OSX acting screwy

[Dignan]

So this has been what has happened to me, way too much. Whenever I restart the computer....all my preferences are pretty much lost. But, not all. So, my desktop picture is what i had set it to, but my dock will be defaulted. I have to go to the pain of putting everything back in. Itunes? it pretends like ive opened it for the first time, but, my playlists will still be intact. IE and Safari run like i just ran them for the first time....Instant messanger keeps my buddies and such, but fonts, actions, profile, all that reverts back to old setting. Then stuff will start going screwy, iphoto screws up...Itunes quits with these "fatal error in saving music library" or something...my idisk wont open, ill restart...BAM, back to the whole default preferences thing. What should I do?

 

[FattyMembrane]

try opening up diskutility and repairing the permissions on your hd. have you done anything weird to or installed anything unusual on the computer recently? that problem sounds quite odd.

 

[KingArthur]

Well, I think I at least know why some of the settings are still intact.....
It is a high probability that things like playlists and buddy lists are saved in a different place from all of your other preferences. You probably have a problem with corruption in your main preferences folder, so that every program can't access its main pref. file and creates a new one (thus, it thinks it is the first time ever running it). When it tries to save the new preferences again (overwriting the old prefs), it can't do it, therefore it has an error and every time you start those things, it will have the same exact problem. I would try getting Norton Utilities to make sure your hard drive is still in decent shape, and then do as Fatty says and run diskutility. I have seen similar problems before. If doing that doesn't help, then manually find and remove the preference files for those programs and the program will try and make a new one (hopefully one that isn't corrupted).

 

[Apple][Forever]

Sounds like a permissions problem. Go to the Library/Preferences folder in your home directory. Do a get info (Open-Apple-I). Select Ownership & Permissions. Do you own it? Do you have read & write access? If so, check the prefs files for the apps having problems. If anything isn't owned by you, change it in the Get Info window so it does.

 

[altair]

Re: OSX acting screwy

Originally posted by Dignan
So this has been what has happened to me, way too much. Whenever I restart the computer....all my preferences are pretty much lost. But, not all. So, my desktop picture is what i had set it to, but my dock will be defaulted. I have to go to the pain of putting everything back in. Itunes? it pretends like ive opened it for the first time, but, my playlists will still be intact. IE and Safari run like i just ran them for the first time....Instant messanger keeps my buddies and such, but fonts, actions, profile, all that reverts back to old setting. Then stuff will start going screwy, iphoto screws up...Itunes quits with these "fatal error in saving music library" or something...my idisk wont open, ill restart...BAM, back to the whole default preferences thing. What should I do?

Zap the pram. That should fix it. All your user settings are stored in PRAM. To do this hold down, on start up, <option>-<apple>-<p>-<r> then the chime will sound, but keep holding it down for like five chimes. The following site talks about it and other options. Another prob, might be a dead battery in the machine.

Zapping the PRAM

hope it helps

~altair

 

[hvfsl]

What OS are you using? I had this problem Mac OS 10.1.5 and 10.2 solved this. If the clock is reset each time then the backup battery needs replacing, if not then it is a software problem and will probably be solved by updates or repairing the disk.