Fooling With the Activity Monitor..please help

[Trondragon]

I will claim no level of intelligence above garden tools from now on...I really messed
up. I read an article about how you can speed up Safari by deleting quicktime extensions
in Safari, and instead found Quick Look in my activity monitor on my 13 inch Macbook Pro,
and deleted it. Now, there are no previews for any photos, and it just shows blank icons
with jpg written, no actual picture. I cannot import photos from my iphone 4s anymore into
itunes or even my SLR digital camera into iPhoto or Adobe Light Room, keeps saying jpgs
are unrecognizable format. Anytime i save a photo off the internet I get the spinning
beach ball of death, my macbook pro slows down and i have to always wait a minute for
the spinning ball to go away as my macbook saves the picture.

-forgot to mention on initial posting I deleted the Quick Look system files from finder too-

I tried to download Quicklook plug in, mainframe, from developer sites, no dice...I can't seem to get back what I deleted in my less than smart move

Can anyone please let me know what I can do to fix my macbook?


OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 (14C109)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB

Thanks!

 

[rixard]

Have you tried to restart your computer? You mentioned that you deleted Quick Look via activity monitor - so as I take it you only stopped the process. Reboot and rejoice.

 

[duervo]

Restore the deleted data from your Time Machine backup.

 

[deeddawg]

Restore the deleted data from your Time Machine backup.

Not particularly applicable if the OP merely killed the process in Activity monitor.

@Trondragon -- unless you've done something else that you've not mentioned, simply restarting your computer should take care of things. Sounds like you simply killed the running process rather than deleting any files.

 

[Trondragon]

Not particularly applicable if the OP merely killed the process in Activity monitor.

@Trondragon -- unless you've done something else that you've not mentioned, simply restarting your computer should take care of things. Sounds like you simply killed the running process rather than deleting any files.

I've restarted many many times since then, it is not a matter of restarting it, I guess i forgot to mention I went into the finder and moved its file to the trash as well. So unless there was a ghost in the shell helping me inside my computer reinstall emptied trash items, restarting would have no effect at all. This happened a few weeks ago, so I have restarted plenty since then, and went onto mac developer websites to attempt to download the quick start mainframe but was not successful, I was hoping some folks on here that had more indepth knowledge may share their suggestions

You think time machine will restore deleted files i deleted from the finder windows? It is worth a try...

 

[deeddawg]

I guess i forgot to mention I went into the finder and moved it's file to the trash as well

That is a rather critical detail to have left out...

You think time machine will restore deleted files i deleted from the finder windows? It is worth a try...

Yes, that it sort of the point of TimeMachine. I forget whether it backs up system files, others may have more info there.

 

[rixard]

If this happened to me I would enter recovery mode and reinstall OSX. Either that or have another look at getting back the necessary frameworks. Google is your friend.

 

[PTLove]

I guess i forgot to mention I went into the finder and moved it's file to the trash as well.

Yeah, that's kind of the MOST critical piece of all of this. The activity monitor stuff doesn't mean anything. That's where you caused the issue.

Im not sure if TimeMachine backs up System files. Id presume it would, in which case you can simply restore via that.
Otherwise, im not sure if OSX has a "repair" options for exactly this sort of thing. I know that Windows does.

As a third (longer shot) option, just try copying over someone elses files. I wouldnt imagine these files are system dependent, so just replacing them outright forcefully may work.

If ALL of that fails, you have to reinstall the OS.

 

[Buerkletucson]

Do a recovery from Time Machine and you'll be set.....that's what it's for.
It wipes your HD and recovers EVERYTHING from TM.

Power up your Mac and hold down the Command and R keys to enter the OSX Recovery Partition. Your Mac should boot to a screen that says OS X Utilities. Select Restore from Time Machine Backup and click Continue.

 

[throAU]

Alternatively, if time machine didn't work, you can reinstall OS X.

Unless you explicitly go into disk utility and wipe the disk, it will reinstall over the top of your existing OS and you will not lose data.

