10-16-2011, 01:17 PM

Hi, I've been using my mac smoothly for 14 months. But until recently it has been acting very weird. Here's the sequence of events:

1. Parts of the track pad stopped working (I can only use the bottom half)

I restarted the computer.

2. Then the cursor jumps around (even with a mouse)
3. It starts clicking and right clicking on its own

I freaked out, so I ran a software update, and managed to use Disk Utility to verify and repair disks then restart.

4. The track pad seems to be working better (but a little jumpy at times), BUT all the basic icons are gone (e.g. Applications folder and downloads folder becomes a "?" while other folders on the desktop appear invisible)
5. I went to CandyBar (an icon modification app). But under "General Icons", there isn't even anything to replace. Like usually there'll be the normal default icon, so I can simply drag and drop a modified icon over it.
6. The cursor is jumpy again, it keeps selecting stuff and clicking stuff.

Background: Macbook Pro 13" Version 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Memory: 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.

I recently installed a torrent app called frostwire. It doesn't seem safe, considering the last I downloaded limewire on my PC, it gave me a bunch of nasty viruses. Could this be a virus issue?

Please help!

10-16-2011, 02:19 PM

bumpppppppp

10-16-2011, 11:44 PM

Thanks for the replies. So its probably not a malware/virus problem.

Here's an update:

1. The trackpad seems to be working normally now, but after 30 mins or so it'll start clicking and moving erratically again. Sometimes, parts of the trackpad just doesn't work: Here's an example (this is a chinese writing pad I used to test the trackpad)

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I tried moving it around and found an unresponsive band on the trackpad (top section)

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This is me drawing a diagonal. You can see it doing weird stuff on top and again near the bottom.

I tried using a USB connected mouse instead, and it worked fine for a while. Then it'll start clicking and moving around again for about 5 seconds. My bluetooth and airport is off btw.

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Then I tried drawing lines from the bottom up, and when I get to the top, it starts jumping around again!

2. The icons are still missing. I tried reinstalling CandyBar and restoring the default icons to no avail. There are simply no wells to even modify the general icons. Here's what I mean:

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This is Finder>Preferences>Sidebar. A lot of the icons disappeared!

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Same here, some icons are gone. I made the 'ebooks' and '.icn' icons. That's when I though maybe CandyBar didn't backup my default icons, so when I tried to restore it, it just becomes blank. I don't really care if I have the default icons or not because I have the modified icons I want to replace.

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But in CandyBar, there isn't even any wells in this section! There were supposed to box things (like under the 'Folder icons'). So I can't replace or modify the icons or anything. It's like the actual "places" for the icons don't exist!

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No well here either

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This's what it's supposed to look like!

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This is he info box for my movies folder.

Oh and I already tried deleting the com.apple.desktop.plist and com.apple.finder.plist files.

PLEASE! Somebody help! I figured the trackpad and the disappearing icons must be separate issues.