Mail and System Preferences cannot be accessed

I cannot get into the system preferences and also Mail disappeared. Both were replaced by a ? on the dock. Firefox Internet works but can't locate Safari. Any ideas???

Have you used finder to search for "System Preferences.app"?
In the end you may want to use the "Archive and Install" feature of your OS X disk.
See the support article here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710
Back up your files before doing this. You will want to use the "preserve user and network settings" option under "Archive and Install".

Similar Messages

HT201342 I cannot find any place to "Go to Mail Preferences". I have tried looking under both "Mail" and "System Preferences" and there is nothing there entitled "Mail Preferences". Where is that button located?

The instructions say "Go to Mail Preferences."
I cannot find any place called "Mail Preferences". I have tried looking under both "Mail" and "System Preferences" and there is nothing there entitled "Mail Preferences". Under "Preferences" there is no subheading as described in the iCloud instructions. Where is that "Mail Preferences" button located?

Open Mail, go to the 'Mail' menu, select Preferences.

Mail and system preferences keep crashing

I just bought this new computer. I migrated my old computer (MacBook Pro (mid-2009) with OS 10.6.8).
Now I"m having problems with Mail and System Preferences crashing (this was also happening some between iCal and Mail on the old computer).
Any ideas on how to fix?

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.
Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Post the messages from the time of the last crash, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot.
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 a message.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor 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.

ICal, Mail and System preferences constantly crashing

Hi there,
Since installing Lion I noticed that my iCal would occassionally crash on open; once it's crashed it will constantly crash until I restart the machine. [example of crash log].
In the past couple of days iCal has become unusaable and crashing on every open. Mail also crashes if I attempt to load it's preferences [example of crash report].
System Preferences crashes if I attempt to load the 'iCloud' [crash log] or 'Mail, Contacts & Calendars' [crash log]. Edit: URGH. Now, since trying to copy and paste the crash logs into TextEdit it's crashed and Lion's STUPID "open windows again on app launch" feature is causing it to crash everytime I repoen it (the culprit crash log text file is open again)
I have tried all of the below and failed to have any success. Can anyone help me unerstand what the problem is? I have a feeling my iCloud account is corruppted somehow, can I remove it ia Terminal or similar?
Desperate!
Thanks,
Pablo.

Doh! In my hurry to get to work I forgot to state what methods I'd taken.
Cleared all caches
Clered preference files
Removed recently installed apps
Re-installed Lion (via the recovery partition)

Cannot open mail or system preferences they both have a ? mark over them any help

can you help me on opening my mac book i have found a question mark over my mail and system preferences and i cannot open them

Try a restart.
Do a backup, using either Time Machine or a cloning program, to ensure files/data can be recovered. Two backups are better than one.
Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.
Isolating an issue by using another user account
If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once.
Safe Mode

I accidentally deleted some drivers from my macbook air and now i can not access app store and system preferences as it says the following message (You can't open the application System Preferences because it may be damaged or incomplete)

i accidentally deleted some drivers from my macbook air and now i can not access app store and system preferences as it says the following message (You can't open the application System Preferences because it may be damaged or incomplete)

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

Problems with iCal, Adress Book, Pages and System Preferences

Hi,
No less. Two days ago, I noticed that iCal crashed immediately after I open it, but as I was in an hurry, didn't take attention to that. After that, I forgot completely the issue. Till today, when I discovered that Pages opens a file but immediately after that it don't respond to any command and "Force Quit" report the program as "Not Responding". The same happens with Text Edit. I investigated a little and discovered that Adress Book and System Preferences also crashes immdiately when opens. In the last case, it only happens with certain options: for instance, iCloud, Mails, Contacts & Calendars. A little more research showed me that this only happens within my administrator account (my wife and kid accounts don't have from this problem). This is also the account that I use to synchronize with my Ipad and Iphone. On the other hand, my MacBook with the same OS and almost the same programs works fine.
Any ideas about what can be the cause of this issue?
Thanks!

Hi,
No less. Two days ago, I noticed that iCal crashed immediately after I open it, but as I was in an hurry, didn't take attention to that. After that, I forgot completely the issue. Till today, when I discovered that Pages opens a file but immediately after that it don't respond to any command and "Force Quit" report the program as "Not Responding". The same happens with Text Edit. I investigated a little and discovered that Adress Book and System Preferences also crashes immdiately when opens. In the last case, it only happens with certain options: for instance, iCloud, Mails, Contacts & Calendars. A little more research showed me that this only happens within my administrator account (my wife and kid accounts don't have from this problem). This is also the account that I use to synchronize with my Ipad and Iphone. On the other hand, my MacBook with the same OS and almost the same programs works fine.
Any ideas about what can be the cause of this issue?
Thanks!

Hi i upgrade from lion to mountain lion to day on my mini mac,Since the upgrade i am getting no sound through my HDMI cable which was working fine on lion Checked the midi audio settings and system preferences to out on HDMi nothing no sound whats so ever

Hi i upgraded from lion to mountain lion to day on my mini mac,Since the upgrade i am no longer getting sound through my HDMI cable which was working fine on lion Checked the midi audio settings and system preferences to out on HDMi nothing no sound whats so ever.Any one any ideas?
I use a samsung TV for my monitor via HDMI.Tried all the system Audi setting nothing .Head phone and internal speakers are fine.

Similar issue; Audio was working fine on Lion, now not on Mountain Lion. Have a Macbook Pro early 2011 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M, connected by thunderbolt through a Lacie LBD to a mini-displayport to HDMI adapter (n.b. same problem when not going through the LBD) to a Pioneer VSX 521 AV receiver. For me when I go into audio Midi settings all the volume sliders for the displayport device are greyed out and at zero. But when I click 'configure speakers', it's able to send out the test signals to each speaker. Part of the problem could be that I'm not getting the option to put out 6channel sound, only 2 or 8 channel. Since my system is Dolby 5.1, and I only have 6 speakers, I would have expected the 6ch option to be available. But I imagine there's more to it than that. Elsewhere someone has suggested playing with Remote Interactive over HD on an Onkyo device; I'll see if there's something similar on the Pioneer that can be changed. Any other suggestions welcome.

