Problems? How Do You Fix Mac OS X When It Goes Bad?

Let’s face it. There are times when things go wrong with our Macs. With Mac OS X it doesn’t happen often. But it happens. Some of the time it’s my fault; sometimes not. What do you do to get your Mac’s health back again?

Which applications cause the most problems?

Your Mac is comprised of a number of basic components. Motherboard, memory, video card, connectors, monitor, hard drive, CD player, mouse, keyboard, Mac OS X, various applications and utilities.

In short, software and hardware. Without both, you got nothing. Hardware problems are less common these days and Mac OS X Panther has reduced software problems. Mostly.

What do you do when good software goes bad and messes up Mac OS X (whether Apple software, OS software, utilities or major applications)?

There’s probably more things you can do wrong than right. No single method for dealing with a problem exists because problems are varied and the causes even more variable.

I’m an early adopter and picked up Mac OS X when it was a beta. Like all Mac users back in the day, Apple made me pay for using a beta. Is our favorite computer company cool, or what?

Since then, I’ve upgraded Mac OS X at every opportunity and Panther, generally speaking runs great, both on all my Macs and on our servers which run Mac OS X Panther Server.

A little history is in order. Mac OS 9.x and previous versions were quick and very user friendly. More so like an old shoe, I suppose. A bit abused, been around awhile, felt good.

Dealing with Extension and Control Panel conflicts on Mac OS 9.x (and earlier) was no picnic. Sometimes it was easier to just start over and rebuild a system than trying to track down a problem application, or conflict.

Not so with Mac OS X.

First, there’s fewer problems. Waaaay fewer.

Often, whatever problem exists can be traced to hardware or software rather quickly. Usually, the basic problems are errant applications (though I’ve had my share of issues with RAM chips and Firewire connections).

Still, Mac OS X 10.3.8 is the most stable and dependable version of Mac I’ve ever used and I’ve used them all and pushed them to their limits (and sometimes they push back).

The problems I’ve had with Mac OS X and various applications are few, but they’re around and consistent.

Microsoft Word
It crashes sometimes. Like Internet Explorer, it’s been the worst. When it runs, it’s great. Sometimes it just, well, crashes. Usually about 4 seconds before I’m ready to save something that was last saved 30-minutes ago.

Safari
It crashes sometimes. Usually Safari dies when I’ve got too many windows opened and hit a page with funky Javascript. It also slows down when too many icons get stored and I forget to sort and store recent bookmarks (I have plenty).

OmniWeb
My favorite browser seldom crashes. It hangs. CPU usage goes through the roof and OmniWeb goes nowhere. I have to force quit.

DreamWeaver and Fireworks
They crash from time to time, though I’m using Dreamweaver less than ever these days. DW crashes took place during extensive Template use. Fireworks faults when I’ve got 57 graphics images open and one has 123 layers. Something like that.

Mail
Mail crashes now and then. Though less often as we’ve moved closer to Tiger, still Mail just “hangs and then disappears” without much notice.

Some readers have reported issues with the iLife apps; particularly iMovieHD and iDVD 5.0. I’ve had good success with both and nothing severe.

Network Connections
Here’s where life gets interesting. Our home office has a bunch of Macs on an internal network so we move files around all the time. Mostly, moving from Mac to Mac is a breeze.

Every now and then I’ll forget that a Mac is powered down and I’ll try to send a file to it. The recovery is slow, sometimes painful, every now and then requires a restart.

Firewire Drives
I usually clone to an external Firewire drive as a backup. Every now and then, the drive will disappear from the Desktop. Sometimes I make a mistake and unplug the drive without “ejecting” it from the Desktop.

Mac OS X doesn’t like that.

Again, fewer problems with Panther and even fewer with recent updates.

iSync
There’s been steady improvement with iSync and .Mac connectivity, though some problems with errant utility applications caused some grief. e2Sync gave me fits synchronizing Entourage to AddressBook and iCal until recent versions.

It used to be, with Mac OS 9.x and earlier versions, that I would clean the hard drive and re-install the OS about every 4 to 6 months. Not so with Mac OS X. With each Mac in the office, I’m still on the original install, with each subsequent upgrade through to 10.3.8.

Except for my main PowerMac G5.

I was working on MySQL and did something wrong with both the MySQL root password and my own root password. Then I had to “clone backwards” from my backup Firewire drive. All was good again.

There’s one PowerMac G5 in the office with a lot of Firewire and USB devices connected to it. Audio mixer (2; one USB, one FW), printers (2), extra Firewire drives, and a few other things I have forgotten but I see the cables plugged into it.

From time to time that PowerMac G5 does a kernel panic on startup. A reboot takes care of it. Only once have I had to reboot it twice in a row to get Mac OS X to come up.

My PowerBook has been the most stable of any Mac I’ve ever had. It get restarted only with a new OS X Security Update or Upgrade. I don’t think it’s been turned off in over a year.

How about utility applications that caused me some grief? I’ve got a list. And some solutions.

Click Here for Page 2, the utilities list and my Step-by-Step process to fix basic Mac issues.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

Off Topic #58 - Do politicians use personal computers? Of course. We’ve heard Barack Obama prefers a Mac, while Hillary Clinton uses a Dell, though, apparently neither of the candidates can bowl. Does Obama’s potential vice president use a Mac? Even Clinton acknowledges Apple’s brand power but says she can’t afford a Mac. Maybe she’d win if she used a Mac.

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