Chapter 33

Troubleshooting

IN THIS CHAPTER: The SECRETS Rule of Three Error messages explained Oddities on the screen Startup troubles Disk troubles File, desktop, and icon ailments Keyboard snafus

PRINCIPLES OF TROUBLESHOOTING The Macintosh has an infinite number of cooks. There are the programmers at Apple who wrote the system software. There are the programmers who wrote the software you use, including the extensions and control panels that modify the system software. And then there’s the hardware, complete with a number of additional software elements (in the ROM chips, for example), both from Apple and other companies. With so many instructions being shouted at it, no wonder the Mac can get flustered and throw up its hands in frustration. The problems you may encounter vary:

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Mysterious system crashes or freezes Error messages Startup problems (the blinking question mark icon or the Sad Mac icon) Application problems, when the Mac simply doesn’t do what it’s sup- posed to Printing troubles Disk problems (their icons don’t show up on the desktop or the Mac reports that they’re “not a Macintosh disk”)

A word about troubleshooting There’s a certain emotional element to a Mac going wrong. The Mac, after all, is betraying you, usually at a moment when you can least afford it. We don’t know about you, but when our Macs go goofy, we feel a rising well of frustra- tion and loss of control. Our heart rate doesn’t go back to normal until some semblance of normal operation has returned. Therefore, our troubleshooting advice for you is to establish control first, even if it means that you have to strip down your system. Once you know the machine is working properly, you can restore your software and hardware add- ons, one at a time, until you discover which element is causing the problem. It’s important to understand that in many cases, you never find out what caused the problem. You may rearrange the SCSI devices attached to your Mac and find the problem gone. You may change the order in which your extensions load and find that you have no more mysterious crashes. Or, you may reinstall your system software and clear up some odd behavior you’d noticed. In all of these examples, you’ll never know why you had a problem. You’ll have isolated only the general area of the problem. Still, you’ll be just as happy that the problem is gone.

More troubleshooting Before you become alarmed at the relative thinness of this chapter, please be advised that you’ll find substantial troubleshooting chunks at the end of some chapters. Separate troubleshooting sections appear for fonts (Chapter 24); printing problems (Chapter 25); SCSI (Chapter 30); and networking (Chapter 32). In this chapter, we hope to give you some Mac-guru wisdom on the gen- eral concept of troubleshooting, as well as mention a number of miscella- neous, mysterious, very common Mac problems and how to solve them. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1049

THE SECRETS RULE OF THREE Wouldn’t it feel good to know a three-step procedure guaranteed to wipe out any mysterious software problems? There is such a trick. Our sure-fire solu- tion is grounded on a simple idea: Your Mac worked when it left Apple’s fac- tory. (Some of our friends chuckle at this statement. Still, we have to start somewhere.) Therefore, our troubleshooting concept is simple: To hunt down the prob- lem, you restore the Mac to the way it was when you bought it. It’s a three- step process. Except in cases when something’s genuinely wrong with your Mac (that is, it requires a service call), this three-step process is nearly infallible.

Step 1:Start up with the Shift key The first things you should suspect when you’re having strange system prob- lems are the extensions and control panels you installed. These, after all, did- n’t come from Apple. If you’re using System 7 or later, this is an easy step. Restart the Mac. As it’s starting up, press the Shift key. You can release the key as soon as you see the “Extensions off” message. This simple step, we’ve found, promptly cures more than half of the myste- rious system errors that plague a typical Mac. Of course, all you’ve achieved so far is to temporarily eliminate the problem — an extremely useful accom- plishment if you’re in a hurry, need to get some work done, and don’t have time to fiddle around with hours of troubleshooting steps. You still have to figure out which extension was causing the problem, though. And the most efficient way to do that is to use Conflict Catcher, or even the demo version thereof, which is included with this book. See Chapter 34 for instructions. (And if the purpose of your turning extensions off is to permit a safe, clean installation of new system software, as described next, you don’t have to worry that the Shift key will turn off the very extensions needed to run your CD-ROM drive. On all recent Macs, including most Power Macintosh mod- els, the system software CD-ROM itself contains the extensions that allow it to mount and start your Mac. Clever of Apple, huh?)

Step 2:A clean reinstall of the System System software, like politicians and fresh fruit, may go bad over time. Fortunately, you have an infinite supply of healthy replacement copies (your system disks or system CD-ROM). 1050 Part IV: Attachments

However, as we mentioned in Chapter 5, there’s more to fixing your System Folder than simply running the Installer. The Installer program, as a convenience to you, is designed to replace only those components of the System Folder that need updating. If your System file is already corrupted, it will stay corrupted. If you have a damaged font suitcase, it will remain dam- aged. And so on. The only way to guarantee a virgin System Folder is to perform a clean install. Doing so is as easy as a long A-B-C. (If you have System 7.6, you’ll be walked through these steps.)

A:Check the hard drive surface Start up your Mac from the Disk Tools disk. (This floppy comes with every Mac ever made.) Run the program on it called Disk First Aid. (Disk First Aid is also on your system disks, every System Update disk set Apple releases, and every Mac’s system-software CD-ROM. But Disk First Aid can’t repair any problems it finds on the disk it’s on — nor on the startup disk — which is why you have to start up your Mac from the Disk Tools disk. Of course, if you have an external drive of some kind, such as a Jaz, Zip, or SyQuest cartridge, you can start up from that disk and run Disk First Aid off of it.) Disk First Aid may well discover — and fix — problems with your hard drive that have been responsible for whatever glitches you’ve been having. You should still proceed with installing a new System Folder, however.

B:Install the new System Folder The next step depends on your Mac model. In all of the following scenarios, you’ll have the best luck if you start up your Mac from your Disk Tools disk, or from your system-startup CD-ROM, or with all extensions off except those needed to run the CD-ROM. If you’re using System 7.5, run the System Software Installer from your Apple CD-ROM (or your Install Me First floppy). Press Ô-Shift-K at the main Installer screen, and click the “Install New System Folder” button. (If you have a PowerBook that didn’t come with a set of system disks, and you failed to make a set of backup disks when you bought the computer, you’ll have to buy a set of system disks by calling 800-SOS-APPL.) If you’re using Mac OS 7.6, click the Options button on the main installer screen; choose “Create additional System Folder.” If you have a Performa, or System 7.1 or earlier, open your existing System Folder. Hide the Finder icon by dragging it into another folder — the Preferences folder, for example. Then rename the System Folder. (Call it “Old System Folder,”for example.) Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1051

The point of these two steps is to make the Installer think that there’s no System Folder on your hard drive. Thwarted from simply building a new System Folder around your old one, the Installer will build a completely new System Folder. Now run the System Software Installer from your Apple CD-ROM (or your Install 1/Install Me First floppy) in the usual way. If you have a recent Performa, this means running your Restore System Software program (on the Performa CD-ROM). If you have an older Performa, run the Apple Restore program. (This will work only if you faithfully made yourself a set of backup disks the day you bought the computer, as instructed. If you didn’t, you have no choice but to throw yourself on the mercy of 1-800-SOS-APPL to get, or buy, a set of system disks.)