 

[IowaLynn]

ALWAYS have a clone of your system
Even if just minimal which can be a 100GB partition on another drive, even the one used for TimeMachine.
http://www.bombich.com

sending files to Trash can be restored from Trash.

 

[Trondragon]

You guys are awesome thanks for the great suggestions, I didn't realize time machine would have system files as well, I don't have the OS disk and trying to torrent that stuff is tricky, was never good at that, but the TM from an earlier back up
sounds like a plan. Kind of low on funds right now, job searching, otherwise I'd just have gone to a local mac repair shop I know of and have them copy system files over from external HDs with the OS on it they have...I'll try to the TM fix sometime today and update with results Thanks again!

 

[DeltaMac]

If Time Machine does not fix your issue, you can easily reinstall OS X, by booting to your recovery system.
Restart, holding Command-R.
Choose "Reinstall OS X" from the menu.

 

[deeddawg]

I don't have the OS disk a

Your initial post mentioned you're on Yosemite. You can always re-download the OSX install image from the Mac App Store, and there are techniques to create a bootable USB stick with that installer image loaded onto it. I'd really suggest doing that sometime. It's pretty easy.

 

[Trondragon]

I will claim no level of intelligence above garden tools from now on...I really messed
up. I read an article about how you can speed up Safari by deleting quicktime extensions
in Safari, and instead found Quick Look in my activity monitor on my 13 inch Macbook Pro,
and deleted it. Now, there are no previews for any photos, and it just shows blank icons
with jpg written, no actual picture. I cannot import photos from my iphone 4s anymore into
itunes or even my SLR digital camera into iPhoto or Adobe Light Room, keeps saying jpgs
are unrecognizable format. Anytime i save a photo off the internet I get the spinning
beach ball of death, my macbook pro slows down and i have to always wait a minute for
the spinning ball to go away as my macbook saves the picture.

-forgot to mention on initial posting I deleted the Quick Look system files from finder too-

I tried to download Quicklook plug in, mainframe, from developer sites, no dice...I can't seem to get back what I deleted in my less than smart move

Can anyone please let me know what I can do to fix my macbook?


OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 (14C109)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB

Thanks!

 

[Trondragon]

Ok... here is the update....

I went into time machine, I searched for specific files relating to Quick Look
and figured out the exact files I had deleted that after deleting caused me
to be unable to download pictures from my iPhone to iPhoto when connecting
to my macbook pro via itunes, unable to download photos from my canon rebel
XTI camera into Adobe Light Room or iPhoto, and with no image previews for
picture icons, they are as follows:

quicklook-satellite-general.sb
quicklook-satellite-legacy.sb
quicklook-satellite-personal.sb
quicklook-satellite.sb

I found them in Time Machine going back to Nov of last year,
I clicked restore, and it booted me out of Time Machine,
the files were not restored, tried this a few times, no dice.

I navigated to Backups.backupdb folder in my external HD
that TM is connected to, and found these files, as well as
the QL framework, there were two, one with UI in the title
the other just Quicklook.framework. I dragged and dropped
them from my external HD Backups.backupdb's folder in TM
into my Library-->Quick Look folder.

I restarted. Nothing same blank icons with the words jpeg written
instead of small picture icons.

I continued to google and search on forums

Some advised when the icons of images
didn’t show small images as a preview but
just blank with jpg written on them to delete
com.apple.finder.plist from the library preference
plane.

I navigated to this finder window and well,
this file wasn’t even there, so i got it
from TM and put it there, nothing changed,

I deleted it from there, then all my icons
went blank without the jpg written just blank
white boxes, so i put it back now the blank
white boxes went back to what they were after
i deleted the quick look satellite files of just
saying jpg on them but no image preview

So I repaired disk permissions with disk utility since
another user on another forum, who although he didn’t
delete the quicklook files, had the same issue of not
seeing the image preview in the icons of his picture files
but blank boxes with jpg written in them like me

Repaired all the disk permissions, no change nothing

My mac restarted faster, which is cool, but nothing
to address the QL issue.

