Shutdown failure

[mehronx]

Recently my machine (G4 800 MHZ Quicksilver, OS X 10.3.6) has been failing to shutdown. I need to find the cause of the problem, because none of my normal troubleshooting techniques have led anywhere.

The only clue I have so far is that one time I successfully shutdown after resetting the pram. After that, back to the problem state.

Can anyone suggest potential cuases of this problem or places to start looking for causes?

[hayne]

Launch the "Console" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and look for messages around the time of shutdown.

[trevor]

Launch your Console app (it's in /Applications/Utilities), attempt to shut down, then note what new messages appear at the same time as the attempted shutdown in console.log and system.log.

Copy/paste them here.

Trevor

Edit: D'oh! hayne beat me to it.

[Double]

In Console, I get this message when my Shut Down fails...

Console[446] could not find associated NSMenu for -21629 (item:17)

Any ideas?

My Restart also fails, but doesn't produce an error message in Console.

[hayne]

This sounds like some problem with a 3rd-party menu item.
Do you run any software that puts items into the menu bar?

[Double]

Right now I've only got 2 extra items in the menu bar.

A StuffIt Deluxe preferences icon that appeared when I installed that software last year (never caused a problem prior to this).

The eject button. I bought a different keyboard that didn't have an eject key on it. Someone on the Apple forum suggected that I double-click the "eject.menu" file in my System/Library/Core Services/Menu Extras folder. That just makes an eject icon appear in the menu bar so I can open and close the CD tray.

Maybe that's the trouble? I just did that within the last couple of weeks. Any way to remove that icon from the menu bar to see if that helps?

[hayne]

I think you might be able to just drag it off of the menubar. Try it.
Otherwise look for a preferences file to delete. It might be named something to do with SystemUIServer since I think that is what handles the menubar items.

[Double]

It can be removed by "Apple-dragging" it out of the bar with a "poof". Unfortunately it didn't solve my problem. Apparently I've stumbled onto a mystery?

[Double]

How about this one? I've been getting this one over and over now...

*** malloc[501]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x1c77b70; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug

[hayne]

How about this one? I've been getting this one over and over now...

*** malloc[501]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x1c77b70; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug

That's an indication of a programming error in one of the applications that you are running. The "501" is the process-id as is shown in Activity Monitor. If you find out which application it is (by looking at Activity Monitor), that would give a clue.

In general, you could perhaps find out what is causing your problems by one-by-one reducing what apps are running at the time of shutdown. many apps will be running in the background - for example some of those that you have in your StartupItems in the Accounts preference pane. You should remove (not just uncheck) those startup items from the Accounts preferences until you figure out what is happening.

And look again at what messages are in the logs.

[Double]

I think I stumbled across something that means the preferences are causing problems. I dragged my entire user account's Preference folder out of my library folder and onto my desktop and restarted from the Terminal with a command line.

The machine restarted immediately (first time that's happened in a while) and when it came back up with all the default preferences, I was able to restart it from the Apple menu, again an immediate restart.

I put the preferences folder back and restarted from the Apple menu again, when it came back up with all my personal prefs again, the Apple Menu restart once again did not work.

Does that lead you to any thoughts?

[mehronx]

Looks like you can start removing them half at a time to isolate the culprit now. I should try this to see if my problem is the same.

What is the command for restart? I'm a little rusty with command line stuff.

My console log came up empty because the restart attempt quit the console. The System Log in the console had a little too much in it for me to narrow down the shutdown command.

[Double]

Hey, I finally found the culprit! My Suitcase Preferences were causing the problem. I trashed that pref folder and luckily only lost my font sets. Now my Restart and Shut Down items work just fine.

Trevor made me aware of the fact that using the buttons on the front of my computer to restart and shutdown is a bad thing, so he gave these instructions for a better way...

If you wish to restart, type
sudo shutdown -r now
(the r stands for restart)

If you wish to shut down, type
sudo shutdown -h now
(the h stands for halt)

After either of these commands, you will be asked to enter your admin password.

Thanks for all your help guys, all these ideas added up to find the solution...

[hayne]

If you wish to restart, type
sudo shutdown -r now
(the r stands for restart)

If you wish to shut down, type
sudo shutdown -h now
(the h stands for halt)

While these commands will work fine for shutting down the Unix layer of the OS, this is a somewhat harsh method for the upper, GUI layer. The best way to shutdown or restart is to use the Apple menu items. If you insist on a command-line version, you could write an AppleScript to effectively do the same thing. Of course, sometimes (as with your previous problems) you have no choice.

[mehronx]

I still haven't had success in shutting down. Another clue is that I cannot log out either. All applications quit, I get the spinning wheel, and then nothing. At this point the Apple finder menu seems to nothing for Force Quit, Shutdown, Logout, Etc.

The System log baffles me a bit. I can't seem to set a marker that I can refer to later. I can't find the marker I created once I get my machine back up.

[hayne]

The System log baffles me a bit. I can't seem to set a marker that I can refer to later. I can't find the marker I created once I get my machine back up.
Forget about setting markers in the log file.
Just use the timestamps that are at the start of most messages to locate yourself in the file at the time/date when the trouble occurred - i.e. at the time when you try to shutdown or logout.

And makes sure you have removed all of the "startup items" from your Accounts preferences - remove them, not just uncheck them.
And if you have installed any software (e.g. Norton, some firewalls, etc) that startup up at boot time via a StartupItem in the /Library/StartupItems folder (check by looking at this folder in Finder), you should remove them as well.

[mehronx]

That did it. My guess is that the culprit was either the Suitcase startup or the old Timbuktu Startup. I also removed some pal stuff. I'm going to have to try putting them back one at a time.

Thanks.