C:Customize your fresh System Folder The new System Folder won’t have any of the extensions, fonts, control pan- els, Apple menu items, and sounds you may have added to your original System Folder. Nor will it have any Apple system-update files (such as System 7.5 Updates). And it won’t have any Preference files your software has created over the years. Re-creating all of them — your settings, passwords, toolbar configurations, and so on — could take hours. That’s why your old System Folder remains with its new name (“Previous System Folder,” in System 7.5/7.6’s case). After you’ve confirmed that the clean reinstall successfully restored your Mac to health, you can put those add-on components back into the new System Folder. Where possible (especially in the case of fonts), therefore, re- install this stuff from original master disks, not from your problematic previ- ous System Folder. Preferences files are tricky; you can usually get away with dragging them out of your old System Folder’s Preferences folder into the new one, but remember that corrupted Preference files are a leading cause of Mac glitches and hangups. If you can limit your Preferences file-dragging to the programs you’ve spent the most time customizing (such as your Word and QuicKeys files), you may spare yourself yet another round of troubleshooting. If you put only a few add-on items at a time into the new System Folder, and then restart each time, one of two good things will happen. Either you’ll finish adding everything to your System Folder and wind up with a perfectly functioning machine, or you’ll stumble onto the one extension, control panel, font, or preference file that started the trouble in the first place. 1052 Part IV: Attachments

MACINTOSH SECRET The glory of a clean reinstall NEVER DO ANOTHER In any case, reinstalling your System Folder can CLEAN REINSTALL work wonders on a sick Mac. Over and over and If you’ve ever done a clean system over again, we’ve solved the weirdest problems reinstall,as directed in this chapter,we using this technique, both on our own Macs and know one thing for sure:You’d much our friends’ Macs. We’ve often had clients consid- rather not have to endure that entire ering us geniuses after a clean reinstall, especially ordeal again the next time troubles when we’ve helped them do so over the phone — arise.Fortunately,we have two tricks “That did it! My problem’s gone! You’re amazing! to make your future life easier. How the hell did you fix it?!” First of all,the minute you’re finished Many problems solved by a clean reinstall performing a clean reinstall, back up sound like they have nothing to do with system the new System Folder! Drag the entire software: a SCSI drive that’s not working; font fresh folder onto a Zip,Jaz,or SyQuest disk.And if you have no such backup problems; printing troubles. A clean reinstall system,consider compressing the solves it all. entire fresh System Folder with StuffIt In fact, if it weren’t that running the Installer or another compression program (see entails 45 minutes of inserting disks and copying Chapter 22).Next time you’re tempted add-on components from the old System Folder, to perform a clean reinstall,you’ll have we’d suggest doing a clean reinstall first when you this fresh,wholesome System Folder start getting system troubles. ready to use (after first renaming and Network users: Don’t forget how easy it is to disabling your old System Folder,of course). run the Installer on several Macs on a network without having to shuffle floppy disks. (See our Our second suggestion:For goodness’ sake,apply a colored label to the “Installing system software over a network” Secret contents of your Control Panels, in Chapter 32.) Extensions, Preferences, Fonts, and Apple Menu Items folders.As we mentioned in Chapter 2,the point of Step 3:Unplug the SCSI chain applying a label from your Labels As you know from Chapter 30, the equipment menu to everything in a fresh System plugged into the SCSI port on the back of the Mac Folder in this way is that later,when can have a huge and devastating effect on your you examine the contents of these folders,you’ll be able to see at a Mac’s behavior. In that chapter you’ll find specific glance which items you or your ideas for hunting down the causes of the conflict. software have added to the System The first step is to figure out if you have a SCSI Folder — as opposed to the items problem. Therefore, when you have a strange, that were originally installed by the repeating system problem, disconnect your SCSI Apple installer.This makes it much chain from the Mac so that your SCSI port is left easier to reinstate your custom empty. If the problem disappears, you know where components from the old System to being your troubleshooting search, following Folder to the new one. the suggestions at the end of Chapter 30. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1053

Other things to try We truly believe that our three-step plan is nearly foolproof. After all, once you’ve turned off your extensions, reinstalled the System, and unplugged the SCSI chain, your Mac should be pretty much the way it was when you bought it! If you’re still having some unexplained erratic behavior, here are a few more treatments worth trying, roughly in this order.

Zap the PRAM The PRAM (parameter RAM) is a tiny cache of memory kept alive by your Mac’s built-in battery. It’s responsible for keeping the Mac’s clock ticking and maintaining the settings you make in your control panels — such as sound, mouse speed, memory, network, SCSI, and screen settings. Rarely, rarely (but still sometimes), this tiny bit of memory gets corrupted somehow. Typical symptoms: Your control panels won’t retain their settings; you can’t print; you have strange networking problems. To reset the PRAM, restart the Mac. As it’s starting up, hold down the Ô, Option, letter P, and letter R keys until you hear the second or third startup chord. Release the keys. (On a PCI-slotted Power Mac, turn off the Mac and hold down the keys before turning it on again.) Zapping the PRAM often erases your control panel settings: your preferred mouse-tracking speed, desktop pattern, speaker volume level, and so on. Still, it’s but the work of a moment to reset them using your control panels. (PowerBook 500 or 5000 owners’ note: Don’t press the PRAM keys beyond the second chime. If you do, the PowerBook will shut down and can’t be restarted until you press the back-panel power switch for 30 seconds.)

Rebuild the Desktop Several times in this book we’ve mentioned the Desktop file, the invisible database on every disk that stores information about all your icons — what they look like, which programs they belong to, and where they’re positioned in Finder windows. If the information in this Desktop file gets mangled, it causes problems. The cure is simple: You can rebuild the Desktop file by holding down the Option and Ô keys while restarting your Mac — or, for a more thorough job, by using TechTool, included with this book. For a complete discussion of Desktop rebuilding, see Chapter 1. 1054 Part IV: Attachments

