System preferences dialogue box has gone awol

I was trying to watch a video on the support area of the apple site and had no sound. I clicked the apple top left and clicked system preferences but no panel appeared. nothing appeared, just the desk top. I tried the System Preferences icon in the dock at the bottom of the screen but again nothing appeared on the desktop. this worked before, any suggestions?

Hi,
Open a Finder window. Select your Home folder in the Sidebar on the left. Now open the Library folder then the Preferences folder.
Move the com.apple.systempreferneces.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Trash.
Restart your Mac. If that didn't help, go back to your Home folder Library/Preferences and move the com.apple.LaunchServices.plist file to the Trash. See if that helps.
Carolyn

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How to modify System Preferences dialogue box text.

I know that to change any dialogue box for the finder the path is Devices (name of your device) > (drive name) > System > Library > CoreServices > Finder.app > Contents > Resources > English.lproj. If you open that file with Text Wrangler you can modify any finder message to whatever you want it to be, my question is how can you do the same thing but for the System Prefrences application? I don't know what path to follow for that. Thank you for any possible assistance!

I'm specifically trying to modify the dialogue box that appears when you want to modify (add or delete) user accounts in System Prefrences "System Preferences is trying to unlock Users & Groups preferences. Type your password to allow this." However I can't seem to find it in either the Finder or System Preferences English.lproj files. Where else might I look? Or do you think I just missed it?

Two different preferences dialogue box for the "HP Designjet 800PS 42 by HP HPGL2"!

Two different preferences dialogue box for the “HP Designjet 800PS 42 by HP HPGL2”!
I’m wondering why there are two different preferences dialogue box for the “HP Designjet 800PS 42 by HP HPGL2”!
How to have the drivers and software that enable me to have the preferences dialogue box appearing in the second screenshot below?
My windows is 7 64 bits ultimate
Thank you
Best
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Many thanks garytech1 for the answer,
I did! The link is below
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Designjet-Large-Format/Two-different-preferences-dialogue-box-...
Best
Jamal

NO PRINTER PREFERENCES DIALOGUE BOX IN CS3 FOR EPSON R2880

I am running CS3 on a mac OS X and have just bought an Epson printer R2880. I cannot get any dialogue box up that will give me any printer options other than the basic print size, orientation and position on the paper. My only solution so far is to Copy & Paste into Pages where I can access a few more options & get reasonable prints. Has anyone found a way round this ?

Sorry, Ill expand.
Its Mac OS/X Leopard. Running Adobe CS3. When I try and print a photo from Adobe CS3, I go to file print which displays a dialogue box (Titled Print). This dialogue box displays many print options e.g. size and orientation , position on the page etc but not a facility i.e dialogue box to select the paper type as an example e.g photo glossy , photo matt etc. These options are available from many of the other programs such as Pages and Easy Print and various other applications. Indeed I can take a photo from CS3 , convert to tiff as an example and print using these options from Easy Print. I would however like to access the full printer settings from CS3. I think this issue has been seen before in the professional range of printers.
I have spoken to Epson who say their printer and driver is fine as all the facilities work from other apps.
Adobe support said CS3 didnt support the preferences but to try a forum to see how people get round it. Hence here I am!
It is very strange that a photo application as advanced as CS3 wont let me choose a paper type for a semi professional printer like the Epson R2880.

Force quit systems preferences dialog box

Please help. Yesterday a "friend" tried to set up a wireless connection to a printer from my laptop. Since he does not know Macs, I asked him to stop his tinkering which he did. Now, a dialog box comes up that says: "Another application has changed your network settings" Upon cliking the OK button, the box remains - it does not close until I force quit. This prevents me from even getting into the system preferences to check what has been changed. How can I circumvent this dialog box? All else seems to be working fine; I can still connect to the internet using wireless.
Thanks for any advice you can give.

