Major Issues...HELP!!

Question

I purchased a new MBP 2 weeks before lion was coming pre-installed, brought it home and installed Adobe CS 5.5 Design Standard and I was off to the races.  Shorlty after Lion was released I downloaded and istalled it, everything was running great and then...BEACH BALL City!! Went to the genius bar were a clean Lion install was done, reinstalled CS 5.5 and everything was running great again and then after 2 days...BEACH BALL City!! I returned to the Genius Bar and they replaced my HD, once again installed CS 5.5 and boom BEACH BALL City!! Went back to the Genius Bar and they replaced the entire MBP, once again, installed CS 5.5 and boom BEACH BALL City!!
So this brings me to Tuesday 2/14/2012 Back at the Genius Bar, bad hard drive agian.  They give me a new MBP, again and I sit at the genius bar and install my software in front of them to show them I am doing nothing wrong. Installed and on the road again, I get home bang out a few projects to quiet some customers down and decide to run software update.  I install 10.7.3 and BOOM, BEACH BALL CITY AGAIN!!!! Ran hardware test, everything looks good, adobe looked at all my install logs and all is well there, talked with Apple Care and they are stumped.  The only way I can run anything on the MBP is to boot in safe mode. Outside of safe mode, safari won't even work.
These are my first MAC issues as I am a longtime user (still have a 667mhz titanum G4 sitting on my desk that runs my plotter software daily) and been using Adobe products since 1999.  I am stumped, any ideas?? Anyone??
Thank you!

Answer 1

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software -- potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions -- they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.
Below are several lines of text in monospaced type, which are UNIX shell commands. They’re harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of running these commands, search this site for other discussions in which they’ve been used without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then either copy or drag it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
To begin, launch the Terminal application; e.g., by entering the first few letters of its name in a Spotlight search. A text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” (without the quotes) and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Copy or drag -- do not type -- the line below into the Terminal window, then press return:
kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}'
Post the lines of output (if any) that appear below what you just entered (the text, please, not a screenshot.)
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix)|edu\.mit|org\.(x|postfix|ntp|cups)/{print $3}'
This time, you'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning.
Step 3
launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|edu\.mit|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}'
Step 4
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null
Important: If you synchronize with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 5
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item'
Remember, steps 1-5 are all drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste, whichever you prefer -- no typing, except your password. Also remember to post the output.
You can then quit Terminal.