Screen Saver Prefs crash

Whenever I click the Screen Saver tab in the Desktop and Screensaver Pref Panel, then Sys Prefs crashes and quits. It only happens for one user account. Any advice?
thanks
Ken

This issue is often caused by a plist file which is corrupt or contains an invalid setting. To fix this issue, create a new folder on the desktop and then choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu. Enter ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/ as the folder's path and drag everything with a name containing com.apple.screensaver to the folder on the desktop. If the issue persists, return to the ByHost folder, press the Command and Up keys simultaneously, and then move the file named com.apple.desktop.plist to the folder you created earlier. If everything works properly with both files in the folder you created, it is safe to throw it away.
(20720)

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Screen Saver WindowServer Crashing

I have a dual 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 with 2 GBs RAM running 10.4.5.
When opening Desktop and Screen Saver in System Preferences and selecting anything in that dialog box System Prefs consistently crashes. I would like to prevent the system from going into sleep mode when I have apps that are processing in the background.
I have run repair permissions and cleared out the cache. Has anyome else had this problem or, more importantly, does anyone know a fix?
Thanks.
Please see the System Preferences Crash log below:
Date/Time: 2006-03-06 10:16:33.287 -0800
OS Version: 10.4.5 (Build 8H14)
Report Version: 4
Command: System Preferences
Path: /Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences
Parent: WindowServer [84]
Version: 3.3 (3.3)
Build Version: 3
Project Name: SystemPrefsApp
Source Version: 1260100
PID: 723
Thread: 0
Application Specific Information:
Desktop &
Screen Saver v.1.3 (com.apple.preference.desktopscreeneffect)|ScreenSaver|running|GammaWorkSaver
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000030
Dual 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4, 2 GB AM Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Yes, screen saver preferences crashes immediately when clicking the screen saver preview mode. I am able to get into the desktop preferences. I don't recall the last download before this happened since this has been about a week. All other apps besides ichat, quicktime and the screen saver preference pane are fine and helvetica font is active. Im guessing its probably an issue with one certain application or corrupt file.

Desktop & Screen saver prefs won't load

Desktop & Screen saver prefs won't load

First follow the instructions in this support article.
If an iPhoto or Aperture library is the source of your desktop pictures, it may need to be rebuilt, or you may need to update the application to the latest version.
Otherwise, continue as below.
Back up all data.
In the Finder, hold down the option key and select
          Go ▹ Library
from the menu bar. From the Library folder, delete the following item, if it exists:
          Caches/com.apple.systempreferences
and move the following items to the Desktop, if they exist:
          Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db
          Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Launch System Preferences and test. If you still have the issue, put the items you moved to the Desktop back where they came from and post again. Otherwise, delete the items.

My screen saver preferences CRASHES!

So, this is pretty simple.
I don't have a way to change my desktop background nor my screen saver, cause every time i try to do that. the desktop/screen saver window CRASHES!...
I tried restarting, I already report the issue with apple... but i don't know what i can do!... I mean, there's a way to fix or to restore that specific part of the OS?
or, hmmm... i don't know!... I'm very confused!...
Some other details: I have the "iTunes artwork" screen saver, (i don't know why) but that may be the cause of the crash... maybe it doesn't find a file or a specification...
THANKS A LOT! =D

Hi, abrahamca. Welcome to the Discussions.
You wrote: "I don't have a way to change my desktop background nor my screen saver, cause every time i try to do that. the desktop/screen saver window CRASHES!..."I presume you mean that when you attempt to select the "Desktop & Screen Saver" preference pane in System Preferences, this results in System Preferences quitting unexpectedly.
If so, try the following:
1. Quit (Command-Q) System Preferences if it is open.
2. Trash the following two files in your Home > Library > Preferences folder:
• com.apple.systempreferences.plist
• com.apple.desktop.plist
3. Trash the following files in your Home > Library > Preferences > ByHost folder:
(a) com.apple.systempreferences.xxx.plist
(b) com.apple.screensaver.xxx.plist
(c) com.apple.screensaver.screensaver_name.xxx.plist
where• xxx is an alphanumeric string, and
• screensaver_name is the name of a screen saver you have used.Whether preferences files of the type shown in (c) exist depends upon the screen saver and if you have changed its options, if any.
4. Open your Home > Library > Caches folder, then trash the following two files therein:
• com.apple.preferencepanes.cache
• com.apple.preferencepanes.searchindexcache
5. Empty the Trash.
6. Launch System Preferences and see if all is well. If so, reset Desktop & Screen Saver preferences accordingly.
Note that some of the information above is from the "System Preferences" chapter of my book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X, Tiger Edition.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

Screen Saver Preference Crashes

When I try to open the Desktop & Screensaver prefs in the System Prefs the preference window crashes. It opens for about 2 seconds and then closes the whole System Preferences window. Any suggestions? I only have two ScreenSaver files in the actual Screensaver folder. Nothing exotic or newly added.