This is a common bug after the Oct 2008 security update. It appears you can try several things, as mentioned in Macintouch Reader Reports Oct 27 and later:
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/security/topic4307.html
and go to Oct 27, 2008 and read several subsequent entries.
To recap:
-Try the latest security update.
-You might be able to dismiss the dialog by clicking at exactly the right moment.
-Or, upon a restart, go to system prefs/security and check, "Require password to unlock each secure system preference"
-you can delete several network and location preference files, but then you have to recreate them all manually.
and there are more suggestions that I haven't tried. I deleted preferences and had to manually reenter location data, which was a hassle.

Mail Preferences Dialogue Box

I don't appear to be getting the correct dialogue box when I click on "Mail", "Preferences". A dialogue box that is titled "Accounts" appears. I know looking at a friends Mac, he gets an entirely different box. We both appear to have the same version of mail....
How do I get the correct box?
Thanks

Aren't there some tabs at the top of the preferences window ranging from "Accounts", "RSS", "Junk" to "Signatures" etc.? Just click on one of these buttons to open up the corresponding settings window. (Note: The preferences window always opens up with the tab that was last used.) Did that solve your issue?
floba

HT204053 How do i get icloud in my system preferences? Currently has mobile me.

Ive done a system update and still no icloud in my system preferences, just mobile me.

iCloud requires Lion (10.7.2) or greater, you never mentioned your version of OSX but, at a guess I would say that you have Snow Leopard (10.6)
Upgrade to the current version of OSX, 10.8.2.

TC disk has gone AWOL

After several attempts to back up my old Powerbook running 10.5.8 to my 500Mb TC, the TC volume has gone off line. After power cycling the TC, I get a message that the drive has problems, and airport utility basically gives me the option to erase the drive or ignore the issue (some option, eh?). I chose to ignore since I have other files on the TC volume, and now I can't get the TC volume up at all, so I can't even attempt any kind of disk repair.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of TC flakiness? Any solutions out there?
TIA,
Ed

In all probablity the invisible bit got set on the startup drive. It happens. See for instance this discussion thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1737861&tstart=0
That should have all the information you need.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

HD flavor of NBC SC has gone AWOL

Halfway through today's Indy race, we lost 590, the NBCSC HD channel. Simply went blank. The low def version, 90, works OK but of course that does not help when all of my DVR stuff is set to 590. It is not "unavailable". It is simply blank.
Is this a personal problem?

Before you create a RAID, zero each drive, then test each one with QuickBench or another utility and make sure they both perform identically. Even load each to 90% full with test data.
What make/model of drives? What controller does Formac connect to? or is it FireWire? SATA?
Not all SATA drives work on all systems or work w/o a controller. Especially some drives with SSC feature set enabled.
For stripping or mirror, you might even want to look into SoftRAID
http://www.softraid.com
they have a demo and a good manual and quick start guide.
http://www.amug.com has excellent reviews, some are almost a "HOW TO" to using Disk Utility and creating RAIDs. What controllers to use, drive cases etc.
I hope this Formac was not an internal mounting kit.

I keep getting a box asking me to upgrade the system. The box has a click for more info, but when I click it will not open. The overall box stays on the screen only a few seconds. I cannot be sure that this is not a scam.

There are no details about which version the update applies to.
I cannot be sure that this is not a scam so I have not uploaded it. The fact that the box stays on the screen for only a few seconds, before the regular Firefox screen opens, suggests that the box wants the user to make a quick, uniformed, decision, and to press "Next" rather than find out about the changes.

