Lost Preferences

I am the sole user of the the computer. I've returned to my computer after a couple of days of inactivity. It has been on but asleep. When I came back to it tonight all has gone to their defaults, i.e., the dock, etc. Apps act as though I am a new user - asking for registration; Mail wants me to create a new account; Safari bookmarks are gone. I've done nothing to it. Have not changed the name of the home folder, not been in the terminal; not messed with preference files. Everything was fine when I left it. Now it's a mess. Any ideas what has happened and how to correct these preferences?

The same thing. Nothing changes. Defaults as though I am a new user.

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Lost preferences and when requesting a batch operation the error "The command "Batches" is currently not available."

For CS6 when I started to work again I had lost screen preferences and when tried to run a batch operation I got the message "The command "Batches" is currently not available." Where are these files stored and how can I restore them?

Found IT !!! For Windows - go to users appdata folder and windows has a file restore function. restored Actions Palette.psp and Adobe Photoshop X64 CS6 Prefs.psp files to previous versions. Works great.
Alvin55

Lost preferences when InDesign CS6 crashes or force-quits

For the most part InD CS6 is pretty stable although I've had a few crashes. On occasion InDesign will hang up when I click to sign out of a Folio Builder account. Eventually I just have to force-quit InD. When I relaunch InD CS6 all my user preferences are lost, including all my Print Presets and Document Presets and InDesign restarts as though I'm launching it for the very first time. This has happened often enough now that I keep a good copy of my InDesign Defaults preference file on my desktop so I can copy it back to User/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 8.0/en_US folder before I relaunch. Sometimes I have to do this twice before InD will recognize my user preference file.
This never happened with older version of InDesign. If InDesign CS5 crashed or require a force-quit it would always relaunch with the last saved preference version. InDesign CS6 is actually updating the preference file each time I legitimately quit the application and everything is as it should be except when there is a crash or force-quit -- then it simply ignores the last-saved preference file and reverts to some "first-launch" preference. I have no idea why this is happening.
I'm hoping if someone there at Adobe can tell me if this is a bug that will be addressed in a future update, because I don't know what I can do other than keep my backup pref file handy. It's either that, or reload all the Saved Print Presets, Save Document Presets, and then go through the list of Preferences each time there is a crash or I have to force-quit.
I'm using an iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 with 4GB RAM, running Lion 10.7.5

Finally figured it out. Cache files were interferring. I went to User/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign/Version 8.0/en_US folder and noticed tons of cache files. I opened another user account on my computer, which I rarely use, and noticed that account had a small handful of folders and files and never had the problem of losing preferences. So I went back to my main user account, deleted all the cach files, figuring that InDesign would recreate new ones anyway.
Now when InDesign crashes (which is less frequent now) at least my preferences aren't all lost.
Hope this helps.

Lost preferences, bookmarks, screensavers, etc on Admin user.

Hello,
My husband accidentally lost all of our preferences on our computer, bookmarks on Safari, screensaver folders, etc. We are under the Admin user is but cannot figure out what has happened or how we lost everything. We have logged in/out and shut down, reinstalled Snow Leopard. It started when he was on Safari and locked up, then don't know what "discussion" him and the computer had but apparently the MAC won!!! Can someone please tell me how to fix it?
Thanks

If you have only one Admin account on the machine, your going to have to so this trick to create another, in doing so the Library folder of this new user will be created and you'll have control of the computer again.
Hold the command and s keys and reboot the computer, a scary black screen appears with a lot of white text runs down the screen, wait until it's finished and backspace to clear any extra ssssss....
Type the following commands at the command prompt, and then press Enter after each one:
Don't make a mistake
mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
reboot
mount *space* -uw *space* / then press enter
rm *space* /var/db *space* .applesetupdone then press enter
reboot then press enter
The Mac OS X Setup Assistant screen should appear after the reboot, just as it does when you start up a brand new computer or upgrade to a new version of Mac OS X.
Create a new user account with the Setup Assistant. Be sure to name this user something different than the admin user that already exists on the system.
At the end of the Setup Assistant process, the system will automatically log into this new user account.

Lost preferences after update

I have just updated Premiere and a few other programmes. Now I have lost my preferences that Ihave carefully built up and saved supposedly on Adobe Cloud.
I had Premiere previously set to FCP settings along with a lot of extra settings but now they are all just gone.
Not even sure why I bothered upgrading. I get a new intro picture and an even darker interface than before.Like working in a cave!
Not sure I'll bother upgrading again as it's not worth the hassle it seems.