TRUE FACT Throw away the Prefs file WHITHER AWAY THE GET Whenever you launch a modern software program, it INFO COMMENTS? generally consults the Preferences file in your System For over a decade,rebuilding the Folder’s Preferences folder before its loading process is Desktop file meant losing complete. If that Prefs file is damaged, so is your work whatever comments you had session. typed into the “Get Info”boxes Therefore, if you’re having trouble in one particular of your files and folders.Indeed, program, quit the program. Then open your System even the “Rebuild the desktop?” Folder, open your Preferences folder, and trash the pro- dialog box mentioned this gram’s Prefs file. The very next time you launch that pro- unfortunate side effect.For years,Apple promised that it gram, it will automatically create a new Prefs file — one would get around to fixing this without any corruptions. (One reason a corrupted Prefs silly bug in some future system file often eludes diligent troubleshooters is that rein- update. stalling an entire program generally preserves your exist- That day has finally arrived. ing Preference file, corruptions and all.) Beginning with System 7.5.3,no This trick is especially useful in that most frequently such warning appears in the used program of all — the Finder. The Finder Prefs file “Rebuild?”dialog box when you stores all kinds of settings important to your Mac work press Ô-Option at startup,and environment: The font and icon-layout settings used for your Get Info comments are, Finder windows; list-view window settings; whether or indeed,preserved.Hallelujah. not the “Are you sure?” message appears when you However,as free book winner empty the Trash; and so on. Jean Pierre Jansen observes,not all is yet right with the world. Therefore, if you start noticing weird goings-on with Experts agree that using your icons, windows, or Trash, try discarding the Finder TechTool,included with this Prefs file. Restart the Mac to generate a fresh, clean copy. book,remains a safer and more Other Preference file-related troubles to watch for: thorough method of rebuilding Network problems. If you’re having trouble with net- your Desktop file — but it still doesn’t preserve your comments working and you’re hardware doesn’t seem to be the when it nukes your Desktop file. problem, try deleting the File Sharing folder and the Guess you can’t have everything. User & Groups data file, both located in the Preferences folder. Then, after restarting, go to the Sharing Setup control panel, enter a new Owner pass- word and turn on File Sharing. This creates a new Users & Groups data file, replacing the corrupt data. Of course, you also lose any previously defined users and group data. PC Exchange. You’ve been happily mounting PC disks on your Mac for months, then, all of a sudden, your Mac won’t accept DOS disks anymore. Once Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1055

again, the solution is simple. Drag PC Exchange Preferences file out of the Preferences folder and into the Trash. The next time you start your Mac, a new Preferences file is created. Apple Menu Options. If you encounter, on startup, a message that says “There is not enough memory to load all of your extensions”— and you know that you do indeed have enough memory — the likely culprit is the Apple Menu Options Prefs file. Trash it and restart. Space hogs. Most Preference files are very small; they only contain basic settings information. But certain files in the Preferences folder can take up quite a bit of space. CD-ROM caching programs, such as CD AutoCache, for example, store in the Preferences folder directory information from the CD-ROMs you use. These directories add up quickly, especially if you use a large number of different CD-ROMs. Another often-overlooked Preference file is the Desktop Patterns Prefs. In System 7.5/7.6, you change the desktop pattern using the Desktop Patterns control panel, but the patterns are stored in the Desktop patterns Prefs file. If you add a large number of new Desktop patterns, this file, too, can become bloated. Finally, there’s the Cache folder for your Web browser (Netscape Navigator and AOL’s browser, for example). It can quickly mount up to dozens of megabytes if you don’t watch over it carefully. (You can adjust your browser’s Cache- folder buildup potential in the Preferences command of the browser itself.) If you find megabytes mysteriously disappearing from your hard drive, check the Preferences folder for such files, which can be dumped periodically. There’s only one problem with the drag-your-Preferences-to-the-Trash approach to problem-solving, by the way — you lose your preferences. Cumulatively, they represent hours of work that you’ll have to re-create from scratch if they become corrupt. We highly recommend backing up your Preferences folder (from inside your System Folder) religiously. When trou- bles later arise, you can drag the corrupt file to the Trash and replace it with the backup.

Replace the battery Every Mac has a battery — not just PowerBooks. We refer, of course, to the built-in five- to seven-year battery that maintains the clock even when the computer is off. In the olden days, nobody thought much about the lithium battery. These days, however, it’s suddenly rearing its ugly head — all over the world, more and more Macs are reaching their fifth and seventh birthdays. People’s 1056 Part IV: Attachments

lithium batteries are dying, causing all kinds of bizarre behavior usually related to file dates. For example, if your Mac suddenly starts stamping every new or modified file with the year 1904 or 1957, you’ve got yourself a dead lithium battery. We’d love to tell you which Eveready battery to pick up at your local drug- store, but no such luck. Your Mac’s internal battery must generally be replaced by an Apple technician, usually at a cost of about $25.

Update your hard disk driver Follow this step only if your Mac started life using one system version (such as System 7.0) and then was upgraded to a newer one (such as System 7.5). As we mentioned in Chapter 8, not all software is compatible with new system versions — that includes the invisible software that controls your hard drive (its driver). If our first three steps haven’t resolved the problems your Mac’s been giv- ing you, and your hard drive is a candidate, follow the instructions in Chapter 8 for updating your driver. Fortunately, updating the driver doesn’t involve erasing your hard drive or having to copy your files off it.

Remove your expansion cards If you’ve tried the usual array of troubleshooting steps and something still seems to be wrong, question any NuBus, PCI, or PDS cards you’ve installed (see Chapter 31). The point, remember, is to restore the Mac to its fresh- from-factory condition in your quest to find the problem. As free book win- ner Amitai Schlair points out, an out-of-date or poorly seated card could easily escape your notice.

Run a hard disk diagnosis program There are certain hard-drive problems that even our troubleshooting process can’t solve. They have to do with the invisible files the Mac maintains on your hard drive: The Desktop files, the list of fragmented files, and so on. If these files become damaged, a hard disk repair program may come to the rescue. Your Mac came with such a program: Disk First Aid. It’s not much, and it’s not nearly as good as the commercial drive-repair programs like Norton Utilities. But Disk First Aid can indeed solve a number of these hidden disk problems. Just run Disk First Aid (after starting up the Mac from your Disk Tools floppy or Apple CD-ROM) and click the Start button. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1057

For PowerBooks only:Reset the Power Manager The Power Manager is a special circuit in the PowerBook that supervises the use of battery juice. When the Power Manager gets confused, all kinds of ter- rible things can result: Problems turning on the computer, charging your bat- tery, using the trackpad, starting up, going to sleep, and so on. Here’s how you reset the Power Manager to its default state. Always begin by unplugging the power adapter and removing all batteries. Leave the laptop that way for 10 minutes. If the problem doesn’t go away when you try turning it on again, continue as follows: PowerBook 140–180. Insert two straightened paper clips, simultaneously, into the tiny holes — the reset and interrupt switches — on the back panel (next to the power button). Hold the paper clips this way for 10 seconds. PowerBook 150. Push the reset button on the back panel with a paper clip for 10 seconds. Reattach the power adapter and push the reset button again — just briefly. You should hear a small pop from the speaker. That’s normal. PowerBook 500 series. Press the Ô, Option, Control, and Power On keys simultaneously. This keystroke resets the Power Manager whether or not the computer is turned on. (If it’s on, though, it will turn off when you do this.) PowerBook Duos. Press and hold the Power button on the rear of the lap- top for 45 seconds. PowerBook 5000, 1400, and 190 series. Shut down the PowerBook. Turn it on while holding down the Ô, Option, P,and R keys (yep, the same key- stroke as resetting the PRAM, as described earlier). You’ll hear a single chime, then the screen will go dark and the green Sleep light will be on. Press the reset button on the back of the machine (under the external video port, if you have one). In all of these cases, you should now be able to turn the PowerBook on normally. Note, however, that this procedure deletes your RAM disk, if you’ve set one up.

