Forum Moderators: travelin cat
Any ideas?
(I mean, besides buying a new computer, which I'm recommending for other reasons....)
Which OS - Which Mac - Last thing that you did etc?
Are you getting any error messages?
How are you trying to open the program?
(Double clicking program icon, clicking on alias, opening file created in program, drag and drop)
Does the mouse button work?
(System would boot but clicking on program icons on desktop would do nothing.)
Need more info.
How much RAM does the computer see? (Under the Apple, About this Macintosh/Computer.)
If RAM is missing/broken/whatever, it won't be able to boot any Apps that require more than is available.
OK. Rebuilt the desktop, turned off the extensions and then clicked on the icons, and it "seems to be working now" is the report over the phone. More details later.
(The computer is at a small medical office in a rural area, so this is really appreciated. Thanks again.)
"Finally got it working but still not comfortable with stability. Not really sure why it started working," he reports.
At my recommendation, he tried opening the application by clicking on a document or spreadsheet; and "that might have been it."
It's an old Mac 8500 with aftermarket G3 processor 256RAM. I'm sending him 8.6 to download since he's on dial-up. (Thanks for that suggestion.)
I talked to his secretary, who also used the machine. They are not seeing any error messages but she feels the entire system is generally more unstable that it once was. Interestingly, Netscape 4.7 crashes on them often and "IE will crashes as soon as it opens." I take it this has been going on for some time.
They generally open the program by double clicking program icon, clicking on alias, opening file created in program, drag and drop.
"The mouse button works, and the system would boot but clicking on program icons on desktop would do nothing. The pointer becomes clock and the "disk light" becomes a W as when the hard disk is accessing but it never opened program. It has set like this for hours at a time."
Any clues there for anyone? Thanks again.
I talked to his secretary, who also used the machine. They are not seeing any error messages but she feels the entire system is generally more unstable that it once was. Interestingly, Netscape 4.7 crashes on them often and "IE will crashes as soon as it opens." I take it this has been going on for some time.
Unless this computer has email on it, these browsers may be the only apps on it that use TCP/IP. If memory serves, Mac OS 8 could be set to leave TCP off until an aplication needed it. Unfortunately, I forget exactly how I used to fix that.
Regardless, it would probably be good to delete several items in the System Folder's Preferences folder, including Prefs for the Finder, AppleTalk, AppleShare, TCP (MacTCP?) and anything that sounds like networking.
Zapping the PRAM may also help. Restart the computer and hold down the apple, option, p, and r keys. (You'll want to keep the keys held down until the computer has made its startup chime at least 3 times.)
We're going to load 8.6 on it, and we'll try the PRAM suggestion. Any other suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.
If the OS hasn't been kept up to date then you may want to suggest a backup and fresh install of OS 8.6 which is more stable than 8.1 or 8.5.1. No need to move to OS 9.2.2 or beyond...
