10.3.8 taking 4 minutes to startup!!!

[socialpest]

this is crazy, for some reason my mac is taking 4 minutes to start up (i timed it). it's a 1 gH g4 PB with 1,256 of ram with around 20gigs free on on the hard drive.

i've done a disk repair and run the default maintenance in Onyx but these made no difference.

the only things i can think that could have done this are the installation of virtual pc (i felt like i was introducing cancer to my poor old mac) or the last security patch.

in a various forums i found a few other people with the same issue but no definitive fixes.

anyone with any sugestions on how to fix i'd be very grateful.

 

[iWhat]

This is going to be asked sooner or later, but did you recently install lots of fonts for your mac?

 

[socialpest]

funny you should say that, i did inadvertantly install a whole bunch of fonts that i don't really need.

is there a quick way for me to uninstall them? i don't have suitcase or another similar package.

to describe fully what happens, the blue startup screen runs as normal, then i get the wallpaper and the spinning beachball for nearly 4 minutes before the icons in the menu bar are adding then finally the menu itself.

the font things seems a reasonable solution if i can figure the best way to remove the unwanted ones...

thanks for your observation.

 

[iWhat]

I can't recall what is the overall correct method of removing fonts, but could go into Font Book and disable some of the ones you added. Or go into Finder Library/Fonts, and sort by date to remove the ones you just installed.

 

[ApplejustWorks]

Fontbook>File>Remove Font

 

[socialpest]

yikes i have had a look in the user>library>fonts and it's worse than i thought. there are hundreds of them! i have them backed up so am happy to trash.

however, i would like to keep the system fonts, is there a way i can trash the lot and then reinstall the standard set?

i figure i can just use the ones from the system library - but thought it best to check.

this has got to be the reason i'm sure, many thanks for your help guys.

 

[socialpest]

ok - moved all the fonts in my account library to a folder on the desktop and restarted.

it took less than 2 mins to start up and all the standard fonts seem to still be in operation.

many thanks iWhat for that observation.

 

[iWhat]

Your welcome. It's a well-known problem in mac os x and among the members here.

 

[Macman]

yea, if you're using more than the default fonts, suitcase is the way to go, as i've said before, I love apple, but fontbook sucks.