Hi Jibcam55, and a warm welcome to the forums!
First, Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), off the HD & use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, move these files to the Desktop.
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.<12digitHex Number>.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Then reboot once more.

MBP 15 non-retina 2012--Screen saver turning on while typing

New 2012 MacBook Pro 15 (non-retina)
While typing or doing other items the screen saver turns on briefly and then fades away. Have reset PRAM and SMC, deleted screen saver pref. file in the library. I have not transferd my old accounts. Have updated all software. Any thoughts. BTW-- This is the second MBP '12 I have gotten. The first crashed and died 6 hours after turning it on. The screen went blank and 3 beeps were the only sign that it onced worked.
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Screen Saver/System Preferences

Trying to open screen saver prefs. Won't open. Then have to force quit to use other system prefs. Any ideas?

Hi Ron,
Try deleting this file. com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/YourName/Library/Preferences. Drag that file from the Preferences folder to the Trash, empty the Trash and restart your MacBook.
See if that helps...
If not, back up your important data and do an Archive and Install. This does not erase the hard disk, but instead restores your system software while leaving your files untouched.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545
If you are running 10.4.7 as your profile indicates, you might want to update your software also.
Click the Apple Menu/Software Updates.
Carolyn

Screen Saver and Display Sleep No Longer Work

My set up:
Mac Pro (stock) w/ 3GB RAM running 10.4.8.
Two ADC displays connected via ADC to DVI adapters
Issue:
Recently I've noticed neither my screen saver nor display sleep work. I can get the machine to sleep manually, but not automatically. My energy settings have the display sleeping after 10 min w/ the computer and HDs never sleeping. Screen Saver is set to go on after 5 min.
My MP used to go into screen saver -> display sleep mode fine. I don't know exactly when the issues started, but probably around 10.4.8. I have not installed any major software recently other than normal Apple updates.
What I've tried:
I've tried resetting the Energy Setting and Screen Saver Prefs and then doing a restart.
If anyone has an idea what is preventing my MP from going into screen saver -> display sleep mode please post. This is driving me nuts.
MacBook Pro 1.83 (7200 HD)/ MacPro 2.66/ mini 1.5Ghz / PBG4 1.25Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Turned out a bad USB device was preventing sleep. Once I removed it the display went to sleep like a baby.

System crash; data recovered; screen saver no longer works 10.3.9

My iMac crashed last Fri and finally today the dealer received the hard drive and recovered my data.
So far all is working EXCEPT my screensaver which used to work beautifully with OS X 10.3.5.
I DID update things including a OS X Update Combined" (10.3.9):
Installed "Apple Remote Desktop Client" (1.2.4)
Installed "iSync" (1.5)
Installed "iPhoto Update" (2.0.1)
Installed "Java 1.4.2 Update 2" (1.4.2 Update 2)
Installed "Security Update 2004-09-16" (1.0)
Installed "iCal" (1.5.5)
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Installed "iTunes" (6.0.4)
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1 - sys pref > desktop & screen saver > desktop
this option still allows me to select my picture folder, but no longer scrolls through the subfolders of pictures
2 - sys pref > desktop & screen saver > screen saver
while I CAN select my picture folder, i get a "looking for slides" message and finally after about maybe 20 seconds the first picture in the folders appears but when the screen saver is activated, I only get a black screen
Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you -
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I just noticed that the Shell screensaver has the same issue of taxing my CPU to nearly 200%. Very frustrating!!!

