Tiger will not restart

[rgmichel]

I have installed Tiger on a Dual G4 533 MHz. It hangs on restart. I have to force it to shut down, and then start it up from cold. I hav repaired permissions and the disck, with no problems found in either case. Also, I have reinstalled. I did the easy install both times.

Any ideas about how to make it restart?

The only other problem I found was that the grapher.app will not start. Seems like other apps are working fine, including spotlight, Safari, etc.

[hayne]

If I understand you correctly, the problem is that it is hanging upon shutdown. This has been reported in a few other forum threads.
The problem is likely that one of the applications/programs is refusing to quit.
You need to find out which one it is. Try eliminating programs from your Startup Items in Accounts preference.
E.g. in one previous case it turned out to be Retrospect.

[rgmichel]

OK. Thanks. I am cycling throught the startup items as we speak. Thanks for the tip.

[rgmichel]

OK. I have been through all the startup items, one by one, and disabling them does not cause Tiger to be able to restart. Also, I have upgraded a bunch of applications, including all those in the startup items, to Tiger compatible versions. (Stickybrain, Norton, Little Snitch, Witch). So, I am stumped now. Any suggestions anyone? Thanks for all your help.

[bramley]

disabling them does not cause Tiger to be able to restart.

As Hayne implies 'cannot restart' and 'cannot shutdown' are different things. Is the behaviour for shutting down different to restarting?

You might find some error messages in your system.log giving clues to which process is being naughty. Use Console (/Applications/Utilities) to read this. You can attach the last few lines of the log before the hang to a post here if you think it'll help.

[rgmichel]

Thanks for the feedback. The behaviour is the same for both shutdown and restart. The system gives some HD activity and then just hangs with my desktop pictures there, but the menu bar and icons all gone. I will check the logs as you suggest.

[hayne]

Also, I have upgraded a bunch of applications, including all those in the startup items, to Tiger compatible versions. (Stickybrain, Norton, Little Snitch, Witch).

You should try removing all of your Startup Items and then logout and log in again. Does the problem still occur?

Try doing a "safe boot" by holding down Shift after the chime.

Note that Norton software in particular does not enjoy a very good reputation on OS X. I would recommend uninstalling all Norton software.

[rgmichel]

OK. The console tells me that AppleTalk shutdown failed. I turned appletalk off, which failed again, according to the console log, but I left it off and forced a shutdown. Then I restarted and checked appletalk. It was off. Then I did a software shutdown. The hard drive worked for a very long time and is still working as I speak after 20 minutes. I will keep you posted.

I agree on Norton. I found an update for Norton dated May 4 which fixed some problems I was already having with Norton under Panther. I did take Norton out altogether, but it did not fix the problem. The only things I did not take out of the startup list were the OS X apps like the iCal updater, and iChat. I could take them all out, and I will probably end up trying that, but the fact that appletalk would not quit tells me that it is not the startup items, I think.

[hayne]

Why are you using AppleTalk ?
Unless you have an old printer or something, you don't need it.

[rgmichel]

Good question. I have an old Quadra 950 running OS 7.5 acting as a web and ftp server. Still going strong after more than a decade. Unfortuantely, Tiger has made it defunct, because Tiger won't talk to afp servers. I regularly communicate with my old Quadra, but I guess I am going to have to work with it using Fetch or something like that. Anyway, that is why appletalk was on.

Things are really bad now. Even starting with the shift key doesn't help. My G4 still won't shut down.

[hayne]

Even starting with the shift key doesn't help. My G4 still won't shut down.

You may need to figure out which application/program is holding things up by looking at the processes running via 'ps axww' in a Terminal window. The trouble is that Terminal is likely to be one of the first apps to get quit when you attempt a shutdown. The solution to this is to do a remote login (enable it if needed via Sharing prefs) from another machine (not necessary a Mac) and do the 'ps' from that remote login.

Or just look more closely at all the software that you have installed and maybe you will see something that might be causing the trouble. Maybe look carefully before shutting down by using Activity Monitor. And look to see if you have any system-level startup items under /Library/StartupItems

If necessary, do an archive & install, selecting the option to preserve users. This is relatively painless and fast.

Of course you should disconnect all non-essential peripherals while troubleshooting.

[rgmichel]

Ok I looked in the system level library/startup items. This has some norton stuff in it, but I don't know how to disable it all. It is causing some problems because the console log file says that some of thing things in the startup items failed to load. How do I disable those things in the library/startupitems folder?