Hi Flydigital,
Sorry to hear about your experience with the update. Can you please specify what preferences exactly? Are you referring to keyboard short-cuts or custom workspaces or what exactly?
Are you on a Windows or a Mac?
OS version?
Thanks!
Rameez

Post-iTunes 11 update, system crash and lost preferences

About two hours after updating to iTunes 11 my Macbook Pro on Snow Leopard (latest update), for the first time ever, got a fatal system crash that forced a reboot. After rebooting a lot of my preferences were gone/reset including my home wifi connection. Even after telling my Mac to save the connection it lost it again the next morning. I am blaming iTunes 11 because it was the only thing that changed on my Mac and I have never experienced such a fatal crash before.
Has anyone else experienced a crash after updating?
And more importantly, is Apple going to address the issues with the update or have any suggestions for my persistant perferences loss?
Thank you.

https://discussions.apple.com/mesage/20401436 - turingtest2 11/2012 post on rebuilding empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash from previous iTunes library file.
iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451

Lost Preference: "(Automatically) Reopen all windows from last session"

I was delighted that Safari, under TIGER, finally offered a preference option such that all windows open last session would automatically open when Safari re-starts. This preference seems to be missing under LION. Now I'm back to using the drag-down command "History/Reopen..." every time I restart Safari or my Mac.
Anyone know of a LION workaround?
Keith, on Dec1, 2011

Thanks Carolyn... for the "reminder."
Ironically, I had read one of your earlier postings to this type of query... and your good advice led me into trouble!
Since my first re-boot after installing Lion had led to a loss of open Safari windows (for no apparent reason), I ended up misunderstanding your post. After reading your tip, I went into SysPrefs and DISABLED the resume feature... It seemed backwards... but I gave it a try
Go figure, Resume didn't happen when I restarted my Mac... so I posted this thread, asking if anyone had any other ideas
You were kind enough to point me back to that SysPreference... and voila... with Resume pref CHECKED the mac performs as we'd like... all my windows (re-)open as Resume is designed.
I have no idea why it didn't work on my first trial... but it's working just fine now!
Thanks for pointing me back in the right direction
Keith

How do I find my lost preferences! (after hard drive swap-out

I replaced my bay 2/3 mirrored drives with larger drives, then copied over the data from one of the old drives from bay 4. My problem is I now have just a generic desktop, all my: dock and web preferences are missing, my copy of fetch wants a serial number. All my data is there but someone things are mixed up. Here's exactly what i did:
In bay 1 I have the original drive, which has all my applications, etc.
In Bays 2/3 I had two 500gb drives with my documents (mostly photos). This set up got too small so I bought 2 x 1 tb drives.
I placed the two new drives in bay 2/3 and one of the old 500gb drives in bay 4.
I turned on the computer and formated the 2 new drives as mirrored. I then dragged/copied of my documents from bay 4 to 2/3.
All works, all is there on the drives but I get a generic "dock", and all my preferences in firefox, etc. are missing, just generic copies of the software.
Also, when I tried to open "fetch" it asked me for my serial number, although other software, such as Lightroom open fine (although it does not automatically open to my Lightroom library).
i have tried restarting the computer several times, to no help. I've also tried logging out but this also does nothing. <<<<<<<<<<
I'm sure I made some mistakes doing this, like I didn't un-raid the old drives first.
Thanks, ron

Preferences are not located in the Documents folder. You need to copy a lot more stuff:
Folders You Can Move to Your new Mac
From the Home folder copy the contents of Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, and Sites.
In your /Home/Library/ folder:
/Home/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Application Support/iCal (copy the whole folder)
Also in /Home/Library/Application Support (copy whatever else you need including folders for any third-party applications)
/Home/Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Preferences/ (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Safari (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Calendars (copy the whole folder)
If you want cookies:
/Home/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
/Home/Library/Application Support/WebFoundation/HTTPCookies.plist
For Entourage users:
Entourage is in /Home/Documents/Microsoft User Data
Also in /Home/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
For FireFox:
/Home/Library/Applications Support/FireFox
/Home/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist
Credit goes Macjack for this information.
You may need to copy other folders in Applications Support for you applications.

ICloud has dumped about four month's worth (Dec11-Mar12) of calendar info overnight, and lost preferences. Fortunately locally stored iCal seems unaffected. Any ideas?

Got up this morning, a large chunk of iCloud Calendar info has disappeared (with the exception of two entries in a rarely used sub-calendar).
iCloud also forgot my preferences-use 24 hour clock, start the week on Monday.
Fortunately the info is still stored on iCal (which I have immediately backed up)
So-anyone else experiencing this, and how can I push my iCal files back onto iCloud?
thanks
Jon

Lost preferences settings

STP was behaving weird so I trashed the .plist file, but evidently trashed more than that. I now, upon rebooting, have no .plist or any Soundtrack library item. How do i get these back. Re-install?

dreamdissolve wrote:
I now, upon rebooting, have no .plist or *any Soundtrack library item*.
What does that mean?
The only file that should have been deleted is com.apple.soundtrackpro.plist in ~/Library/Preferences.
For safety, it might be better to use one of the many utilities for doing this such as:
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/pref_man.htm (this one was made by me)
http://fcprescue.andersholck.com/
http://www.jasonperr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=42

Lost preferences and podcast subscriptions

For the third time in the last two weeks, when I've fired up iTunes to download my podcasts (I subscribe to a dozen or so), the program has managed to forget those subscriptions. Once again I have to remember what I subscribe to and search for each one so I can resubscribe to them. Once was a fluke; the second time was a pain in the neck; now it's a third time and I'm starting to get unhappy.
When I resubscribe I notice that it also changed my podcast destination folder from the one I specified to the default one buried in Libraries/Music/Itunes/blah/blah/blah.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing has changed as far as the version of iTunes that I'm using. Nothing has changed regarding this particular laptop.
So what's going on here?