System Preferences- Desktop/Screen saver- crash EVERY TIME

Hi-
I have a brand new iMAc 24" with Leopard and all software is up to date via update as of 12 hours ago (10.5.1 etc). I have office 2004 and photoshop/illustrator but NO other software loaded. The computer is now 7 days old. Yesterday I used system preferences to change my desktop picture to something from my iPhoto library, as per normal with 10.5.1 I got one picture up and then went to change it and now EVERY TIME I try to change anything in the desktop/screen saver system preferences the application dies. I can get the desktop/screen saver page to open but as soon as I click any conceivable option on that window the system preferences application dies. I have sent about 7 crash reports to apple and see that others are describing similar (not identical) problems. Is apple going to fix this? I DID not install leopard on this computer, its BRAND NEW. The only thing I have done is to update whatever apple told me was available. HELP...

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Francine
Francine
Schwieder

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Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
grep -R idisk ~/L*/Preferences
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
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 (command-V) into the Terminal window.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.
Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

Screen Saver crashing my Java Web Start app

I've written a Java Web Start time tracker application that all employees run from the time they start work until they leave at the end of the day. The only problem is that there are a couple of people who from time to time find that the application has crashed when they unlock their Windows screen saver. The application window continues to show the screen saver image and the title bar says "Not Responding". In an attempt to get some clues, I had one person keep the java console running - but nothing new appears in the console.
I've personally tried crashing the app by using screen savers, but I cannot duplicate the problem. I've also tried letting my computer go into standby mode and I've let it hibernate. But every time, the application continues running as soon as I log back in.
Any ideas as to why the screen saver could trigger a problem like this for some users?

>
I've written a Java Web Start ... . The only problem is that there are a couple of people who from time to time find that the application has crashed when they unlock their Windows screen saver. >What screensaver(s)? Some important distinctions might be
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- Windows compatible, 3rd party savers.
- Saverbeans screensavers (Java based). E.G. <https://screensavers.dev.java.net/>

Streaming Album Cover Screen-Saver crash AND Fix

I suffered from an ATV stutter/freeze and crash whenever I tried to stream music and use Album Cover Art as the screen-saver.
I tried a small, no LARGE experiment (over 35,000 songs) in iTunes. I had *a lot* of Exotica and Space Age Pop from out of print lps and I used to save full scans of the front and back covers in each song. Some were over 1800 pixels in size, adding a couple of MGs to each song! This wasn't an issue with drive space or my current iMac/iTunes for me.
I resized any album art over 600 -700 pixels. If the art was over this size, I used a script to export the art to a 600 x 600 pixel jpg and re-embedded them in the album.
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A

A valuable observation Al, I also conducted some simple experiments and found that setting the time taken for the screensaver to kick in for longer resolved the issues with poor response when using the album art as a screensaver.
Perhaps you might share your script so that others might try your diagnosis.

System Preferences crashing when Screen Saver window opens

I have been having a bit of a problem for some time now (a couple weeks).
One day, I noticed my screensaver was gone, and it turned into just the name of my hard drive and the Apple symbol moving periodically on a black background. So, I tried to open the screen saver options to change it, but when I open the Screen Saver tab, the list shows up briefly with nothing on it, then it crashes. I get this error message:
The application System Preferences quit unexpectedly. The problem may have been caused by the FlashPlayer- 10.4-10.5 plug-in.
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Has anyone found the answer to this problem? I have installed and uninstalled flash player several times but whenever it instals my sytems preferences die, which is very frustrating. I receive the same message as Lazula.

Attempting to set Screen Saver causes System Preferences to crash

EVERY time I go to the System Preferences and try to set the Screen Saver, System Preferences crashes
I moved the .../user/library/preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist.saved and com.apple.systempreferences.plist files out of the directory to my desktop and the problem still happens.
What can I do? Is there a way to remove the screen savers one by one and see if one of them is the cause? Or is there perhaps some other problem?
I get crashes in iPhoto, iWeb, Mail, iCal, Address Book, and Safari, too, but much less often. Is it just bad hardware?

Ferd II -
From your articles I found a reference to Yasu for Mac OS 10.4. (I tried about 5 other things first to no avail...)
Running Yasu in it's default configuration fixed my problem, made my system boot faster after that first reboot, and seems to have given my entire MacBook a nice theraputic massage.
Some items that seemed slower at first after running Yasu are:
image caches in applications
well, lo and behold! caching of anything in applications. Which is what SHOULD happen since Yasu wipes out caches. With that understanding, I can say that running Yasu is going to be the first thing I do whenever I am trying randonm fix-its on weird problems.
Thank you, Dr. Smoke!
Thank YOU Ferd II!
And YASU, THANK YOU MOST OF ALL!

Screen Saver Prefs crash

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