Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/15

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Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Freezing Mac (was: No more PAWs...and Leica lens prototype query)
From: Johnny Deadman <john@pinkheadedbug.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 08:30:07 -0500

on 2/15/01 6:18 AM, Martin Howard at howard.390@osu.edu wrote:

> apbbeijing wrote, in part:
> 
>> My G3s crash several times a day too. The thing that bugs me the most is
>> that the computers (PB and tower) both hang for 2 minutes at the end of the
>> startup process and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. It only
>> started after I installed OS 9 and what makes it weirder is that about once
>> a month it doesn't hang: reinstalling the system and the usual repair
>> utilities have got me no further.
> 
> I went through a period of the same thing.  The machine would just freeze
> for a couple of minutes at the end of startup, then suddenly start working
> again.  At some point, it stopped doing this.  I never did manage to figure
> out why.  Maybe checking versiontracker.com or macfixit.com would provide an
> answer.

This is usually a sign that the Mac is looking for a network server set to
be mounted at startup and not finding it. This happens when you have a
server connected by appletalk (either on ethernet or via tcp/ip) which is
then disconnected improperly. Once the Finder has loaded, the computer
attempts to mount all the local disks. It is waiting for a response from the
network server and eventually times out and continues starting up.

For example, if you had the Mac networked to another machine so you could
share the hard drive, and you checked the 'mount at startup' in the chooser
when you first logged on, that means the Mac will try to access that machine
at every startup. However, if the machine is not available (eg turned off or
no longer on the network), it will hang there until it times out. Every so
often the machine may be available again (it's turned on or reconnected to
the network) and your Mac starts up normally.

Unless you do a 'clean' install, reinstalling the system won't help as it
picks up the old preferences file and uses that... which is the problem.

This isn't really a 'bug' so you can't 'fix it' as such. What you have to do
is tell the mac not to look for that server. Unfortunately there IS no easy
way to tell the Mac that it shouldn't look for the server once it is set to
do it. To fix this, you need to trash appletalk prep, appletalk prefs, the
filesharing folder in the preferences folder, and so on. Make backups of
your network settings before you do this.

If you still have no luck, invest in Casady & Greene's CONFLICT CATCHER and
run a full conflict test. Most conflicts are caused by third party
extensions.

 
- -- 
Johnny Deadman

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com