I have the same problem. Did you solve it? How?
Thanks, Joerka

Lost Preferences, Dock, Desktop, Expose, Dashboard, Minimize

So I updated iTunes and Quicktime on my PowerBook G4 1.25 last night, followed by the mandatory restart. Then I put my new printer software on and played around with Adobe CS2 and printed some things off. When I got tired I shut down and crashed on the couch. I awoke with a cold. Seems my Mac had a crash of its own and awoke with a cold too.
It worked fine for a while, until I began working in Dreamweaver...it just froze. When I finally forced a shutdown (after a half hour) I restarted to find that my dock missing, my desktop image gone, Expose inactive, inability to minimize and no Dashboard.
I don't know what to do. Please help.

I just started having this same problem after Firefox crashed the Finder somehow. I've tried repairing the disk, repairing permissions, trashing com.apple.finder.plist and systempreferences.plist, and nothing's working. It happens in all the users on this computer. I tried reinstalling the 10.4.9 update and the latest security update, because I think this happened because I hadn't yet restarted from installing the security update when Firefox crashes. However, the 10.4.9 update didn't help, and it won't actually let me reinstall the security update.
Were you able to fix this, or does anyone else have any suggestions? Bit of a crisis here...

Logic on life support... please help!

I let my system drive get almost full (there's no audio recorded to it). While working I ignored a message warning me. This was a mistake.
Now, when loading Logic, I get this message:
Error Reading/Writing File "com.apple.logic.pro.cs"
Logical end-of-file reached during read operation
Cancel
(this 'cancel' is a button; the word is followed by some hieroglyphics)
Now all Logic plug-ins are Disabled (slash through them). No Audio will play. No motion at all on faders. Even when I try to Import Audio and have a track enabled, I get a 'you must select a track to import audio'.
My Logic is dead! Temporarily, anyway.
I took all Logic preferences out of the folders and onto the desktop and loaded Logic. No change.
I go back to Creator on Atari and I've never seen anything like this.
Any pertinent suggestions much appreciated.

I let my system drive get almost full (there's no audio
recorded to it). While working I ignored a message warning
me. This was a mistake.
Now, when loading Logic, I get this message:
Error Reading/Writing File "com.apple.logic.pro.cs"
Logical end-of-file reached during read operation
Ouch!
I've seen something similar posted on a couple of other forums.. It sounds similar. When a system disk gets close to full and OSX swap files fill the drive...one of two things can happen. Logic can't write it's preference files when it shuts down or OSX swap files "possibly" overwrite existing disk files. If several other programs exhibit strange behavior, lost preferences etc...some files may have been overwritten.
The first thing to do is create some space on your system drive and delete the com.logic.pro.cs preference file and hope for the best, it will be recreated when starting Logic again.
If other preference files have been damaged look in
users/yourname/library/preferences.
Also in library/preferences.
This is the kind of inelegant behavior Logic (and OSX) could
improve upon.
pancenter-

No mail content and "need to take account online" message

I lost preferences for safari and mail, I think after my son shut down while "firevault was recovering disc space." My mailboxes were intact in my users folder. I followed prompts to set up mail again, and somehow my mail reappeared, with mailbox folders intact and content in folders readable. I'm able to receive and send emails.
The problem: Inbox messages, both old and new, have no content. Instead each email says:
"The message from Tom Thumb <[email protected]> concerning “baker's son” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."
Really odd: the email content from emails I received since setting up again today is there for about 15 minutes, and then disappears, and I get the "not downloaded" message."
Connection doctor says I am connected to server.
The email content is intact on my server, and they say the problem is with mail program.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thank you for clicking the "Solved" button and awarding the . As a "P.S.," one other thing that I've noticed, at least with my IMAP accounts, is how you usually will see a message count on the top of the Mail viewer pane, when you have a mailbox or folder highlighted (for example, mine will say something like "Inbox - home (107 messages)"), I have found that when it no longer displays the message count in parentheses in the title (i.e., it will just say "Inbox - home"), although I may still be able to see messages' contents, the list of messages, etc., Mail is getting ready to go squirrelly on me, so before that happens, as soon as I notice that the message count is not being displayed, I rebuild all the mailboxes. Sort of like a little preventive maintenance.

Edit in ... disabled?

I have tried today to edit an image but Photoshop, as well as other editor and all other choices, are greyed out in the Develop module under Photo. I've certainly often used this and don't know why it's not working today. I'm using 2.3 under Win XP Pro. Thanks!
Dilip

It looks like I lost preferences - luckily, I frequently backup so just restored a backup Lightroom preferences.agprefs (Documents and Settings / username / Application Data / Adobe / Lightroom folder - which may be a hidden folder) and can edit again!

Lost Preferences

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