Mac crash already!

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Hi, I just got my first mac last week, 20" imac. Everything was going fine until today. I was on the internet when the busy symbol started even though I was in the middle of typing and had not selected anything. It would not go after several minutes and the page seemed to be stuck. The internet was still working as I could open up google earth and applications were still opening. I then decided it must have crashed so I clicked shut down and selected to close safari. It then rebooted and seemed to be taking a long time to load. When it eventually loaded all my settings had been reset to factory and all my files which were in iphoto, itunes etc had gone. They are still on the hard drive but don't appear in the appicatopns. I also have a bt e-mail account and this all automatically set up when I installed the bt software for broadband and worked with mail. Now my mail doesn't work and needs setting up but I don't know how to do this as it's wanting to create a .mac account. How do I re-sync this with my bt account. Also when apps are opened they go through set up as if it's the first time I've opened them.

What's happened here.

Thanks.
 
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Have you tried to open an unsupported site in one of the tabs? Sometimes the browsers crash when they can’t handle certain websites. If that’s the case you should use a different browser.

After a program crash, if you want to identify the cause of it, try to dig it from the log files. They are usually stored in ~/Library/Log/Crash Reports (not sure the exact wording). When you open the respective log file, you can see the reason for the crash but I can’t guarantee that you will understand it all. At least try to get some idea if possible.

You can also try to verify & repair permissions. (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).

I cannot really say anything about re-syncing with the BT account (never used it).

If possible, post a screenshot of the crash report. One of could perhaps figure out the cause of it.
 
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Thanks for your advice.

I did not have tabs enabled and will look into the logs.

My Mac dream of plug and play without these windowsesque problems is shattered! Oh well...you do learn a lot when things go pear shaped!
 
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sursuciofla

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jonezy said:
My Mac dream of plug and play without these windowsesque problems is shattered! Oh well...you do learn a lot when things go pear shaped!

Yup Macs do crash, it's reality. I don't know who told you they were perfect? My crashes all the time when using Safari.
 
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sursuciofla said:
Yup Macs do crash, it's reality. I don't know who told you they were perfect? My crashes all the time when using Safari.

Then something is definitely wrong with you machine. I have 4 Macs in my house and while Safari itself occasionally quits, it's never brought the whole machine down.
 
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sursuciofla

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Well, I said it wrong...Safari crashes. Safari is poo. Just misuse of words.

TIGERS RULE~!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Well....I am a realist and expected my MAC to crash occasionally. What I didn't expect it to do was wipe out all my settings etc.

baggss, your comment does concern me. Have you heard of this before? I think I will call Apple and find out what went on.

Still loving my MAC though and happy I switched. Hope it stays that way!
 
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Safari shouldn't affect other programs and cause them to loose data...

Something is wrong here.
 
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One possible reason all your settings and stuff are gone is because you no long have read permissions on your preferences folder (corruption due to the shutdown you did maybe). Anyway, go to your applications folder, and then into a folder called utilities and then run the app called Disk Utility. Select your main hardisk where OSX is (if you only have one disk and no external disks then you will only have one option) from the left hand pane, and then in the right hand pain click Repair Disk Permissions.

Now, log out and log in and hopefully everything will be back as it is.

One final word of advice, it sounds as though maybe you could have avoided the system crash. When a program stops responding you can "Force Quit" it and it shouldn't crash the OS. You can do this by either right clicking on its icon on the dock and selecting force quit, or bringing up the force quit dialog by selecting it from the top left apple menu.
 
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Thanks for that,

I now know what has caused this to happen. Somewhere along the line I messed with my home folder and changed its name or did something which created a second folder with a variation of my name in the user folder, even though there was not a second account set up. I then started using safari, not realising what I had done. Then safari hung and I forced quit it and shut it down. When it re-started, it used this second folder I had created and ignored all preferences in my home folder which had the effect of me thinking they had been wiped.

The only prob is I now have this second folder sitting there but am afraid to delete it incase I create problems again. Any advice on what I should do? I am happy with the way everything is set up now and am wondering if I should just leave it lone.

Cheers.
 
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I haven't had a single problem with my iMac...

I hope you purchased applecare.
 
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Safari crashes quite regularly (like twice a week) for me but it does not effect other programs in anyway.
 

dtravis7


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The only time Safari shuts down is on a site with non standard code. Never had it happen otherwise.
 
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octaveorange

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I also have had numerous safari crashes, but have never in five years running three macs ever had a system crash. Good to hear that you didn't either. In the future, simply force quit safari (or whatever app is having issues) instead of powering down the machine.
 
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I've had that iPhoto issue once, but it was after an update to 10.4.4 and was very weird. But ever since, my mac is working so well it's almost boring.
 
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heymac

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I've got 2 macs and both needed new hard drives before 2 years was up. Not impressed.
 

dtravis7


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heymac said:
I've got 2 macs and both needed new hard drives before 2 years was up. Not impressed.


Macs use the EXACT same brands of Hard Drives Dell, Gateway and the rest use. You can not blame apple for Hard Drives dying. They are the exact same drives.
 
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baggss said:
Then something is definitely wrong with you machine. I have 4 Macs in my house and while Safari itself occasionally quits, it's never brought the whole machine down.

My PowerBook has been on straight for very long periods of time and I have the same situation as baggss. Safari has crashed before but it has never even come close to taking down the system. I had Finder crash once but it was fine after like 4 seconds.
 

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