Sidebar not showing any favourites

[meddyliol]

My wife's imac with Mountain Lion on is not showing anything on the sidebar favourites. They are selected in Finder Preferences but nothing is showing where it should be. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Brian

 

[chscag]

Try setting up a test account on her iMac and see if the sidebar selections are showing up when chosen from that account. Let us know.

 

[MacShane]

I had the same exact problem the other day after my wife was d*cking around in my account on our iMac to watch some TV show I downloaded (she didn't think she could watch it from her account). It really pissed me off cuz I have sidebar favorites set up in a very specific way and now they were just...GONE and I couldn't seem to get them to come back, no matter what I tried.

After interrogating her rather harshly, using some expletives and sexually discriminatory remarks about women and computers, I decided I needed to calm down and take a deep breath, during which I restarted the iMac. When the computer came back online, there were my sidebar favorites, magically restored.

May want to try that, if you haven't already.

Don't know how it happened, never saw it happen before and don't know if it had anything to do with my wife's actions, but she claims she didn't do anything - don't they always?

 

[meddyliol]

Try setting up a test account on her iMac and see if the sidebar selections are showing up when chosen from that account. Let us know.

When I can get her off the imac will do as you suggest.

Cheers

Brian

 

[toMACsh]

When I can get her off the imac will do as you suggest.

Ok, so you posted this from another computer, I guess. But, she's on the iMac at 6AM, and you're on another computer? I think maybe there are other issues....

 

[meddyliol]

Ok, so you posted this from another computer, I guess. But, she's on the iMac at 6AM, and you're on another computer? I think maybe there are other issues....

There is something wrong with the forum time or something. I am in the UK and it was about 11.59 when I posted. Yes, I am on another machine, a Macbook Pro.

PS. Of course you are five hours behind me.

 

[meddyliol]

Try setting up a test account on her iMac and see if the sidebar selections are showing up when chosen from that account. Let us know.

Did a guest account and everything works OK. Still not working through normal account though.

 

[chscag]

That indicates her primary account that she uses is corrupt. Possibly only parts of it are corrupt but it may be best to create a new account for her. If you have Time Machine backups of her machine, try restoring to an earlier date. Otherwise, create a new admin account and copy what you can from her old account to the new one. Test the new account to make sure everything is OK, and if it is, remove the old account.

 

[toMACsh]

Or you can try to find out what is corrupt, but don't get your hopes up. I'd try replacing the com.apple.finder.plist file first. I'm not sure if there is one specifically for the Sidebar though. Can't look - not at my Mac. (See below. Thanks, Craig.)

The plist files are in her user account, whatever it is called /Library/Preferences

Drag that file out of there and Restart. A fresh one will be created. Then see about that Sidebar issue.

 

[cradom]

I think the one you need to move is com.apple.sidebarlists.plist.
Try that one.