AVOIDING TROUBLES IN THE FIRST PLACE Of course, it’s much better to spend 30 seconds preventing problems than to spend three hours solving them. Chapter 8 contains our preventive-mainte- nance schedule for your hard drive. We urge you to follow it. 1058 Part IV: Attachments

MAC SECRET CREATE YOUR OWN EMERGENCY DISK IN AN EMERGENCY

Hard disk utility software (Disk First Aid,Norton Utilities,MacTools,and so on) is all well and good,but it has one inconvenience:You can’t use it to analyze or repair the disk it’s on. And it can’t operate on the startup disk,either (which is usually your internal hard drive,usually precisely the disk you want to repair). For a while,each commercial hard disk program came with an “Emergency Disk”— a floppy containing a tiny System Folder (enough to start up the Mac) and the utility program itself.(In the case of Disk First Aid,the Emergency Disk is called Disk Tools.) This arrangement was colossally inconvenient,though.(1) If you didn’t have the Emergency Disk with you when things went wrong,you were out of luck.(2) If you didn’t have the exact Emergency Disk for your model, you were out of luck.(3) And,as new Mac models and new System versions appeared,the likelihood of your being able to create a correct,working Emergency Disk grew increasingly slim. There’s a better solution.Open your Memory control panel.Turn on the RAM Disk option.Move the slider to,say,3.5 or 4 megs — enough to hold a bare-bones System Folder and your disk utility program.Restart the Mac.When it comes to,you’ll see a new disk icon on your Desktop: The RAM disk. Onto this disk,copy the System suitcase file from your System Folder,plus the Finder,plus any enabler your model needs to run.(Put them into a folder called “System Folder”on the RAM disk.) Copy the disk-repair program onto it,too.Finally,use your Startup Disk control panel to choose the RAM disk as the next startup disk.Restart the Mac a second time. Now the Mac is running off the RAM disk.Your hard disk utility program can safely (and really quickly) operate on your internal hard drive,which is no longer the startup disk and no longer the disk that contains the hard disk program. If your Mac doesn’t have enough RAM to create a big enough RAM disk,by the way,consider creating a RAM disk just big enough to hold a mini-System Folder.Once the Mac is running,you can always then run the disk-utility program from a floppy (instead of copying it to the RAM disk).

Here’s a blockbuster Secret, new in this edition, that we’ve used to save hours of installing and troubleshooting time in the last few years: Turn off your extensions before you install anything. That is, the next time you get a new program, or an updated version of an old one, restart the Mac with the Shift key down. You’ve just restored your Mac to its original birth condition, which is exactly how your new software expects to find it. You’ve just dodged a whole host of potential conflicts and corruptions that can occur during the installation process — many of which may not crop up to haunt you until weeks later. Ironically, this step is especially valid when you’re installing Apple’s own system-software updates. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1059

THE MAC SECRETS ERROR-MESSAGE TABLE Wouldn’t it be great if your Mac could tell you exactly what went wrong in the aftermath of a crash? Imagine recovering from a crash and seeing a dialog box that says,“Your system has crashed because, due to a programming error. The Make Compost command in EnviroHelper Pro 2.0 conflicts with the desk accessory TimeKiller 3.1. Please update the desk accessory to version 3.3.2 to eliminate this conflict.” In reality, the Mac’s error codes aren’t nearly that precise — or enlighten- ing. For one thing, the error definitions themselves provide you with little information that you can actually use; knowing that your crash was caused by an “unimplemented core routine” (Error 12 or Error -4) doesn’t shed much light on why a program keeps crashing. When something goes wrong deep inside the Mac, it can only report to you that something is wrong. It has no idea which specific series of keystrokes, mouse clicks, and software interac- tions actually caused the problem. Error messages are of primary value only to programmers — and not very helpful even to them. Furthermore, Mac error messages are often flat-out wrong. The Mac says you had an “illegal instruc- tion” problem (Error 3) when in reality you simply used up all your RAM. In the first three editions of this book, we explained all this. We said that a list of Mac error messages, and their meanings, is pointless. Yet, the mail from readers of each edition was always the same: “Please print a list of the error messages!”At last, then, here it is. As you’ll see, these descriptions occasionally provide a clue for action on your part (that is, disk is full). In others, however, there’s a bug in your soft- ware, and there’s not much you can do about it. As you’ll read in the follow- ing list, many bugs result from programmers failing to clean up after themselves during programming — or being unable to anticipate their pro- gram’s interactions with other software. There are two categories of error messages. Those with positive numbers are the so-called DS errors (which stands for deep doo-doo). These are seri- ous system crashes that require you to restart the machine. Errors with nega- tive numbers aren’t so severe; usually you just have to click OK to proceed.

DS Errors By far the most common positive-numbered error codes are Type 1, Type 3, and Type 11. You can read about them below; for now, note that the primary steps to solving repeated problems of these types are (a) update or turn off your extensions, (b) update your hard disk driver, and (c) do a clean reinstall of your System Folder. All three of these techniques are explained at the begin- ning of this chapter. 1060 Part IV: Attachments

ID=01:Bus Error (Type 1 error) The Mac has tried to access memory that doesn’t exist — for example, the program you’re using assumed that the Mac has more RAM available than it actually does. This kind of glitch — probably one of the most common — is called a bus error. You can remedy the problem by allocating more memory to the program that crashed, adding more RAM to your system, or by simply restarting your Mac so that the RAM available isn’t fragmented (but is avail- able on contiguous chunks).

ID=02:Address Error Mac Plus and SE only: Your processor tried to access an odd-numbered RAM address when it should have accessed an even-numbered one.

ID=03:Illegal Instruction Your software issued an instruction your Mac’s processor model doesn’t under- stand. The cause may be an out-of-date system extension or hard disk driver.

ID=04:Zero Divide Error When programmers test their works in progress, they might deliberately instruct the computer to divide a number by zero, to see how well the pro- gram handles errors. They occasionally forget to take this instruction out, as you’ve just discovered.

ID=05:Range Check Error The software checked to see if a number — part of some internal calculation — is within a certain range. It wasn’t.

ID=06:Overflow Error A number was too large for the space the software allotted for it.

ID=07:Privilege Violation This only crops up during the writing of a program. The Mac attempted to process a command in User mode instead of Supervisor mode.

