Last night, in a rush to Quit all programs when My wife returned from a multi-day trip, I simply pressed command-q (I was quitting Elements, more later). Instead of quitting, up popped the System Prefs with a drop down pane saying I needed to restart the System Prefs in order to use "that" panel! Pressed the cancel button and pressed command-q to quit the
Systems
Prefs...
Up pops the
SP window again with that same dialog telling what I already knew! this time, I clicked the
red gumdrop to quit
SP and moved on to Elements, again. Command-q and UP POPS
SP AGAIN!!!
I deduced quickly that something was wrong.
Finally quit everything by using the Quit menu item of all apps, told the iMac "I shall return!"
Today, I tackled the problem by logging in to an extra, minimum extras account. Things worked normally! OK!
Logged in in Safe Mode (first time I'd done that in Snow Leopard, so I was treated to the new 'progress bar' display). Everything worked great, again! OK!
Now, let's start disabling/removing stuff from the Startup Items and the
SP. Remote Tap was the first to go as that was the
SP panel that kept asking me to restart
SP. But I also removed Default Folder X since that was the last app I remembered updating. And disabled MaxMenus just incase. I like to pick the most obvious things to disable rather than grabbing a bunch and possibly getting to then narrow things down to one. Really makes no difference, if you don't have a good idea of what might be causing a problem.
BTW, we're doing Restarts between all these changes...After this last change, I Restart into the my account without the Safe method, just the normal way. Hey! Everything works correctly. Still! OK!
Now, which one of those apps/panels was the culprit? Reinstalling Default Folder X and things are working correctly! OK, must be that Remote Tap thing...but wait, I just noticed that I can no longer get to the
SP by clicking on the Menu Bar! Well, that will just have to wait until I get this command-q thing working. Reinstall Remote Tap, restart, everything still normal!! Wait! One of those things was supposed to be the problem!
Well, things are working normally, let's see if I can get that Menu Bar show the
SP list again...how did I make that change?
Wasn't TinkerTool nor Cocktail nor OnyX! Guess I'll have to Google that in a minute. But first, let's get MaxMenus back. Reinstall, restart, command-q and here's that stupid dialog in
SP!!!
Well, looking in its settings, I found one that let's me setting any key combo to start anything app/file/pref panel/etc. Guess what the only assignment was? That's right "command-Q" was set to start the Remote Tap pref panel! Cleared that and we're sailing along fine.
Now, remember I mentioned Elements about 30 minutes ago? Many of its tool settings are way up near the top of its window. The window is right up against the bottom of the Menu Bar. I had set a tool to an item some way down a pop up list and then tried to set it back to 'normal' which was the very first item on that list. When trying to do that with the cursor and the list, the list now extended upward, actually above the Elements window. Guess what's now under the cursor and the list. Right, the Menu Bar. And the click is not intercepted by Elements but Finder! In my frustration, I somehow got the Max Menus pref panel opened and selected the tab that allowed setting a shortcut to something. Since my next act was to press command-q and the original pref panel was Remote Tap...well that's how I think it got set anyway. The cat was nowhere near but the Moon
was full...
Moral(s):
1. Don't rush when using a computer. Read all the dialogs. Don't close one until you understand what it might be telling you!
2. Don't get frustrated when what you
think is a problem turns out not to be. Still, try to figure out what might be a logical cause before attempting any fixes. Do the simplest things first. Try another account, check cables, replicate the actions required to see the problem, that may be important in getting help from others.
3. Keep a record of when you update things. That last one might be the first one to check.
4. Learn to be concise.
