[SonofMac]

I have a number of questions so please be patient. My eMac running OS 10.3.3 is exhibiting some strange behavior:
1. Frequently icons in the recent items list of the Apple menu will be wrong or distorted after the computer has been running for a while.
2. CD/DVDs will quite often not eject with the eject button on the keyboard. Although in these situations, the CD/DVDs will always eject by dragging them to the trash. The drive will always open with the keyboard when there is not a disk in it.
3. Sometimes when I select sleep from the Apple menu the computer will not go to sleep immediately, but will wait about half a minute and then go to sleep.
I know that these things are not major problems but my G3 iMac that runs OS 10.3 does not do any of these things and they are annoying. I have also only been using OS X for a few months. I have had more experience with OS 9 which does not do these kinds of things (dont get me wrong, I like OS X--it just has different errors).
I have heard much about maintenance routines for OS X but I have never run any of them to my knowledge. I just need some basic info about maintenance in OS X. Could these maintenance routines possibly solve any of the problems that I mentioned above? Would these maintenance routines free-up any hard drive space? I am also going to update to OS 10.3.6 and I am wondering: Would it be better to do any maintenance before I do the update? Could the update fix the problems that I am having?
This is completely irrelevant, but what is "nice" processor usage?
Any info will be greatly appreciated.
Computer info:
eMac 1Ghz G4
640MB of RAM
Combo drive
OS 10.3.3 and 9.2.2. Was originally 10.2.x which was updated to 10.3 and then to 10.3.3. I keep Classic running all the time.

[d00d]

First may I ask why you haven't updated to 10.3.6?
I'd get an all purpose maintenance utility like Onyx and clean the caches (which would be the most likely explanation for those icons screwing up).
As for the CD ejection problems, it may be due to some process still accessing that data.
The sleep problem, I will chock up to having Classic running all the time. Classic is the number one program likely to impede normal operation of the operating system.
"nice" prioritizes how much processor time each process (program) gets.

[Randy_B_Singer]

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I have heard much about maintenance routines for OS X but I have never run any of them to my knowledge. I just need some basic info about maintenance in OS X. Could these maintenance routines possibly solve any of the problems that I mentioned above? Would these maintenance routines free-up any hard drive space? I am also going to update to OS 10.3.6 and I am wondering: Would it be better to do any maintenance before I do the update? Could the update fix the problems that I am having?

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Because I've heard folks ask about routine maintenance a lot, I created this Web site:
OS X Routine Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

Your problem with icons might be solved by looking at:
How To Deal With Common OS X 10.2 Jaguar Problems
http://www.macattorn...m/tutorial.html
Item #41
You may be able to recover some disk space if you perform the maintenance tasks, but I am more concerned with why you are concerned about disk space. Have a look at:
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
Item #5 and Note #2

It is always a good idea to do routine maintenance before performing an upgrade. In your case, you might beneft from upgrading using the combined updater instead of using System Update.
http://www.apple.com...xcombinedupdate1036.html
I hope this helps.

[SonofMac]

Thanks for the great responses! This is just the kind of info I was looking for! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Since I last posted here, I did some of the things that you said to do (in this order):
1. Ran the maintenance scripts manually using the Terminal. Monthly, weekly, then daily.
2. Used OnyX to clear the system and user cashes and clear temporary files.
3. Repaired permissions using Disk Utility.
4. Updated to 10.3.6 using the combo updater.
The computer seems to be running a little better than before. Although time will tell whether these changes solved my problems or not.

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First may I ask why you haven't updated to 10.3.6?

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I guess I never got around to it.

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but I am more concerned with why you are concerned about disk space

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Up until recently, I had a very large disk image on my hard drive but I just decided to deleted it, so space is not as much of a concern now. In the past, I have completely run out of hard drive space twice, and yes, I do realize that I need to defrag it sometime. However, I do not have any of the utilities that can do this.

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As for the CD ejection problems, it may be due to some process still accessing that data.

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The odd thing is that I have closed all of the programs that were using the disk. I would say that I notice it the most when I am trying to eject a DVD that I have just been playing in the DVD Player.

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"nice" prioritizes how much processor time each process (program) gets.

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I am not sure that I understand your answer. There is a percentage of the processor used to prioritize other processes?