ID=08:Trace Mode Error When debugging newly written software, programmers sometimes walk through it, line by line, using what’s called Trace mode. This message indi- cates that your Mac’s processor has accidentally switched into Trace mode. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1061

ID=09 and ID=10:Line 1010 & 1111 Trap Once again, the software has issued an instruction that the processor doesn’t understand.

ID=9 (Type 11 error) A Type 11 message is the Power Mac equivalent of a generic Type 1 error. It simply refers to an error that has occurred in the native Power PC code. Technically, Apple calls it a “hardware exception error.” Realistically, it’s an extension conflict, a corrupted font, or a Power Mac-hostile program. Do a clean reinstall, as described earlier in the chapter. And if you’re getting lots of Type 11 errors, remember that Apple has been methodically eliminating them with each successive release of the System 7.5 family of system software. Keep your Mac’s System Folder current.

ID=12:Unimplemented Core Routine As with the ID=04 error, an instruction was left over from the debugging process.

ID=13:Uninstalled Interrupt An interrupt is a moment during the running of a program when an external device, such as the keyboard or the disk drive, asks for attention. If there are no instructions in RAM that tell the Mac how to talk to that device, you get this error.

ID=15:Segment Loader Error To conserve RAM, a non-Power Mac program is loaded into RAM in seg- ments as needed. A system-software program called the segment loader over- sees this swapping. If, for some reason, the segment loader can’t do its thing, this error results.

ID=20:Stack Ran into Heap Oops — a program’s internal instructions somehow overflowed into the memory space reserved for data. May also trigger an ID-25.

ID=25:Memory Full Error You’ve probably run out of memory, although this message sometimes appears erroneously. 1062 Part IV: Attachments

ID=26-27,30-31:Missing Packages A package is a ready-to-run set of system software instructions that handles a particular task, such as initializing a disk. If a package is damaged, one of these messages tells you so. You need to perform a clean reinstall of your System Folder, as described earlier in this chapter.

ID=28:Stack Ran into Heap Fancy way of saying you ran out of memory.

Negative Error Codes There are many more negative-numbered error messages than positive. Furthermore, they make even less sense to the nonprogrammer. (Helpful example: “Packet too large or first entry of the write-data structure didn’t contain the full 14-byte header.”Sure.) Table 33-1 provides the general categories for each number range, along with a few that actually make sense to human beings.

Table 33-1 The Authoritative List of Negative Error Codes

Error Number What Causes It 0 through -8 General System errors. -9 through -21 Color Manager errors. -17 through -61 System errors involving files and disks (input and out- put). -34 Disk is full. -35 No such disk, or the Mac can’t find the disk it’s looking for. -37 Illegal filename (for example, the name includes a colon). -39 A corrupted file is on the disk, or the disk is having prob- lems. Usually accompanied by the message “end of file” or “no additional data in the format.”It points in the general direction of a corrupt file. It means that the Mac started to process a file, but couldn’t finish reading it — as if the end of the file had been chopped off. If you encounter this particular message at startup, it could Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1063

mean a your Launcher has become corrupt. Drag the Launcher into the Trash and reinstall it. -41 File is too big to fit in memory. -42 Too many files open. -44 and -46 Disk is locked. -53 through -57 Illegal disk request. -60 Something’s wrong with the disk directory. -64 through -66 Font problems. -64 through -90 Problems reading disks (timing and track troubles). -91 through -99 AppleTalk errors. -108 through -117 Various memory-allocation errors. -120 through -127 HFS errors (disks, folders). -126 through -128 Menu problems. -130 through -132 More HFS errors. -147 through -158 Color management problems. -185 through -199 Resource Manager errors (problems managing data). -200 through -232 Problems with sound or sound files. -250 through -261 Problems with the MIDI Manager.

Details on the most common error messages Table 33-1 covers both common and obscure error numbers. Here, for your post-crash enjoyment, are more complete descriptions of the most com- monly spotted error messages.

“No Co-Processor Installed” The “no co-processor” message is almost never accurate — almost every Mac made today has a math co-processor chip (a floating point unit, FPU; described in Chapter 12), yet this message seems to crop up all time. The answer is so weird it’s almost funny. Whenever a software problem erupts, the Mac rapidly runs through an internal list of error messages, trying to find an accurate description. If it doesn’t find anything appropriate to report, it helplessly shows you the last error message in its list. Naturally, the “no co-processor” error is the last one on the list. 1064 Part IV: Attachments

The “no co-processor” message has nothing to do with whether your Mac has an FPU — or whether your software needs one.

Bus errors If you get a system crash with the “bus error” note, chances are good that your hard disk driver is incompatible with your software. It may be having the incompatibility with System 7, virtual memory, or 32-bit addressing (see Chapter 9 for more about virtual memory and 32-bit addressing.) If you have an Apple hard drive, run Apple HD SC Setup (see Chapter 8). If you have a non-Apple drive, call the manufacturer and get a copy of the lat- est utility software that can update your drivers. Other sources of bus errors are extensions. Follow Step 1 in the Rule of Three at the beginning of this chapter to ferret out the cause.

“Bad F-line instruction” An F-line instruction is a line of software code that directs your processor to consult the math chip, or floating point unit. But as you’ve probably discov- ered, this message appears even on Macs that do have an FPU. Or, they get the message when running software that doesn’t require an FPU. In other words, this message usually lies. Your software may be trying to access a nonexistent memory location, or it may have encountered the letter “F” in the wrong place in the programmer’s code! As is typical with such generic errors, a clean install of the system software — or of the program you’ve been using — will probably solve the problem.

“Application busy or missing”or “Application not found” As we mentioned in Chapter 1, you get this kind of message when you dou- ble-click a document for which the Mac doesn’t think it has the program to open it. The possible solutions are: You really don’t have the required program. If you double-click an Excel document and you don’t have Excel on any disk, this is the message you get. Except for installing Excel, there’s nothing you can do. You do have the required program, but the Mac is confused. It’s an easy one to fix: Just rebuild the Desktop file (see Chapter 1). Or, you may have two copies of the same program, perhaps with different version numbers. Clear out the older one. You have the required program, but it’s an outdated version, and the docu- ment you’re trying to double-click is from a newer version. Update the program. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1065