Stopped mac protector scam download in process of scanning files. Trashed application from download folder/application folder and system preferences' accounts log in items. does anything else need to be purged? checked?

stopped mac protector scam download in process of scanning files. Trashed application from download folder/application folder and system preferences' accounts log in items. does anything else need to be purged? checked?

stopped mac protector scam download in process of scanning files. Trashed application from download folder/application folder and system preferences' accounts log in items. does anything else need to be purged? checked?

IMAC - lost view of Address book/Contacts and System Preferences

Need help. Contacts and System Preferences show they are open, but never show up on the screen

Resolved!

Just installed OSX Mavericks.Bluetooth disappeared from menu bar and system preferences. I have a magic mouse and my IMac no long recognizes it as such, nor can I scroll with it. What's wrong?

Just installed OSX Mavericks. Bluetooth disappeared from menu bar and system preferences panel. I use a Magic Mouse but my iMac no longer recognizes it as such, and I can no longer use it to scroll screen. What happened?

Since Mavricks installed: My Spotlight icon disappears from the menu bar, but the space stays there. If I click on the blank space where the
spotlight icon is supposed to be - the spotlight menu opens. So, for me, the icon is there, it works except that it is invisible at times. IF I do a re-start it is there. If I let the computer set, sleep or other wise stay on for days, the icon will hide and re-appear at random.

Crashing screensaver and system preference.

Any time I try to adjust my screensave in system pref, system pref crashes and says, "the application system preferences unexpecetlly quit." If I keep trying the screensaver option screen will eventually show up, but when I make any adjustment and close out, I get the warning New Preferences have been chosen for this system would you like to choose preferences or old preferences. No matter what I choose, when the screensaver tries to come on, just a blank screen flashes up for two seconds then go back to the desktop, then black screen, the desktop...and repeats. Any suggestions?

It will transer: Home folder, third-party applications and their support files, and system preferences. System preferences are not the same as those you setup in System Preferences. They refer to your network and startup configurations as stored in the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ folder.

Bluetooth and System Preferences Fault

I've had some problems with bluetooth already, it wouldn't connect to my phone or laptop to send files. I hadn't got round to doing anything about it though.
Just now my wirelss keyboard and mouse have stopped responding and System Preferences too. System preferences froze, I tried to "force quit" which seems to have failed but I can't open the system preferences window now. I get this error message:
An unexpected error occurted (error code -600)
I tried Disk Repair and got this message:
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Not solved the problem though. Anyone any ideas?

FYI, those SUID warnings are not to worry (according to Apple) and get fixed in 10.5.2.

Dock and System Preferences Reset after Crash

Hi,
My computer restarted itself when I was opening a keynote document (there was no warning and I can't find a crash log). When it came back my dock had reset to the default settings and several of the applications I had on my dock were no longer there. In addition some of the other preferences I had (such as Expose hot corners) were reset.
I can easily enough reset these, but this is the 3rd or 4th crash in as many weeks, so I'm nervous that there's something serious going on. Though the others have not had such visible after-effects.
What might explain losing my dock and system preferences? Is there an easy way to get them back?
Also, what's the best strategy for evaluating the health of my system and health of my hard drive so I can figure out what's going on? Yesterday I ran "periodic daily monthly weekly" as well as Repair Permissions from the disk utility. (no permissions problems were found)
MacBook Black Mac OS X (10.4.8) Only one user account on machine

I had a similar problem. I used Keynote for a talk, which I finished without any problems. But the screen was blank when I later opened my laptop back up. After a forced restart, the dock preferences were in some sort of default settings. I have an older Titanium PowerBook, so it doesn't look like this issue is specific to the Mac Books
I have run out of ideas after doing a number of things to try to track down all the issues. Here are some more specifics of the problem:
When I log out, and log back in, the dock settings always revert to a default setting (no need to restart the computer).
The dock settings for other users on the same computer work just fine.
When I remove the dock settings from the ~/Library/Preferences folder and log out/in, the problem still persists.
If I save a copy of a working dock settings file, I can log out/in, drop the working file into the Preferences folder, then use Activity Monitor to quit the Dock, and when it restarts it will use the correct settings.
I have removed the whole Preferences folder, then logged out/in, but the problem continues to exist.

Safari Issues: not allowing access to settings and system preferences

I posted this somewhere else, but think it was the wrong place so am reposting here
In the last couple of weeks, I have tried to reset my homepage in safari as it has somehow changed from what I have always had to the following apple page. http://www.apple.com/startpage/ I did not choose for this homepage, and am guessing someone else has clicked on something and by accident ( not me).
I have gone into the internet and network section of system preferences and get a drop down message that these have been changed from an outside source. I click on ok to get out of that section and it will not close off and have had to force quit to get out of it. This has happened two or three times.
I have also tried to access safari help to see if there is another way to change the homepage and although I am able to search and get results I cannot access the actual topic content.
I have never come across this issue before and have no idea of what may be happening. has apple hijacked my homepage?

Hi there,
To stop the pop-up, Go to System Preferences: Security. Check the box next to "Require password to unlock each secure system preference." Then lock Security.
Try this cure for Security update...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1730909&tstart=0
Cure for Security update...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1730909&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8309498#8309498
But Safari's Homepage setting is in Safari's Prefs...
Safari>Preferences>General>Home Page

Mail and System Preferences cannot be accessed

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