even force quit applications. I have to restart the computer. This has happened several times with no variation.
To troubleshoot, I've uninstalled the earlier version (AI CS4), paused Dropbox and Growl and quit out of all other programs. Nothing works. Please advise.

IMO Application Manager is too slow and some people reported failures when downloading software with it.
You might have better luck using Adobe's Download Assistant instead.
NOTE: This help article hasn't been updated yet but it applies to CS6 as well as CS5/5.5
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/download-assistant-faq.html
Nancy O.

Entire system crashes when fire fox is run for a short period of time

So I've been building a new PC over the last 3 months and today it's finally complete. When I run Firefox for a short period of time (shortest so far is 10 seconds, longest is roughly 30 minutes) my entire system will just freeze up. Display stays on but nothing I do will update the display and I will need to forcefully shut down the entire PC.
I would rather not switch to a different browser.
I'm certain this only happens with Firefox because it does not happen with IE, and I've been using Chrome for the last 10 mins without an issue. It does not seem to crash is safe mode.
Not sure if I was getting unlucky but I was using the British version of fire fox and it would seem to crash more constantly then the American one.
*EDIT*
I just got the same crash with chrome. But it took a lot longer to happen compared to Firefox. I'm really confused as to what's happening now, I'm going to close my browsers all together now and try doing something else for a few hours, I don't think it's because my system is getting over powered because my stuff is very high end.
I will post my system specs, then leave and come back in a few hours, to check for replies. Sorry if I take a while to get back to you.
If you need additional information just ask.
Specs
Processor-i7 3930k
Mobo-asus p9x79 extreme
Graphics card-amd 7970
RAM-g.skill 16gb 1600mhz
I think that's the necessary specs.
I'll see you all in a while.

Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.<br />
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.<br />
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.<br /><br />
*http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
*http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
*http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
*http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
*http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
*http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free
See also:
*"Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked

Snow Leopard Samsung ML-1630 Crashes entire system - what's wrong?

The printer will print, but the entire system crashes and the Mac Mini reboots each time a print job is sent. The forum points out a lot of problems with printers and the Snow Leopard upgrade, but no real help seems to have been offered.
I did download the new Samsung drivers recommended for snow leopard using the Apple link
I have removed and reinstalled the printer, several times
What's wrong? Did Apple test this before they launched the new software?
I bought the printer from an Apple store, I hope they support it still.

I agree with William on this. I use the same printer with just native OSx support.
There is one possible issue. The power that the printer draws when printing is pretty significant. My UPS (AVR) kicks in every time I print there. I do have many devices on this circuit though.
It is possible that your voltage is being pulled so low that your machine is rebooting.
If possible try the printer on a different circuit or turn off as much as possible equipment on the same circuit and give it a try.

I have an Apple Macbook and will be backing up the entire system to an external hard drive utilizing the Time Machine application. when I am doing this, will the data on the external drive that I am using be erased?

I have an Apple Macbook and will be backing up the entire system in order to upgrade to a newer OS. I will be using an external hard drive to do this and there is already data on it. To complete the backup, i will be using the Time Machine application. Does this application wipe out all of the existing data on the external hard drive, or will it create a new "folder" for the backup?
thank you

No, but as steve359 states you should use a dedicated hard drive for backups. It you need a temporary backup then you can use the drive provided it has sufficient space for all your data on the hard drive.
When Time Machine finds that the drive has data on it already it may decide to erase the drive before continuing, which is another reason to use a dedicated drive.

Mail.app crashes entire system (etc)

Hi all,
One of our photography workstations had an issue with the hard disk recently that meant Apple support took us through reinstalling OS X Snow Leopard. We then restored the main user's profile due to the profile becoming unusable during the reinstallation.
Since then, various apps crash the entire system, Mail.app being one of them. 'Crash', in this case, means the spinning beach ball that never goes away, Finder is dead and moving the mouse over the Apple in the top left corner just shows the beach ball - 'Force Quit' is therefore inaccessible.. The Dock is also dead, meaning I can't kill Mail.app from there. At this point the only option is to hold down the power switch and restart the system completely.
So far, this is what I've tried.
-     Updating all system components to the latest versions
-     Updated all installed apps so they're up-to-date
-     Removing Mail.app and reinstalling it from the DVD (didn't work - OS X just said the version isn't compatible and I had to restore Mail.app from a backup)
-     Removed all Mail.app files and settings from ~/Library/Application Support etc, including /Library/Application Support, ~/Library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences.
-     Installed Postbox.app - even that doesn't work. Starting the app kills OS X and requires the power-button restart ... this one confuses me as it's different app (it's almost like port 25 traffic is killing the OS, although I don't see how that's possible)
All that said, a new user profile *does* work. That tells me that Mail.app itself is OK and that it's a profile issue. However, I did delete all the Mail.app profile files that I could find so I'm assuming (yes, I know assumptions are bad) that the profile Mail.app created after that is actually brand new.
However, I don't want to create a whole new profile unless it's absolutely last resort - the user profile has extensive customisation for screen calibration, printer profiles etc, all done by a very expensive external company ... I'd rather not pay them to do it all again unless it's totally unavoidable.
Can anyone suggest any files that Mail.app might be using that I've missed? It seems odd that Postbox.app does the same thing as Mail.app, as does the Office 2011 updating application (i.e. all kill OS X/Finder).
When the first problem happened, the hard disk starting saying I/O error but Apple is refusing to replace the drive, despite this machine having Apple Care ...
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

However, I don't want to create a whole new profile unless it's absolutely last resort - the user profile has extensive customisation for screen calibration, printer profiles etc, all done by a very expensive external company ... I'd rather not pay them to do it all again unless it's totally unavoidable.
I did the bolding for emphasis. When I see the words "extensive customisation" I think those become the first suspects.
Can anyone suggest any files that Mail.app might be using that I've missed? It seems odd that Postbox.app does the same thing as Mail.app, as does the Office 2011 updating application (i.e. all kill OS X/Finder).
The primary folders and files associated with Mail.app are:
~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Mail /Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
~/Library/Mail /Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.mail.XXXX-XXXX-XXXX.plist
where the X's are letters and digits.
Note that the fact that other apps are misbehaving should tell you that the problem is not with mail but more systemic.
When the first problem happened, the hard disk starting saying I/O error but Apple is refusing to replace the drive, despite this machine having Apple Care ...
Run Disk Utility and repair/verify your drive. This is another red flag.

Liquefy freezing entire system

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for