14 replies to this topic

[David Garrison]

And where better to turn than here?

I need some serious help, as something is seriously wrong with my Macbook Pro (2.8GHz C2D, 8 GB RAM, OSX 10.7.3, fully updated as of last night). Of course, this is the machine I do my sermons on, need it tonight for my son's birthday party, and we project from it on Sunday mornings. I don't know what the problem is, and I don't know how to fix it.

Symptoms:
- When dragging a file (say a video clip to a project in iMovie, or a Pages file into Safari to upload into iCloud), the program hangs up. The translucent image of the file or clip follows the mouse ~everywhere~. The only way to switch out of the program that's stuck is cmd-tab, and a force close is the only way I've found to clear the hangup.
- In Accordance, when I click on the Translation, Reference or Notes icon to add them to a Zone I'm working in, the menu drops down, but when I click my selection, the menu disappears but nothing happens. clicking again causes the menu to toggle on and off. triple-clicking (or more) somewhere else finally releases the mouse from that menu. But other than toggling, the menu is nonfunctional.
- In full-screen mode, in any app (iMovie, Safari, Pages, etc), the top menu bar will not come into view, even when the mouse is moved to the top of the screen.

Attempted Solutions:
- Last night I ran Onyx, repaired my HD, repaired permissions on the drive, rebooted, etc. Nothing.
- Today I tried deleting com.apple.desktop.plist, com.apple.finder.plist, and com.apple.LaunchServices.plist. No changes.

Any suggestions?

Edited by David Garrison, 13 April 2012 - 09:16 AM.

[Helen Brown]

If you can get to an Apple Store Genius Bar, do it. Those guys/gals are amazing. If you have Apple Care, call them, ditto.

If not, you might try the Christian Macintosh User's Group, now Christian Apple Technology User Group. Their newslist has lots of techies who probably would be glad to advise you.

[Joel Brown]

Sounds almost like mouse problems. Have you tried unplugging everything plugged into it (except power cord) and using the trackpad? Does it behave the exact same way like that?

[David Garrison]

Joel: I'm actually using the trackpad on the computer itself. Haven't tried anything external. I'll check that, though.

Helen: I was hoping to avoid having to take the time to go to the Genius Bar, but I think you're probably right, that's where I'm going to end up anyway.

[Alistair]

You could try reinstalling the OS using the Combo update from the Apple website, I've read that sometimes using the delta updates that are applied automatically can cause minor glitches. It'll be about a 1 GB file.

[J. T.]

Something else that you might want to check is resetting the PRAM. I've experienced similar irregular mouse behavior, and a reset of PRAM/NVRAM did the trick.

[Joe Weaks]

Things to try:
1. Plug in an external mouse and see if you have the same symptoms.
2. Check your hard drive memory, are you over 80%
3. Zap your PRAM (you can google the instructions)

[David Garrison]

Ah. I hadn't thought about resetting the PRAM. Thanks for the reminder on that.

Genius Bar recommended a reinstall of OSX. Going to go in that direction by virtue of addressing other issues (namely the need to replace our broken worship mac anyway, so I bought, with the church's permission of course, a Macbook Air). So I'll reformat the MBP and we'll have a "brand new" computer to project from this Sunday. And since it takes hours to transfer all the data around, I'll be working on my sermon using my wife's computer. Yippee, skippy.

Thanks for the quick help, folks.

[Joe Weaks]

Yes, buying a new Mac and using it instead eliminates any issues you've been having, more times than not.

[Helen Brown]

Joe: I love it! It's my favorite solution, or would be if I didn't get dirty looks from the accountant every time.

[David Garrison]

So... what's the easiest way to move my Accordance stuff to the new computer?

[Helen Brown]

Standard reply from us:
Copying Accordance 9 to new Mac
If you have everything running on the old Mac, and can either link them both by ethernet or firewire, or have an external drive you can hook up to either one, it is easiest to copy over the old Accordance and then update it.
Copy these folders and items to the same locations on the new Mac.
Applications/Accordance
/Library/Application Support/Accordance
OR
user/Library/Application Support/Accordance
AND
user/Library/Preferences/Accordance Preferences
user/Documents/Accordance Files
The last two contain your settings and saved files, it is good to backup these two folders from time to time
Then download and run the latest installer for Accordance.

Please note that if you are on Lion you may run into permissions issues when you copy folders from another Mac. Also, to open the user/Library you will need to use the Go menu and press option in order to access that folder.

Therefore it's often easier simply to install Accordance 9 and use Easy Install to redownload everything to the new Mac.

[Alistair]

Yes, buying a new Mac and using it instead eliminates any issues you've been having, more times than not.

Rather pricey method of troubleshooting.

[David Garrison]

Well, Helen, I botched something. Which is pretty standard fare for me, I guess.

I intended to do a completely clean install of Accordance, redownloading everything from the internet. But I also migrated my user account from my most recent time machine backup (only data, no apps). Unfortunately, there must've been something in there that told Accordance where to look for files. Because Accordance went and looked for files that weren't there (such as map data, and all my user note files) which I couldn't find. So I copied the contents of /documents/Accordance files and /Library/Application Support/Accordance from the new machine to the old machine. Now I have Map Data and the user note files in place, but Accordance refuses to acknowledge the presence of the user notes.

How do I get Accordance to "see" the user note files again? Because it won't recognize them, I can't load my previous Workspaces either.

Thanks for the help.

[David Garrison]

Nevermind, I figured it out. Turns out that the grey matter between my ears is actually good for something, sometimes. It's amazing what clicking "Add Module" can do for one's user notes.