On this site, http://www.quicklookplugins.com/how-to-install/
it said:

"to install QuickLook plugins, you should copy the “*.qlgenerator” file into /Library/QuickLook/ or ~/Library/QuickLook/. Note that “*” in the filename will vary based on exactly which QuickLook item you choose to install.
If a QuickLook folder is not present, feel free to create one.
After copying the file into the directory you will need to logout and then back in to your account for it to become active. Alternatively, you can prevent having to logout by running the following command in Terminal:

qlmanage- r

This will force OS X to search /Library/QuickLook and ~/Library/QuickLook for plugins and load them accordingly."

Well this command line doesn't work in Yosemite.

I tried another terminal command

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1

Restarted

No change, still cannot see a preview of my pictures
However, after moving the framework into my QL folder,
now the icon is in the finder window with the little eye,
and if i press spacebar i can see a full size image full screen
but this is useless if you are looking at a finder window
with a hundred pictures and you just want to see which icon
is what picture, without having to open EACH ICON! Apologize
for the caps...i spent hours on this...super frustrated now.

I did all this to avoid reinstalling the OS because I figured
the reinstall would take forever, but now thats a doublestandard
given the amount of time this 'workaround' by dragging and dropping
individual files from TM back into Library folders was taking, and
restarting.

I wanted to find a terminal command to clear the QL cache or something
and activate QL, but i could not find one for Yosemite.

Onward through the mainframe fog...

So I found this page:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/128825/quicklook-blanks-when-displaying-some-images

Where a user references a workaround on this page

http://www.quicklookplugins.com/2009/10/01/animated-gif/

and answer 15 states this:

"OSX Yosemite and beyond GIF QuickLook secrets manual
I’m leaving this because I had such a hard time figuring out how to fix it.
This plugin works BEAUTIFULLY from OSX 10.5 Leopard to 10.9 Mavericks. If you have these platforms, get it and run the installer. If you have OSX Yosemite (or, predictably, anything beyond it), Apple has added NATIVE Quicklook support for animated GIFs. This plugin BREAKS THIS SUPPORT.
If you had the plugin prior to upgrading to Yosemite, the upgrade will not remove it and your GIF functionality will not work in QuickLook.
To UNINSTALL this plugin, go to the /library folder and open the QuickLook folder. This is NOT the MacOS Harddisk/library or System/library folder. It’s a HIDDEN fo
lder in your own directory. To access it, click the GO menu in the Finder menu (top bar) and press and hold the Option key. Select the “Library” directory that appears there. Inside the Quicklook folder, you’ll see the actual AnimatedGIF_QL.qlgenerator plugin file. DELETE it and you’ll immediately have your native GIF support working again."

Feeling hopeful,

I went to this hidden library folder, and the quick look folder had 0 contents
from this library directory.

I dragged and dropped the quick look frame work files both regular and UI,
and the quicklook satellite files i originally had deleted into this folder

restarted the mac

Nothing no difference, no icons showed a small picture of
the jpgs, so I did all this this to try to avoid spending a lot of
time on it, ironically, but it was down the rabbit hole, so i said
screw this, I’m just going to reinstall the OS as Delta Mac, ThroAu
and others suggested.

I'm excited now, like F everything else, finally, I'll just sit thru
the lengthy install but after that, everything will be back to normal.

I restart, Command-R, select reinstall OS, sign in with my apple ID
and it says 'this application is not available at this time"

I'm so done for now trying to trouble shoot what i thought would
be a simple issue to fix. I apologize for the length of this post,
when I find a solution I want every step logged for others
who I've seen on other forums with the same issue who are
still trying to find a solution to QL not working

Also, if there is some basic thing I am too obtuse to see, please
feel free to point it out..I'm just overly aggravated now with this
issue which should not be this challenging to solve.
Thanks

 

[Weaselboy]

Also, if there is some basic thing I am too obtuse to see, please feel free to point it out..I'm just overly aggravated now with this issue which should not be this challenging to solve.

I really think it would be much faster just to command-r boot to recovery and reinstall the OS at this point like DeltaMac suggested. That will replace the missing files you deleted and will not remove your personal data files.