[d00d]

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The odd thing is that I have closed all of the programs that were using the disk. I would say that I notice it the most when I am trying to eject a DVD that I have just been playing in the DVD Player.

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My guess would be that some residual process (essentially hidden) is still reading the disk.

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I am not sure that I understand your answer. There is a percentage of the processor used to prioritize other processes?

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Well, the kernel generally allocates processor usage time (nice just alters the priority). I think I can better answer your question if I know the context. Why exactly are you curious about nice?

[SonofMac]

I am coming from the perspective of looking at the data in Activity Monitor. Under CPU, it shows a graph and percentages of processor usage at any given moment in four categories: user, system, nice, and idle. I assumed that these stood for how much of the processor was being used or not used by these different "user" categories. All of them seemed straightforward except "nice." I have also noticed that some times there is no "nice" usage at all while there is always some usage from user and system.

[d00d]

It's the amount of extra CPU used by programs that have been altered with a custom nice value. This is essentially usage that is out of the ordinary.

[SonofMac]

That is interesting about the nice usage but how do nice values get set? I have never changed these settings (I do not even know how) so they must be set by the system? Why does it change them?
Unfortunately, I have noticed that icons have already started to get confused again. Not only in the recent items list but in the Finder as well. I think that there may have been instances of icons in the Finder being wrong before but I do not remember. MPlayer has the icon of a WMP document. What other causes could there be for this?

Another thing that I forgot to mention earlier was that while I was running the maintenance scripts in Terminal, it gave me the following message:
Rebuilding whatis database:
find: /usr/local/man: No such file or directory
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/DHparamsprint.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/DHparamsprintfp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/DSAparamsprint.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/DSAparamsprintfp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dASN1OBJECT.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dDHparams.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dDSAPUBKEY.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dDSASIG.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dDSAPrivateKey.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dDSAPublicKey.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dNetscapeRSA.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dPKCS8PrivateKeybio.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dPKCS8PrivateKeyfp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dPKCS8PrivateKeynidbio.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dPKCS8PrivateKeynidfp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dRSAPUBKEY.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dRSAPrivateKey.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dRSAPublicKey.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dSSLSESSION.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509ALGOR.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509bio.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509CRL.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509CRLbio.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509CRLfp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509fp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509NAME.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509REQ.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509REQbio.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509REQfp.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/i2dX509SIG.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/OpenSSLaddsslalgorithms.3ssl
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/SSLeayaddsslalgorithms.3ssl
Is this something that I should be concerned about?
Lastly, after all of the maintenance and the update, Word in Classic is not running well. (I use Microsoft Word 98 in Classic to write papers because I am not thrilled about having to shell out $300+ for Office v.X.) The problem it is having is that there are delays in the response of the keyboard and mouse. When I type, the letters do not appear as one would expect but appear in stuttering blocks. Quite often, there are repeated letters as well which seems to indicate that Word perceives that the keyboard is sticking. The response of the mouse is similar in that sometimes buttons will stay "depressed" longer than I hold the mouse button down. These problems are not present in SimpleText running in Classic, so it seems to be unique to Word. I suspect that these problems were caused by the update because Classic was updated with the OS update if I am not mistaken. This unfortunately seems like a classic case of if it aint broke dont fix it (no pun intended). Anyone have an idea of how to fix this?

[d00d]

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That is interesting about the nice usage but how do nice values get set? I have never changed these settings (I do not even know how) so they must be set by the system? Why does it change them?

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Generally they get set either by the system or by the program itself. It's possible for a user to do so (but not recommended). For the most part, it's simply something you shouldn't worry about. It's a real power Unix user thing.

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Unfortunately, I have noticed that icons have already started to get confused again. Not only in the recent items list but in the Finder as well. I think that there may have been instances of icons in the Finder being wrong before but I do not remember. MPlayer has the icon of a WMP document. What other causes could there be for this?

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Does MPlayer the program itself get the icon or movie files you play with it? If the latter, most likely WMP has been set as the default player for those files or files with that file extension.

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Another thing that I forgot to mention earlier was that while I was running the maintenance scripts in Terminal, it gave me the following message:
Rebuilding whatis database:
find: /usr/local/man: No such file or directory
Cannot find file: /usr/share/man/man3/DHparamsprint.3ssl
[snip]

Is this something that I should be concerned about?