You have the required program, but the document’s TRUE FACT four-letter creator code somehow has gotten zapped, EASY OPEN so the Mac doesn’t know which program it’s supposed to use to open the document. You can restore the cre- You may live to see the end of the “Application not found” ator code by using either Get Info Extreme or ResEdit message on Macintosh (both included with this book) to type the code back computers. in. See Chapter 16 for detailed instructions. System 7.5 comes with a system extension called Easy Open.It, “Application unexpectedly quit” and Easy Open-aware programs, Usually this message means that a program ran out of have built-in intelligence that can handle documents whose memory. Normally, a program sees the end of its mem- parent programs don’t seem to ory supply coming and warns you. But sometimes it gets be available. caught unaware, like a center fielder who slams into the When you double-click a PICT outfield wall going for a fly. You can try giving the pro- file on an Easy Open-installed gram a larger memory allotment (see Chapter 9 for Mac,for example,you get a instructions on using the Get Info window to do so). dialog box that offers a list of Then again, this might be one of the standard prob- every program on your drive lems: An old version of the program; a program incom- capable of opening that PICT patible with System 7 or 7.5; or a program incompatible file! You just select the one you with virtual memory or 32-bit addressing. want to use for opening the file, and you’re on your way. “The File Sharing extension is not installed” As more software companies build Easy Open features into You get this message when you choose Sharing from the their programs,and as more File menu in the hopes of sharing your Mac’s hard drive translator files (like the ones with other Macs on the network. provided with System 7.5) Sometimes, of course, it’s true — the File Sharing become available,life will software isn’t installed. Use the Installer on your system become more and more disks to install it. On the other hand, this message also effortless and carefree.Without those,Macintosh Easy Open appears when a much simpler problem exists: You need doesn’t do much beyond to turn on AppleTalk in the Chooser. handling PICT and text files.(See Chapter 4 for details.) “System 7.1 won’t run on this machine. A newer version is required.” You see this message in exactly one circumstance: when you’re trying to start up a Mac that requires an enabler extension (see Chapter 5), and your startup disk is lack- ing the enabler. Find your original Install Me First system disk, insert it into the drive, and try starting up again. 1066 Part IV: Attachments

“You do not have enough access privileges” Occasionally, this message speaks the truth: Your Mac is on a network, and you’re trying to examine the hard drives of other people on the network who haven’t given you permission. These days, however, this message generally indicates a much simpler prob- lem: You’re using a Performa or System 7.5, and you’re trying to move some- thing out of the System Folder. Open your General Controls (or Performa) control panel, and you’ll see the problem immediately: You’ve got the “protect System Folder” feature turned on. (It’s designed to protect your Mac from being trashed by a clueless child. See Chapter 4 for more on General Controls.) Incidentally, you’ll also get this message if you keep your programs in a folder called Applications and the “Protect Applications folder” checkbox in the General Controls panel is turned on. Fortunately, Apple cleared this problem up with the release of System 7.5.3; the error message now clearly tells you that “protect System Folder” is the culprit.

“The command cannot be completed because it cannot be found” This all-time Goofy Grammar Hall of Fame winner sometimes appears when you try to paste a new icon onto your hard drive (described in Chapter 1). Of course, the reason you’re doing that task is that the drive’s previous icon has disappeared. Try as you might, pasting the new icon into the drive’s Get Info box won’t work. This problem crops up when you’re trying to change your hard drive’s icon for the second time. The first time you pasted a new icon for your hard drive, two things happened behind the scenes. First, an invisible file called Icon was created on the hard drive (you can see it using ResEdit). Second, the Mac switched on an internal toggle switch — the custom icon bit — that tells it to use the new icon file. If that original invisible icon file is missing for some reason, the Mac con- sults the custom icon bit, goes searching for your custom icon file, doesn’t find it, and displays the generic disk icon in its place. If you try to paste on a new custom icon, you get this message. It tells you that the Mac can’t find the old icon (the “it” that “can’t be found” in the error message) over which to paste the new one. Wild, eh? The real solution, obviously, is to reset the erroneous bit. ResEdit won’t work; it operates only on files, not disks. The simplest solution is to use Disk Rejuvenator, included with this book; it neatly solves this problem. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1067

“That folder is in use and cannot be deleted.” This infuriating message most often refers to an item in the Trash, especially the familiar “Rescued Items” described in Chapter 2. Free book winner Stefan Anthony discovered a sneaky way to delete that which is un-deletable. 1. Drag the folder (we’ll use the Recovered Items folder in this example) to the Desktop. 2. Rename the Recovered Items folder to the name of another folder on your disk. For example, if you have a Downloads folder, change the name of Recovered Items to Downloads. 3. Open the Downloads folder. Move all of the items in it to the newly named Downloads folder on your Desktop. 4. Trash the original Downloads folder. Move the new Downloads folder to the location of the former Downloads folder. You should now be able to empty the Trash, having successfully outfoxed the Mac at its own game. After all, you’re now trashing a perfectly ordinary folder.

ODDITIES ON THE SCREEN Sometimes, no error message is necessary to tell you that something’s gone wrong. One glance at the screen tells you that something’s amiss. Here’s how to handle these situations.

Generic icons As we mentioned in Chapter 1, the solution to your files losing their icons is to rebuild the Desktop. Every now and then, however, you’ll discover that only one program’s set of icons is turning up blank. If that’s the case, the “bundle bit” (a tiny software pointer that associates a program with its set of icons) may have become con- fused. You can use a shareware program like ReBundler or Save-a-BNDL, or you can reinstall the program onto your disk. After you have the bundle problem resolved, you still have to rebuild the Desktop to make the icons reappear — unless you use this System 7 trick. Select a file whose icon is missing. Choose Get Info from the File menu. Click the icon and press Ô-C (copy); then press Ô-V (paste). You just pasted the generic icon back onto itself. Finally, press Ô-X (cut) to remove the “custom” icon. This forces Finder to reread the BNDL information from the file on disk instead of from the Desktop databases. 1068 Part IV: Attachments

Shimmering monitor A monitor shimmer is usually caused by interference, such as a lamp, a fan, or other appliance that’s very close to it, or an air conditioner running on the same circuit. Consider putting the a/c on a separate circuit. You can also spend $250 or so for a line conditioner for the Mac. If none of these steps solves the problem, it’s possible the monitor actually needs to be repaired.

Flashing menu You wouldn’t believe the number of people — even power users — who accept a blinking menu as a way of life. Because it’s been blinking for sev- eral years, they just assume that it blinks all the time. Of course, what you’re actually seeing is the Alarm Clock desk accessory, which blinks forever unless you turn it off. (See Chapter 3 for instructions.)

Black menu On a Mac with a color monitor, the menu is usually marked on the menu bar by an icon with horizontal colored stripes (Apple’s logo). If it shows up as solid, puffy black when the rest of the screen is in color, then one of two statements applies to your Mac: You’ve set your monitor to thousands of grays mode, which, nonsensically enough, puts your screen in color, except for the menu. You or someone else used the Installer’s Minimum System Software option when installing the System Folder. The color logo is one of the resources that the Installer leaves behind in its efforts to create the smallest possible System Folder.

Finder changes don’t stick If your changes to the way the System 7 Finder displays windows and icons don’t seem to stick when you restart the Mac (for example, when you change the Views control panel settings), you may have a damaged Finder Preferences file. Open your System Folder; open the Preferences folder; find the Finder Preferences file; trash it; and restart the computer. The problem should be gone now. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1069

No Mac icon on the System Folder The System Folder on your startup disk usually displays a little Figure 33-1 Mac icon, as shown in Figure 33-1. On the left,a normal System Folder.On the right: Where is the little Mac icon? If the System Folder has a normal folder icon instead, there are only three possibilities: You have two System Folders on your drive, and this isn’t the one currently running. You’re not looking at the System Folder of the startup drive, but instead it’s the System Folder on another disk. The real System Folder is inside another folder (possibly this one).