Thanks very much for your help on this. Your time is most appreciated by me.

[rgmichel]

OK. I figured out how to uninstall some of the Norton stuff. The Norton uninstall software did not work. It gave "unknown error" messages and told me to restart. A forced restart did not help. I repeated and obtained the same result. I am doing it again, now, in safe mode, following instructions at: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/num.nsf/pfdocs/2001101516293911

[hayne]

OK. I figured out how to uninstall some of the Norton stuff. The Norton uninstall software did not work. It gave "unknown error" messages and told me to restart. A forced restart did not help. I repeated and obtained the same result.

You haven't made it clear whether you did succeed in removing all of the Norton software.

If necessary, you can remove it via the 'sudo rm' command in a Terminal window.

[rgmichel]

There was an error message when I tried to use Norton's disk to remove software. I used the sudo rm command, as instructed in the URL quoted above. So, some Norton has been removed. There are still some things in the library startupitems folder that look like Norton stuff, and which give error messages in the console log files, as follows:

May 5 14:36:02 Scafell-Pike loginwindow[74]: Login Window Started Security Agent
May 5 14:36:07 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: SymDC Extension Selection (88) did not complete successfully
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: The following StartupItems failed to properly start:
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: /Library/StartupItems/SymDCInit
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: - execution of Startup script failed
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: The following StartupItems were not attempted due to failure of a required service:
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: /Library/StartupItems/QuickBackStartupItem
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: /Library/StartupItems/SpeedToolsDTStartupItem
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: /Library/StartupItems/TrackDelete
May 5 14:36:10 Scafell-Pike SystemStarter[52]: /Library/StartupItems/VolumeAssist

[hayne]

Why don't you go ahead and remove all of the Norton stuff from /Library/StartupItems ?

And then of course report on whether you still have a problem in shutting down.

[Phil St. Romain]

Moving to System troubleshooting.

[rgmichel]

I am not currently trying to solve this shutdown/restart problem, because it is taking too much time. My computer still won't shut down or restart, and the Grapher application won't work. However, looks like most everything else works so I am just using the computer almost as normal. I will update this thread if I manage to solve the problem in the long term. :)

[rgmichel]

OK. Now Tiger will shut down. I did nothing but left my machine on all weekend and used the computer normally. So, if you have this problem, just let you computer rest for a weekend, leave it on, and then keep your fingers crossed while you reboot. (I did not use insense, prayers, or any other supplications) :)

[rgmichel]

I reflected a bit on what I did to make Tiger shut down properly. I decided that really the only action I took was to leave the computer running over a weekend. It was still running fine on Monday, and I used it all day without restarting. After a software install that required a restart, I restarted, and then it restarted just fine. I suspect that the indexing takes a long time, and if you try and restart during indexing, that might cause the symptoms detailed above. I did clean out all the Norton stuff, but I have since re-installed Norton anti-virus with no problems. I don't need the other Norton apps, so they are all trashed. Apple'd disk utility seems to do a fine job, and Norton is not required.

[c3nder]

I had a similar issue and it ended up being these for me,

/Library/StartupItems/QuickBackStartupItem
/Library/StartupItems/SpeedToolsDTStartupItem

Once I removed them restarts and shutdowns worked again.

[rgmichel]

I did remove those files too, but I after I removed them the computer still would not restart. I do not rule out that they were the problem, but it was not immediately evident that they were the culprit. I have since reinstalled Norton Antivirus with no problems, so it is a bit puzzling. :)

[rickrobin]

Thanks, C3nder! Same problem - Dual 533/Tiger suddently would not restart or shut down. Library/StartupItems/QuickBackStartupItem was the problem. Anyone know what it is, by the way?

[hayne]

Library/StartupItems/QuickBackStartupItem was the problem. Anyone know what it is, by the way?
It's part of SpeedTools:
http://www.speedtools.com/STUS.shtml

[rickrobin]

Thanks, Hayne. (Jeez! grumble grumble)

[rgmichel]

This restart problem is not just Norton, in my view. After a while, my Tiger began to restart OK, but then when I installed the recent QT update it would not restart again. I had to do a forced restart, then everything was OK again.

[duah55]

solution for me was eliminating ALL programs from Startup Items in Accounts preference