My system preferences are missing

At some point in the past month, my system preferences have disappeared. I am an admin on my machine, but although the other admins have their system prefs visible, I do not. I could create a new account and that may work, but I'm wondering if there is perhaps an easy fix or if it might be a recurring problem. Any thoughts?

Has System Preferences disappeared from the Apple memu, or from the Dock?
If it's from the Dock, open the Applications folder, then drag the item System Preferences to the Dock; wait for the exisiting items to part, then park System Preferences onto the Dock.

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Trying to re ord with a live mic but having trouble getting a good record or playback volume. As far as i know all my settings in system preference are correct. What am i missing?

Trying to record with an external mic, but having trouble getting a good record or playback volume. As far as i know all my settings in system preference are correct. What am i missing?

MartyJames777 wrote:
Trying to record with an external mic, but having trouble getting a good record or playback volume.
http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/GBFAQ.html#micline
(Let the page FULLY load. The link to your answer is at the top of your screen)

Can not receive Mac mail -error Outlook cannot find the server. Verify the server information is entered correctly in the Account Settings, and that your DNS settings in the Network pane of System Preferences are correct. Account name: "MacMail"

Can not receive Mac mail -error Outlook cannot find the server. Verify the server information is entered correctly in the Account Settings, and that your DNS settings in the Network pane of System Preferences are correct. Account name: "MacMail"
What are the correct mail account settings and more importantly the correct DNS settings
Thank you for any help you may be able to provide
Cheers
Chris (iMac i7)

Do not delete the old account yet. sign up for an iCloud account if you haven't.
I understand .mac mail will still come through. Do not delete the old account yet.
You cannot use .mac or MobileMe as type of Account, you have to choose IMAP when setting up, otherwise Mail is hard coded to change imap.mail.me.com to mail.me.com & smtp.mail.me.com to smtp.me.com, no matter what you try to enter.
iCloud Mail setup, do not choose .mac or MobileMe as type, but choose IMAP...
On second step where it asks "Description", it has to be a unique name, but you can still use your email address.
IMAP (Incoming Mail Server) information:
          •          Server name: imap.mail.me.com
          •          SSL Required: Yes
          •          Port: 993
          •          Username: [email protected] (use your @me.com address from your iCloud account)
          •          Password: Your iCloud password
SMTP (outgoing mail server) information:
          •          Server name: smtp.mail.me.com
          •          SSL Required: Yes
          •          Port: 587
          •          SMTP Authentication Required: Yes
          •          Username: [email protected] (use your @me.com address from your iCloud account)
          •          Password: Your iCloud password
Also, you must upgrade your password to meet the new criteria: 8 characters, including upper and lower case and numbers. If you have an older password that does not meet these criteria, when you try to setup mail on your mac, using all of the IMAP criteria listed above, it will still give a server error message. Go to   http://appleid.apple.com         then follow directions to change your password, then go back to setting up your mail using the IMAP instructions above.
Thanks to dpepper...
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3867171?tstart=0

My System preference are resetting to base everytime I restart.

Not all, but many of my system preferences are resetting to the defaults every time I quit.
Most specifically,
1. in Keyboard I turn off all the system function key settings, then restart and they are back
2. in Sound I adjust the right left balance and it resets to center. But it does keep my output choice
3. in Mouse it keeps rechecking natural scroll.
It's almost as if I want my mac the way if was pre mountain lion but it thinks it know better.
Is there a corrupt prefferences file I can get rid of? Something I can reset?
It's driving me crazy, and I was only barely sane before this happened.
Thanks,
Tom

Back up all data. Don't continue unless you're sure you can restore from a backup, even if you're unable to log in.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. To do that, unlock the preference pane using the credentials of an administrator, check the box marked Allow user to administer this computer, then reboot. You can demote the problem account back to standard status when this step has been completed.
Triple-click the following line to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2> /dev/null
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2 (optional)
Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1 or if it doesn't solve the problem.
Boot into Recovery. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.
In the Terminal window, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.
Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.

Preferences are missing for Time Machine,how can I fix this?

Preferences are missing from Time Machine,how can I fix this?

Please don't SHOUT!
We're all users here and you'll get more help if you give us some coherrent information.
Firstly, do you have an external Hard Drive connected to use for your Time Machine backup?
Secondly "stacks" is not a programme; it's one method of presenting folder icons in the dock, and is accessed from the 'view options' choice which appears if you click on the folder. Right-clicking the folder will go straight to the options menu.

System preferences are frozen

My system preferences are frozen

Try holding the power button down until the unit shuts down. On restart hold down option+command+R+P and the power button until the statup tone chimes twice, the screen will go black between tones, just keep holding on. The unit will start up normally, hopefully without frozen System Preferences.

I did something and my system preferences are gone Now i cant do any tweeks to my system... HELP!

I did something in an update to my computer, and i think i deleted a bunch of files. I had to go to another computer to get Safari back on my computer, and now ive lost all my system preferences. i have no way to update anything on my computer. How can i download this portion of my system preferences so that i can again have control over my computer. any help is greatly appreciated.

As this is the Snow Leopard OS 10.6.8 forum I assume that is what you are running. You reinstall from the original install disk. Snow Leopard has never been available as a download.