STARTUP TROUBLES There’s almost nothing worse than encountering Mac problems before the thing has even started up! This guide will be of some assistance.

The Sad Mac icon First of all, be aware that the Sad Mac icon can appear when you press (or some object on your desk presses) the Interrupt switch on your Mac, either inadvertently or on purpose. See Chapter 6 for more about the Interrupt switch. If the sad Mac appears during startup, however, something’s wrong with Figure 33-2 The dreaded Sad the circuitry or the System Folder (see Figure 33-2). Mac icon. Beneath the Mac icon there’s a row or two of special codes (such as 0F000D, which you may recognize from Chapter 21 as being hexadecimal notation). In theory, they can help you figure out exactly what’s wrong with the Mac. In practice, these codes are designed for techies and may not even be accurate. In our experience, the Sad Mac most often appears just after you’ve installed new RAM chips. It tells you that one of the chips is defective or improperly seated. Try reseating the chips. The Sad Mac can also appear mysteriously as a result of a number of other conditions, most of which you can solve by following our Rule of Three (especially Step 3). In fact, the sad Mac often goes away by itself, even if you don’t change a thing. For the Mac SE and all later Macs, you actually get two lines of codes that are supposed to help you figure out what’s wrong. The only useful numbers are the bottom row and the second half of the top row. Table 33-2 lists some 1070 Part IV: Attachments

CASE HISTORY common codes and what they mean. By Code, we mean THE SCSI FROM HELL here the second four characters on the top row. Be aware of two things about these codes. First, they We found this message posted on don’t apply to Macs before the SE, and they don’t apply America Online and found it enlightening — and yet typical. to the PowerBook. Second, some of these codes may sug- gest something obvious for you to try: If it’s code 0006, Nothing was working at all with my System 7 system.I got you may as well try plugging and unplugging the key- nothing all day long but board cable. But in general, our original words apply: constant bus errors,freeze The problem usually goes away by itself or goes away crashes,Type 1 errors,and other when you follow our Rule of Three steps. nonsense. Finally,I tried switching the Table 33-2 order of my SCSI cable path, Sad Mac Codes from one direction out the Mac, to the polar opposite.(No other Code Explanation change in SCSI IDs or any other change,period.) This experiment 0001 The ROM chip is having trouble (may not be resulted in a sheer inability to seated correctly). even start my Mac! 0002 Something’s wrong with a SIMM in bank B, if Feeling that,at least,I was on to your Mac has two banks of SIMMs. some source of the problem,I reinstated my previous SCSI 0003 Something else is wrong with bank B. path,with one simple 0004 Something’s wrong with a SIMM in bank A. difference.Instead of going in on the bottom of each external 0006 Something’s wrong with your ADB drive’s two SCSI ports,and out (keyboard/mouse) jack. the top port,I brought the 0008 Again, an ADB problem. cables in on the top, and out on the bottom.And I ended the 000A There’s a problem with the NuBus slots. SCSI chain with the terminator 000B Trouble with the SCSI chip. on the bottom SCSI port. I know it sounds baffling,but my 000C It’s floppy drive trouble. Mac is back to its previous rock- 000D Something’s wrong with the printer or modem solid state! I’m just very happy port. to have everything working again,I don’t care why! If it still doesn’t go away, and you’ve even tried reseat- (For more on the nonsensical ing the RAM chips, then it’s time to call a dealer. world of SCSI troubleshooting, see Chapter 30.) The blinking question-mark icon at startup The Mac blinks the question-mark/disk icon when it can’t find a System Folder. Of course, you can always get Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1071 around this by inserting your Disk Tools system disk. But that’s not a long- term solution — something is clearly wrong with your hard drive, which is supposed to have its own System Folder. Apply the Rule of Three. Restart the Mac. Restart the Mac with the Shift key held down. Unhook external SCSI devices. (This often solves the prob- lem; see “SCSI Troubleshooting” in Chapter 30.) Try starting up from your Disk Tools disk. Do a clean reinstall of your system software. Run the Disk First Aid program. If your hard drive still isn’t showing up on the screen, get a program such as MacTools or Norton Utilities and see if it can bring your drive back to life. Actually, if all else fails, free book winner J.W. Leedom correctly observes that the problem may be far simpler. If anything is keeping the mouse (or PowerBook trackball button) pressed as the Mac is trying to turn on, this same blinking question mark may result. Lift that stack of books/Jaz cartridge/cinder block off the mouse button, and your Mac will proceed to start up as usual.

Crashing on startup Clearly, you’ve got an extension conflict. You can temporarily get up and run- ning without any of these extensions — and without any conflicts — by fol- lowing Step 1 of our Rule of Three. To find and eliminate the conflict, however, your first thought should be to use Conflict Catcher, included with this book, which automates this testing process and tells you what the conflict was.

Twilight Zone theme,car crash,or four notes If, when starting up, your Mac plays a series of musical notes (Mac II series), the first four notes of the Twilight Zone theme (Centris or Quadra), a flute or drum solo (LC series), or a car-crash sound (Power Macintosh), it’s trying to tell you that it didn’t pass one of its routine startup tests. (See Chapter 8). You most often hear these chimes just after you’ve installed new memory into the Mac; it means that one of the SIMMs isn’t seated right (see Chapter 9 for details); the chimes also sound if something is pressing your Mac’s Interrupt switch at startup (see Chapter 7).

DISK TROUBLES Like all living things, hard drives and floppies have occasional bad hair days. You can cope, though, as follows. 1072 Part IV: Attachments