Did you ever install a Firefox 4 beta (or RC) version in the past?
It is possible that you are still on the beta update channel if you ever installed a Firefox 4 beta version or a release candidate. 
You can check that by looking at the pref app.update.channel on the about:config page. 
If the value of that pref is beta then it is better to download and install the latest Firefox 4.0.x release. 
You can find the latest Firefox 4.0.x on this site:
* http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

LUN has gone AWOL - Solaris 10 x86, Emulex HBAs, IBM DS8300

We're setting up a test environment for our backup software, currently running on Windows, but targeted for Solaris. This is also a test of our first Solaris x86 deployment.
* HP DL580 G5 server.
* Solaris 10 x86 10/08 w/patch cluster from ~March 18th.
* One dual port Emulex HBA
* IBM DS8300 SAN
When we first set this up, we could see the one LUN in format. After adding in the IBM Multipathing software, the LUN disappeared and the FC devices are shown as unconfigured in `cfgadm -al`. We removed the IBM multipathing software, but still cannot see the LUN. Did a reconfiguration reboot and all that.
Current state:
# cfgadm -al c6
Ap_Id                          Type         Receptacle   Occupant     Condition
c6                             fc-fabric    connected    unconfigured unknown
c6::5005076306130287           unknown      connected    unconfigured unknown
# luxadm -e port
/devices/pci@0,0/pci8086,3607@4/pci10b5,8533@0/pci10b5,8533@a/pci10df,fe00@0/fp@0,0:devctl CONNECTED
/devices/pci@0,0/pci8086,3607@4/pci10b5,8533@0/pci10b5,8533@a/pci10df,fe00@0,1/fp@0,0:devctl NOT CONNECTED
# luxadm -e dump_map /devices/pci@0,0/pci8086,3607@4/pci10b5,8533@0/pci10b5,8533@a/pci10df,fe00@0/fp@0,0:devctl
Pos Port_ID Hard_Addr Port WWN         Node WWN         Type
0    a0200   0        5005076306130287 5005076306ffc287 0x1f (Unknown Type)
1    a0100   0        10000000c97a7866 20000000c97a7866 0x1f (Unknown Type,Host Bus Adapter)
# modinfo|grep FC
102 ffffffffefc2c000 1aab0 190   1 fp (SunFC Port v20090205-1.79)
103 ffffffffefc47000 199f0 194   1 fcp (SunFC FCP v20090205-1.132)
104 ffffffffefc63000   a2a0   -   1 fctl (SunFC Transport v20090205-1.59)
107 ffffffffefc6c000 377bc0 191   1 emlxs (SunFC emlxs FCA v20081211-2.31p)
189 ffffffffefb547e0   9620 193   1 fcip (SunFC FCIP v20090205-1.50)
190 ffffffffefb49dc0   5610 196   1 fcsm (Sun FC SAN Management v20070116)
#c6 is the first port on the dual port card. c7, not shown, is the second port. Prior to installing the IBM multipathing software, we were seeing the one assigned LUN on c6.
Trying to `cfgadm -c c6` does nothing. Adding `-f` causes an error:
# cfgadm -c configure c6
# cfgadm -al c6
Ap_Id                          Type         Receptacle   Occupant     Condition
c6                             fc-fabric    connected    unconfigured unknown
c6::5005076306130287           unknown      connected    unconfigured unknown
# cfgadm -f -c configure c6
cfgadm: Library error: failed to create device node: 5005076306130287: Invalid argument
failed to configure ANY device on FCA port
# cfgadm -al c6
Ap_Id                          Type         Receptacle   Occupant     Condition
c6                             fc-fabric    connected    unconfigured unknown
c6::5005076306130287           unknown      connected    unconfigured unknown
#We're currently at a loss here. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. I am checking sunsolve and google, with plenty of similar hits, but no resolution as yet.
Thanks,
Mark

Ok, so after that detailed message, my SAN admin just realised he hadn't assigned any LUNs to the server. :D
The LUN that we had seen previously was an artifact from an earlier configuration.

Copy-and-paste has gone AWOL!

I suddenly cannot copy-and-paste text from one application to another (from Appleworks Word Processor to a new empty AOL email, for ex.) using either mouse or keyboard. I also cannot drag any icons on the desktop. I could do all of these a few days ago. But I can copy-and-paste text from one Appleworks WP file to another. Appreciate any ideas.
Bob at:
[email protected]

I received an email suggesting a solution, which did solve my problem. Here's what I did:
1. I trashed two files:
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
2. To be sure I had the correct files, I used "FIND" from the FILE menu and searched for each file name.
3. Since I could not DRAG files, I selected "MOVE TO TRASH" from the FILE menu.
4. I emptied the TRASH and re-started the computer.
All is now OK. I can once again COPY-AND-PASTE between applications, and DRAG icons and files on the desktop.
Thanks for the help!!
Bob

How can I close a dialogue box?