My systems preferences are not saved from each previous session! Mark

Each time I start up my new iMac computer, the system preferences I set up in my previous session are lost! Can anybody help me figure out what I need to do to make my preferences persist?

Usually a loss of preferences after reboot or logout is attributed to user permission issues.
First reboot your system then try this:
1. Open a Finder window.
2. Choose "Go" from your top menu bar.
3. Choose "Home"
4. Choose "File from your menu bar.
5. Choose "Get info"
6. Open the "Sharing & Permissions section using the disclosure arrow.
7. Unlock the padlock in the corner with your password.
8. Click the little gear button.
9. Choose "Apply to enclosed items"
10. Once process is done set your preferences and attempt a restart of the system.
EE

System preference icons missing

Hi
Since installing Lion, the icons on my system preferences pane have all changed to the same icon as the system preferences app. i.e just the cogs.
Can anyone tell me how this may have happened and how I can revert back to the standard images please? The selections are all there, but all showing the same cog image.
I have seen some previous discussions about removing the apple.com/preferencepanes cache but I dont have it in my Library.
thanks!

It's not a folder, it should be a single file.
From your user account, go to the /System/Library/PreferencePanes/ folder and see if the items in there have unique icons, or if they all look the same. If they do look the same then the problem may be with the launch services configuration in your system. The launch services is the configuration that pairs up files with their handler programs (ie, .txt files with TextEdit), so the system can open them properly when you open the file directly in the Finder.
To reset the launch services, open the Terminal utility (in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder) and run the following commands (the first one is long, so you might copy and paste it):
cd /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/
./lsregister -kill
./lsregister -seed -all system,local,user

CDs & DVDs system preferences button missing

It seems that the button of the 'CDs & DVDs' system preferences button is missing. Where did it go or, how can I reinstall it ?
Thanks
Martin

no idea - still. But what the heck.

Display System Preferences are More Limited after System Reinstall

Since doing a complete reinstall on my system drive, my 2 Dell monitors do not show up as "Dell 2405FPW." Before the reinstall both monitors showed up as Dells in the Display system preferences. Now one shows up as "Color LCD" and the other as "VGA Display." Now the display prefs are much more limited.
Any ideas how to get the computer to recognize the displays like it did before the reinstall?
Thanks!

Was there originally a software disc that came with your Dells, that may have installed a display preference file for them?
Maybe that will have to be installed, if it hasn't been.

System Preferences Icon Missing.

Stange bit of business this. Yesterday everything was peachy. Today when I booted the system I get this instead of the regular icon!
Question: Now what?

Hello Gwaredd
If you are still trying to fix the issue...
Go to Applications > Right click System Preferences > Show Package Contents > Contents > Resources > Scroll down to prefApp.icns > Right click and Copy Item > Go to your Dock > Right click System Preferences > Options > Show in Finder > Now you are in Applications folder, right click System Preferences > Get Info > Click the icon at the top > Press keys on your keyboard "Command+V".
If this doesn't work, try restarting your Mac.

Odd situation: indexes working normally but related preferences are missing

Hi,
i was wondering if anyone has seen this before:
I have a couple of instances, one for development and one for production (Oracle XE).
In the dev instance i can query view CTX_USER_PREFERENCES and i see all the preferences i defined that are being used as parameters for the context indexes i defined.
In the production instance, installed with EXP/IMP, there is no trace of such preferences, however context queries are working normally. Also, if i generate the DDL for these indexes i can see that the missing preferences are mentioned, however if i try to specify one in a new index, it tells me that the preference does not exist.
I tried to see if querying CTX_PREFERENCES from SYS could make a difference, but it doesn't.
I am puzzled...
Flavio
http://oraclequirks.blogspot.com
http://www.yocoya.com

Hi,
it is normal behaviour if you use exp/imp, see note 468599.1 on Oracle Support. The index will continue to work,but a change will lead to errors (missing preference).
So the preferences need to be exported by hand, or use ctx_report.create_index_script to create a script for those indexes.
Herald ten Dam
http://htendam.wordpress.com

'DISPLAY FUNCTION' under system preferences is MISSING!

Hi all,
Please help! i have connected my mac with an external monitor but when i want to change the resolution etc, the option 'displays' under 'system preferences' is not there!!!
is it located somewhere else or is hidden? please help me find it! thanks

Same here, no Display Preference Pane.....not sure how to reinstall.
Maybe someone can help?

Sound - My built speakers do not show in the output section in sound system preferences area only digital out hence unless I connect external speakers I have no sound - can anyone assist?

on my IMac the internal speakers have ceased working - in the sound preferences area only digital out sound is there no internal speakers to choose so unless I connect external speakers I have no sound

Hey Jack (woofman jack)
Sounds like the micro switch inside the output jack that switches the audio from internal to external is stuck on external. Try plugging a set of buds, headphones or digital Toslink adapter in and out a few times to see if it will unstick the micro switch. You also might try jiggling a tooth pick around inside the audio output jack to see if that unsticks it? If not then you'll need to make an appointment at your Local Apple Store or Apple Service Provider and have the jack serviced.
Dennis

My system preferences are missing

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