X

Mac OS X 10.4.1: Third-party applications

Mac OS X 10.4.1: Third-party applications

CNET staff
4 min read

Problems with Retrospect 'RetroRun' startup item -- causes unresponsiveness Users experiencing sudden system unresponsiveness under Mac OS X 10.4.x should check for errant items located in the /Library/Startup Items folder.

One such item identified as a potential cause of system slow-down, and eventually full blown unresponsiveness, is the RetroRun component of Dantz' Retrospect.

MacFixIt reader Zach writes:

"When Retrospect's RetroRun is enabled as a startup item, my Mirrored Door Drive (aka Wind Tunnel) Dual 1 GHz G4 Powermac becomes unresponsive on a daily basis. Specifically, what happens is that the frontmost application suddenly stops responding, with the spinning beachball/busy cursor appearing. Soon after, all other applications become unresponsive. No applications can be launched, quit, etc. (although the mouse still works). Attempting to launch an app results in an infinitely bouncing dock icon, plus a helpful 'proc: table is full' message in the system.log. This led to me look for a process usage overrun.

"By leaving Activity Monitor open, I have repeatably captured the cause of the unresponsiveness: at some point, very suddenly, literally hundreds of cron processes spawn, all owned by root. The specific point of onset is variable, anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours after reboot. By trying many different system configurations, I've narrowed down the root cause to Retrospect's RetroRun. When it is disabled (i.e. removed from /Library/Startup Items), the problem does not occur.

"I'm running the very latest Retrospect, 6.0.212 (the Tiger version), with the latest drivers and clients. This problem has consistently occurred under both Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.0 and 10.4.1."

Toast 6.1 "Toast It" contextual menu not working, fix Several readers have reported that the "Toast It" contextual menu plug-in -- which allows direct burning of data from the Finder -- included with Roxio's Toast Titanium 6.1 does not function properly under Mac OS X 10.4.x.

According to a thread on Roxio's discussion boards, the problem occurs only with the version of the "Toast It" plug-in included with Toast 6.1. The version of the plug-in included with Toast 6.0.9 does not exhibit the issue.

Hence, the fix for this problem is to replace the "Toast It" plug-in installed by Toast 6.1 with the release included with Toast 6.0.9.

This can be accomplished via the following process:

  • Download the Toast 6.0.9 updater and mount its disk image.
  • Control-click on the Toast 6.0.9 application package (contained on the mounted disk image) and select "Show Package Contents."
  • From the resulting window, navigate to the Contents/Resources directory and find the file "ToastIt.plugin"
  • Copy this file to your ~/Library/Contextual Menu Items folder, replacing the previous (6.1) version, then either restart or log out and back in.

Photoshop CS MacFixIt reader Drew Saur reports an issue with Photoshop CS after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.4.1.

Drew writes:

"I updated to Tiger 10.4.1 last night, and this morning, when I command-tab away from Photoshop and back, I occasionally lose the contents of one or more of the palettes (such as the Tools palette, color palette, etc.)

"Restarting Photoshop stops the problem for 10 minutes or so, but then the problems recur. The longer Photoshop is open, the worse it gets! I am not running any unusual system extensions - just USB Overdrive."

If you are having a similar issue, please let us know.

iChat 3.0 conflict with iCAR MacFixIt reader Jeffrey reports a conflict between iChat 3.0 and the iCAR auto-reply utility, as well as a solution (uninstalling iCAR).

Jeffrey writes:

"With iCAR installed, I could not receive any incoming IM. iChat either unexpectedly quits (the most consistent behavior), or simply doesn?t display the new IM window. At times, the new window can be displayed by going to the Window Menu and selecting the chat invitation form the list, although frequently, even this doesn?t work as the item will not appear under the menu. When choosing iChat Application Menu-->Quit, iChat displays an alert that there are incoming messages which have not been read and offers to review the messages, but even when choosing Review, the window still does not display.

"As well, when the window is able to be accessed (as when its item appears under the Window Menu), it strangely displays with a solid black background, despite no Preference having been set to display any color but white (default).

"We uninstalled iCAR, and iChat 3.0 is now working quite normally."



Index:

Resources

  • Toast 6.0.9 updater
  • let us know
  • AFP Issues: Not inheriting permissions, can't set file attributes
  • Distorted prints from Prev...
  • System freezes occurring w...
  • Problems creating disk ima...
  • iSync 2.0: Problems synchr...
  • Kernel panics when copying...
  • Live spell-checking proble...
  • Loss of AirPort connectivi...
  • Problems with Mac OS 9 sys...
  • Mail.app 2.0: Bundles now ...
  • Problems mounting disk ima...
  • Printer Problems: Launching Epson's Printer Utility
  • Problems with some interna...
  • Release Notes, difference ...
  • Safari 2.0: Downloads wind...
  • Problems with sleep; Solut...
  • Spotlight: Tips for faster...
  • Third-party applications
  • Widgets: Conflict with Hel...
  • More from Late-Breakers