 

[DeltaMac]

OPs post #16 was kinda l-o-n-g, but does say he tried the recovery system reinstall, yet (somehow) gets "application not available at this time", which does not seem to be a real result (not from the recovery system, which should just download the system installer files, reinstall, and be done.)
Anyway
@Trondragon - If your normal system boots OK, you can also download the Yosemite installer from your App Store.
(assuming that you have it in the Purchased tab in your App Store )
That will download the installer app, and will automatically launch the OS X installer when the download completes.
I would suggest that you Quit the installer at that point, and create a bootable flash drive for the installer, using one of several methods that you can search for - or just ask, and someone here will help you out with that, too.
Then, boot to the installer that you created, and reinstall OSX using that.
And, that will fix up your issues (and you will have the installer ready to go again, without needing to download the whole thing next time)

 

[deeddawg]

Agreed, it can be tricky to reinstall OS files on top of the OS you're already running.

I again highly recommend creating a bootable USB installer for Yosemite.

Instructions from Apple Support: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

 

[Trondragon]

Again apologies for the length of the last post, I just wanted to be thorough and ideally avoid having you suggest stuff I already tried.

I do not have the OS in the purchased tabs because I bought this macbook pro off of ebay preloaded with the OS. Other ideas?

 

[deeddawg]

Got any mac-owning friends nearby that could download Yosemite for you?

If not how do feel about upgrading to El Capitan?

 

[Trondragon]

Also, I thought about restoring the HD from an earlier TM back up, the whole shebang
but it told me that it would erase what I have now. If per se I did this, would I be able to
restore the lost data from the last time machine back up i did this morning ?

And if so, would it remove the system files that the earlier HD back up may restore?
[doublepost=1459551116][/doublepost]

Got any mac-owning friends nearby that could download Yosemite for you?

If not how do feel about upgrading to El Capitan?[/QUOTE

If you want to know the truth, it feels like each time they upgrade the OS
it gets less user friendly, and more prone to glitches. I wish I could go
back to Snow Leopard, though I remember when that came out I still
wanted to stay on Tiger. The new itunes diplay is straight retarded compared
to old itunes. I am still as a side project trying to find a way to get
back the old itunes that was a whole lot user friendly....so i am desperately
trying to not upgrade anymore, though support of course is only for
the newer OSes...if you notice i still have an iPhone 4...thou due to firmware
getting no help etc I am going to be forced to upgrade to 5 or 6 when
i have the money because it's all glitchy now

[doublepost=1459551182][/doublepost]

Also, I thought about restoring the HD from an earlier TM back up, the whole shebang
but it told me that it would erase what I have now. If per se I did this, would I be able to
restore the lost data from the last time machine back up i did this morning ?

And if so, would it remove the system files that the earlier HD back up may restore?
[doublepost=1459551116][/doublepost]

I bought the neighborhood mac shop a 6 pac of beer last time
i was there for their hard work...maybe they will do me a favor here...
i will check the next time I have time to swing by the shop

 

[throAU]

I really think it would be much faster just to command-r boot to recovery and reinstall the OS at this point like DeltaMac suggested. That will replace the missing files you deleted and will not remove your personal data files.

This

The further you go with hackery trying to manually replace files that time machine wouldn't restore the more likely you are to cause further damage. OS X reinstalls really are relatively painless and should fix it.

If you're getting unavailable application errors, try find out which application it is and reinstall from the app store.

Failing all this - wipe the disk (from within OS X installer run disk utility first), reinstall OS X and restore from TM backup.

 

[Trondragon]

As i said I don't have the OS X disk or I'd already have re installed
It is not in the application store because I bought the mac from ebay
with the OS already installed, otherwise your suggestion would be
on point, and I'd have already done it

 

[Weaselboy]

As i said I don't have the OS X disk or I'd already have re installed
It is not in the application store because I bought the mac from ebay
with the OS already installed, otherwise your suggestion would be
on point, and I'd have already done it

How about just do an upgrade install of El Capitan. That should fix it.