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Nope, happens to me too. I'd figure out exactly what those error messages are, but they have to do with man (manual) pages and aren't important to the actual running operation of the system.

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This unfortunately seems like a classic case of if it aint broke dont fix it (no pun intended). Anyone have an idea of how to fix this?

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Well, the system folder being used to for Classic isn't touched by OS X, save for a couple additions to the System Folder which are strictly to facilitate interaction between OS X and that system. Honestly, I'd just chalk it up to running pretty much anything in Classic.

You talked about writing papers. This seems to suggest you are a student. Did you know that you can get Office:Mac 2004 (Student and Teacher Edition) for $130? You can even order it from Amazon.

[SonofMac]

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Does MPlayer the program itself get the icon or movie files you play with it?

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It is the program itself that has the wrong icon.

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Well, the system folder being used to for Classic isn't touched by OS X, save for a couple additions to the System Folder which are strictly to facilitate interaction between OS X and that system. Honestly, I'd just chalk it up to running pretty much anything in Classic.

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I think that it is precisely these files that are causing the problem. I know that they were changed with the update because when I started Classic after the update, it asked me if it could modify the System Folder. To this I replied yes because you have to in order for Classic to start. I have seen this question before when I make a change to the System Folder that Classic does not like. For example, if you replace a file such as AppleTalk with an earlier version you will be presented with this question the next time you start Classic. This question signifies that Classic has found that the System Folder which it is selected to start-up from has the wrong versions of the files necessary to facilitate interaction between OS X and that system that allow the Classic environment to use it. Thus, I think that with the OS X update the Classic environment was updated and the new version required new versions of the files it uses in the System Folder, so it asked the question and replaced the files. It is these new files that are most likely causing Word to not work correctly. In other words, the new Classic environment is the problem. Further, it would seem unlikely that a program that had been working fairly well up to then would just happen to fail at the same time as an OS update. Of course one could argue that it was the maintenance routines that caused Word to quit, but this does not seem as likely as the Classic changes.

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This seems to suggest you are a student. Did you know that you can get Office:Mac 2004 (Student and Teacher Edition) for $130?

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Yes, I am a student, so I could go for the student and teacher edition, but $130 is still a lot to pay to fix a program that I already own. Although this is par for the course with computers in general I guess. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[d00d]

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It is the program itself that has the wrong icon.

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I'm not aware of any way to fix that.
As for Word in Classic, I don't know what to tell you. I don't have Word 98 installed to test whether it's a problem with the current version of Classic or specific to your computer. I personally just avoid Classic all together.
I wouldn't view it as fixing your old version of Office. Look at it as a productivity enhancer. There are a lot of nice features they've added over the years, it's likely to perform better because it's not operating through a compatability layer, and it's going to continue operating long after Classic gets dumped (which is all but inevitable).

[SonofMac]

The icon problem is not really that important. I just expected that a modern OS like OS X would not have these odd little problems. I assumed that it was fixable but it may not be a practical fix from the sound of it.
I will get a new version of Office at some point (probably soon). I guess the real issue I have is that I do not want to be forced into an upgrade (especially when it costs so much). But this is, I suppose, the price we pay of the advancement of technology. Oddly, Word has been working better at times but not consistently, so at least it is not an absolute failure. I may fiddle with it and see if I can get it to work better sometime.
Anyway, thanks for your replies! I have learned more about OS X even if I was not able fix many of my problems.

[Grant_G]

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As for Word in Classic, I don't know what to tell you. I don't have Word 98 installed to test whether it's a problem with the current version of Classic or specific to your computer. I personally just avoid Classic all together.

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I do have Word 98 installed, in fact Office 98. It runs very well in Classic on the G5. I don't use it often since I also have Office X for Mac, I but know from occasional use that it's as fast as it ever was on my machine.
G

[SonofMac]

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I do have Word 98 installed, in fact Office 98. It runs very well in Classic on the G5. I don't use it often since I also have Office X for Mac, I but know from occasional use that it's as fast as it ever was on my machine.

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Interesting. Did you notice any change in the performance when you updated to 10.3.6? What version of OS 9 are running? (I guess that is a stupid question because you must have 9.2.2. Or do you?) Was Office installed on the current configuration or was it copied from another computer?