11-27-2009, 03:56 PM

I'm writing some text with TextEdit. When I finish I click Save As and after a few seconds get the pinwheel. After a few minutes of the pinwheel I force quit and restart TextEdit. As soon as the new TextEdit opens its got the same text in it that I tried to save. Should be a blank window, right?

Tried to clear that text and save a blank file and get another pinwheel. Can't use TextEdit any more.

Any ideas?

11-27-2009, 04:03 PM

It gets weirder:

I reopened TextEdit and cleared out the text, then I can close TextEdit. I restart TextEdit and the window is blank, my old text is gone. Sounds good, right?

I reenter my text and the whole problem starts over!

11-27-2009, 11:50 PM

Repair Permissions, preferably using Onyx (appropriate to your OS version) http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html; or, second choice, do the same thing using Disk Utilities. Then see how TextEdit behaves.

One other thing - where are your TE files being saved to? Make sure it's Documents or Desktop, and not inadvertently to some System folder.

11-28-2009, 08:25 AM

Originally Posted by hughvane

Repair Permissions, preferably using Onyx (appropriate to your OS version) http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html; or, second choice, do the same thing using Disk Utilities. Then see how TextEdit behaves.

One other thing - where are your TE files being saved to? Make sure it's Documents or Desktop, and not inadvertently to some System folder.

Thanks for the help, unfortunately it didn't help.

I ran OSX Disk Utilities Permissions repair. It reported 376 pages of repairs(?) all to Safari. Nothing on TextEdit. And no change to TextEdit's behaviour.

All my doc files are kept on desktop or in documents.

I then ran Disk Verify. It asked me to boot from the CD so it could make some repairs to my HD. Haven't done that yet. What's your opinion on doing that?

I tried the link you gave but it gives a 404 error.

11-28-2009, 02:17 PM

Okay, there appears to be some file or volume (HD) damage that may well be repairable. It appears that some sectors involving TextEdit's core functions, eg. Save and Save As, may be affected.

Boot from CD - this can be done with either the grey 'restore' disks that came with the machine, or a retail version (usually black-colored) of the OS you're using. Repairs are nearly always better done from a boot disk, in fact Disk Utilities cannot effect repairs to a startup volume (HD).

Re the failed link - I see I put a semicolon after the link, that's the cause. Either paste that link into a browser with the s-c removed, or use Google and type Onyx Mac in the search field. That'll take you to the Titanium website. Onyx is an excellent maintenance utility, I take my hat off to the guys who continue to make it available free of charge.

11-28-2009, 04:39 PM

This problem rapidly spiraled out of control so I had to restart the machine. I believe everything is back to normal now. It got to the point where finder.app was missing, Safari was pinwheeling, and I could not connect to my Win machine over the network.

Thanks for all your help.