Broken widgets?

[someguy]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I searched and did not find anything that helped me. That said...

Most of the original widgets that come preinstalled in Dashboard do not work from the Widget menu. I can't figure out why. (Note: I've installed the latest updates, but this has been a problem for over a month now, so that's not related.)

Anyways, one picture below shows what the widget icon's look like now (default widget icon) and clicking it does nothing. This is the same for Flight Tracker, Stickies, Stocks, Unit Converter, and many other originals.

I still have said widgets installed, as the other image shows, and directly double-clicking their files opens them in Dashboard just fine.

The "Widgets" widget won't let me remove any of these, so I'm not sure what I can do to restore their normal access.

Help, please.

 

[someguy]

Note: The new widgets, like People and Ski Report, work just fine, if that bit of info helps.

 

[someguy]

Hope it's been long enough to bump this thread.

 

[Applespider]

The Apple (preinstalled) Widgets should be in Macintosh HD/Library/Widgets

Your ones (installed via Safari etc) should be ~/Library/Widgets - ie in your Home directory.

From your screen grab, it looks like they're all lumped in together - it might be a conflict that one is overriding the other?

Alternatively have you ever disabled any of them and then done a Mac OS X update that's updated the Widgets?

 

[someguy]

The Apple (preinstalled) Widgets should be in Macintosh HD/Library/Widgets

Your ones (installed via Safari etc) should be ~/Library/Widgets - ie in your Home directory.

From your screen grab, it looks like they're all lumped in together - it might be a conflict that one is overriding the other?

Alternatively have you ever disabled any of them and then done a Mac OS X update that's updated the Widgets?

Someone told me a while back (not on this forum) that either Widgets folder would be fine to use and put all my widgets in, and they did work for a while, then one day...???

No, I don't know how to disable the preinstalled ones, they don't have a red - sign next to them in the "Widgets" widget.

Any ideas of what I should try?

 

[Applespider]

Someone told me a while back (not on this forum) that either Widgets folder would be fine to use and put all my widgets in, and they did work for a while, then one day...???
Any ideas of what I should try?

It's fine to put your ones in the Macintosh HD folder, it's not fine to put the Apple ones anywhere but where the system ones. Which ones did you move?

If it's the Apple ones, you could try putting them back where they belong but since the White Pages/People and Yellow Pages/Businesses have changed, they might not work properly even then unless you go in and swap the various chunks that have newer file dates and check what's missing.

 

[someguy]

You are probably on the right track. I don't recall ever moving any of the preinstalled widgets, I've always just downloaded them and moved them into that widgets folder.

What do you think I should try? (Please be specific, I'm still kind of a Mac n00b )

 

[Applespider]

Well, first off, which Widgets folder are they in? The HD one or the local Home one?

 

[someguy]

The HD one.

I tried something... I noticed that I had them in both so I deleted the ones in the Home folder and rebooted. Didn't help.

 

[Applespider]

Probably wasn't the wisest thing to do since it seems that you originally put them in your local HD and one of the OS X updates has repopulated the original folder with them. The trouble is that it doesn't always update all the parts of the widget (which is just a clever bundle that holds lots of other files).

The only fix I've seen work before in a similar instance was to close all Widgets, open two Finder windows, open up both Widgets (using right click, inspect packet contents) and compare them. Make sure that all the files from the original (in User file) exist in the new one (in HD) but keep the newest version of them all. Then get rid of the old Widget. But if you've deleted them already, you can't do that.

Which means that you'll have to get a new 'complete' copy of the widgets. You could look for an app called Pacifist and look for them on your Mac OS X install disc (although they'd likely be the older version, so you'd have to run the Combo version of the 10.4.4 upgrade again) or it's an Archive & Install

Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

 

[someguy]

Ah, fixed it.

I just deleted them all from the HD folder (bold move) and copied the ones from the Home folder, worked this time (except the Business widget because I didn't have a second one, oh well, never used it before anyways).