A black dialogue box has appeared on my screen. Inside the box there is information about exactly where my cursor is on the screen. The information is read aloud to me by the computer as long as the sound is on.
I have tried to close the box but I cannot seem to 'quit' the 'box'. I have tried to search the finder, apps, system preferences, help and spotlight. I cannot locate any information about this dialogue box. I also tried turning off and restarting the computer but the box reopens. It is annoying and limits how I can move around a window-for example, in Safari, I cannot scroll down unless the box is highlighted.
HOW CAN I GET RID OF THIS BOX?!!!!!!!
Thanks.

Hi marcel cat,
It sounds like Voice Over (a screen reading accessability option for people with vision limitations) may have been accidentally turned on. You may find the following article helpful:
Mac OS X 10.6: If your computer speaks or a box appears on screen
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7251
Regards,
- Brenden

REGISTRATION UNSUCCESFUL DIALOGUE BOX WON'T GO AWAY

I am running Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard under Windows 8.1 running on a new Lenovo laptop, which I bought when my old Vista laptop stopped running. Whenever I start up Acrobat, a dialogue box appears headed "Registration unsuccesful." Beneath that there is an error message saying "A problem was encountered while trying to send information over the Internet." If I simply close the dialogue box, and later shut down Acrobat, the dialogue box simply reappears the next time I start up Acrobat.
The dialogue box has three radio buttons, one for each of three options. The first option is "Try submitting the online registration again". Selecting that option has no effect - the dialogue window flashes for a moment and then returns to normal. The second options is "Register later (you will have to fill out the registration form again". Selecting that option makes the dialogue box close, but if I then shut down Acrobat and re-open it, the dialogue box appears again almost immediately. The third option is "Never register". If I select that option, the effect is similar to that for the second option - that is, the dialogue box closes, but shutting down and re-opening Acrobat causes the same dialogue box to reappear almost immediately.
This is very frustrating and irritating! What can I do to stop the dialogue box reappearing? I should like to register, but whenever I go to the Help menu and select "Registration..." the same dialogue box appears, and behaves in the same way. Could this be connected to the fact that I first registered Acrobat 8 from my old Vista machine, which is no longer working? Is is relevant that my copy of Acrobat, which originally came with my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, comprises Acrobat 6 on CD and an upgrade to Acrobat 8 Standard on another CD? I never had any trouble on my old Vista machine, which I can no longer get to start up properly (so I cannot remove Acrobat from that machine).

Just a small correction: my "old Vista machine" had, as I now belatedly remember, been upgraded to Windows 7. My copy of Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard ran without any registration problems under both Vista and Windows 7.

Is there a way I can permanently disable the security lock thing in System Preferences?

Aside from logging and using the root account on a daily basis, is there a way to permanently be rid of the security lock thing in System Preferences?
Yosemite has a bug (?) where if an Admin account has its password set to blank (empty), you can't remove the security lock...
You can click it, it'll ask for Username and Password (Why?), and when you click on 'Unlock', it unlocks for a brief moment and instantly locks itself again...
This is beyond infuriating. Do advise.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. However I'm quite aware that the sleep/wake button disables the screen. Unfortunately, mea maxima culpa, I sometimes accidentally hit shuttle before I've pressed the sleep/wake button, often when I am trying to do more than one thing at once. Sometimes I accidentally hit shuffle at other times too,eg when waking up the phone.
This is especially exasperating when listening to classical pieces with multiple movements. I will look for an alternative music player for the iphone, as I don't think the default music application and I are a good match.
Thanks again,
Tim Blackwell

System preferences dialogue box has gone awol

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