CASE HISTORY Hard disk troubleshooting YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT TROUBLE? For a huge helping of hard drive troubleshoot- Scott Gaidano of DriveSavers told us the ing, see Chapter 8. In the meantime, if your following true story about one of his clients. hard drive is giving you a hard time, try these In early 1993,a cruise ship was just starting steps, in order: its 1,000-mile cruise up the Amazon.Three Restart the Mac. hundred passengers were on board.Just as the ship set out,it struck an underwater Run Disk First Aid. (Click the Repair button barge and sank.(It was the same day as the more than once; sometimes this takes several World Trade Center bombing,so there tries.) wasn’t much news of it.) Reinstall the hard disk driver. (Don’t initial- Two of the passengers were a couple,a ize your drive, just update; see Chapter 8 for juggling team,who had been hired as details.) onboard entertainment.The story of their journeys was painstakingly written up — Rebuild the Desktop (see Chapter 1). on the PowerBook 100,now deep Do a clean install of the system software (see underwater in the sunken cruise ship. the beginning of this chapter). Two days after the ship sank,the guy persuaded his fiancée to get into scuba gear Zap the PRAM, as outlined at the beginning and swim down into the lime-green, of this chapter. piranha-filled ship.She swam down two Check your SCSI setup (see Chapter 30). flights of stairs,down the corridor,and into what had been their stateroom.Sure If you’ve tried everything and haven’t suc- enough,there was the PowerBook on the ceeded in resurrecting your hard drive, you can desk.She also grabbed,from the dresser always wipe it out, reformat it, and start from drawer,the diamond ring her great- scratch. But if there’s important data on the grandmother had given her,a bag of drive, you may find it worth sending to juggling equipment,and her contact lenses DriveSavers (we’ve provided a discount coupon that were bobbing in their case on the in the back of this book). They have clean ceiling of the stateroom. rooms, deoxidants, and all kinds of high-tech She brought it all to the surface.She sent gear devoted exclusively to getting data off a the PowerBook to Scott,whose staff decontaminated it,desalinized it — and drive, and they report a success rate of more successfully rescued the files! than 90 percent.

All floppy disks show up locked Of course, all your floppies aren’t really locked. We’ve seen this in several Macs, and the prob- lem is simple enough: Dust on the drive mecha- nism. If you’re technically minded, open the Mac case. Use a screwdriver to gently take out the Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1073 floppy-drive unit. (On some Macs, you also have to lift out the hard drive unit first. Just remember where everything came from!) Look at it closely. You see a toothpick-like, spring-loaded, white plastic pin. This pin usually slips into the locked/unlocked hole in a disk, and it tells the Mac whether the disk is locked or not. Over time, this pin gets caked with dust and gunk and becomes less springy; eventually, it may stay in the down position, making the Mac think that the disk is locked. Clean the pin care- fully, test for springiness, and reinstall everything.

FILE,DESKTOP,AND ICON TROUBLES This section of our encyclopedia of woes pertains to files and icons that go awry.

Strange crashes with 32-bit Enabler Apple’s 32-bit Enabler, as we mentioned in Chapter 8, is a successor to Mode32. Both give a “32-bit dirty” Mac (IIcx, SE/30, and so on) access to the 32-bit addressing feature. (Again, see Chapter 9.) Unless you think system crashes make life more interesting, take note of the following: Make sure that Balloon Help is turned off when you use the standard Apple Color Picker (the circular color-wheel dialog box).

Can’t empty the Trash If you can’t empty the Trash, try one of the following: Hold down Option as you choose Empty Trash. Quit your programs and try again. (Maybe another program is using the Trash.) Restart the Mac and try again. Restart the Mac without any extensions (see Step 1 at the beginning of this chapter) and try again. Try a different startup disk. Also try a clean system reinstall.

KEYBOARD AILMENTS As we mentioned in Chapter 10, your keyboard is actually a computer unto itself. As such, it gets problems all its own. 1074 Part IV: Attachments

Dead key When we say “dead key” here, we don’t mean one of those Option-key charac- ters. We mean a broken key. You can get the keyboard repaired professionally, of course. But chances are good that the problem is just a gummed-up contact, which you can clean. Turn off the Mac. Carefully pry the plastic key off its stem. Then take a can of WD-40 aerosol lubricant (available at hardware stores). Insert the narrow plastic WD-40 tube into the point where the key plunger enters the black body of the key. Give a short spray. Press the key plunger a few times and then hook everything back up to see if the key works. If the key still isn’t fixed, repeat a couple more times.

Crazy slow typing If the Mac suddenly gets incredibly slow to respond to your typing, chances are that the culprit is one of the following: The Key Caps desk accessory is open somewhere in the background. It’s intercepting every keystroke, displaying the appropriate symbols, and gumming up everything. Close it. You’re multitasking. The Mac is splitting its focus between your typing and its background task (printing or copying files, for example). If your Mac is on a network, bad equipment or frayed wiring may be transmitting garbled signals over the network lines. Disconnect yourself from the network and see if the slowdown persists. If the problem van- ishes as soon as your Mac is cut loose from the network, you know you’ve got a network problem on your hands. See Chapter 32 for some tips on network troubleshooting. Your SCSI chain is acting up. See Chapter 30 for instructions on solving SCSI problems.

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS If you can’t find your trouble described and troubleshot in this chapter, and you have access to the Internet, visit Apple’s Technical Information Library. It contains a searchable collection of thousands of tiny articles on techie sub- jects that aren’t available anywhere else. (You might search, for example, for “PowerBook 2300 and batteries.”) The address is http://til.info.apple.com/ til/til.html. Chapter 33: Troubleshooting 1075

If you really think something’s mechanically or electrically wrong with the equipment, don’t forget that Apple is taking especially good care of you and your Mac lately. If you bought a PowerBook and it’s less than a year old, Apple will send someone to pick it up, ship it overnight to their repair facility, fix it, and air- express it back to you. Free. If you bought any Mac after February 1993 and it’s not yet a year old, Apple will send someone to your house to fix it! And, remember, you’re still eli- gible for toll-free help. Let us tell you: Apple’s phone-support people are ace. They sit down there in Austin, TX, becoming the world’s best experts on what can go wrong. And they’re darned friendly. The number to call, both for help and for repairs, is 800-SOS-APPL.

THE TOP 10 SOFTWARE SUSPECTS After having read literally tens of thousands of e-mails and BBS postings, we know one thing for sure: A huge percentage of crashes, freezes, and incom- patibility problems are caused by the same culprits. Over and over again, the problem turns out to be an outdated or incompatible copy of one of the fol- lowing programs. Pay special attention to these offenders when you upgrade anything on your Mac, such as the system software or the Mac itself. 1. FaxSTF. For some reason, this fax/modem software seems to conflict, sooner or later, with just about everything. 2. Other fax/modem software. It’s just a sensitive class of software. 3. ATM. Every time Apple engineers sneeze, this thing needs to be upgraded. 4. After Dark. Ditto. Before version 3.0, Berkeley Systems had worked their way up to version 2.0y. They had to tweak this screen-saver about 15 times to make it compatible. Good thing version 3 came out — what would they have called the version after 2.0z? 5. TimesTwo or Stacker. You mess around with the Mac’s guts enough, you’re asking for trouble. 6. RAM Doubler or Speed Doubler. Same problem. These programs are constantly updated; make sure that you have the latest. 7. Suitcase. With System 7.1, there’s less call for this — but be sure to upgrade to the latest version if you use it. 8. Adobe Type Reunion. Conflict city. Use WYSIWYG Menus (included with this book) instead. 1076 Part IV: Attachments

9. Super Boomerang. Anything this powerful and complex qualifies as a suspect in times of trouble. 10. ClickChange. Likewise. This system colorizer/customizer is awfully neat, but practically guaranteed to cause conflicts somewhere along the line.