[Grant_G]

I have a friend in Kentucky -- a recent switcher -- who is meticulously avoiding anything to do with Microsoft. Yet the company continues to haunt him. Here's what's up, and I hope somebody in this forum can respond to his needs:
Early symptom: bought several songs from the iTunes music store and started to download them. After 2-3 songs, iTunes would crash. He kept trying and the same thing would happen. (It finally took 24 download sessions for him to complete the task). During the days this was going on, he called AppleCare a couple of times and they, in their infinite wisdom, told him it was his ISP's problem. "You'll have to change ISPs or we can't help you." Knowing that was wrong, he did contact the ISP. They walked him through his network settings to the proxy area, where he found Web Proxy (HTTP) checked. As instructed, he unchecked it, after deleting several lines of FTP URLs in the bypass proxy settings field below. All of the URLs were Microsoft dot update dot this-and-that, except the last one which was Active-X dot Microsoft dot whatever.
After doing all this he began his downloads again, and crashed again. He went back to the proxy settings, and there was a field that said "Your proxy settings have been changed by a separate application," Web Proxy (HTTP) was again checked, and all the URLs were back in place in the bypass area. He unchecked and deleted everything again, and this time clicked the lock to prevent further changes. It didn't work. Once again he crashed iTunes and went back to his Network settings only to get the same result as the last time.
The only application that he's aware of in his system with Microsoft's name on it is IE, which he doesn't use. I had suggested he might have a MS app that was pinging Redmond for updates. He has trashed it and will let me know what happens, yet I feel that isn't the problem. My wife's iMac (almost identical to his) doesn't share this problem, and she DOES use IE almost exclusively because she's familiar with it.
Does anyone have an idea? TIA,
G

[d00d]

I'd have him restart holding shift. That should disable any login items. Then he should change the settings to get rid of the proxies. Quit, go back in and make sure they are the way he left them. Then restart normally and try it again.

[Grant_G]

Thanks. I have emailed your response to Chris ... I'll let you know the outcome.
G

[d00d]

Sounds good Grant. I'd probably be most suspicious of any ISP installation software (put in the disc and it auto-configures for you) because many times they have no idea about how to configure Macs and do more harm than good (or at least, that's been my experience).

[Grant_G]

He's on fastermac.net -- I'd suspect they would know what they're doing. And they're the ones who guided him to finding this intrusive behavior.
G

[Grant_G]

Phone call about an hour ago -- he had to do it through the Ethernet settings (although he's on dialup, that wouldn't open in Safe mode), but got them to go away. Restarted and they stayed gone. Email just now when I sat down at the Mac:

In reply to:

---

Just finished surfing around----checking other email, etc. Went into Network settings and it's all baaaaaaaack!!! Evidently deleting the stuff off the ethernet settings didn't solve the problem---oh well----Later---Chris

---

Any other ideas?
G /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[d00d]

Ugh, something is screwing with those settings, but damned if I know what it is.

[Grant_G]

Yeah, we'd probably need a listing of all his apps, extensions, etc. to figure this one out. I'll have him check out his startup items and see if something's there.
G

[Grant_G]

Well, here's what happened. He went into his startup items and there was the usual stuff, but also not just one, but five separate entries for his wife's Palm. The Palm thing itself and a related item called Transport something, both repeated four more times. He deleted 4 sets of those. The final item in there was something neither of us recognized at all call LCC Daemon. I had him delete it too, whatever it is. He then went to his network settings and got rid of the bypass items and unchecked the Web Proxy (HTTP) again. He locked it and restarted.
The LCC Daemon is back, and all the settings are back. I'm totally lost around this type of thing. Is there any help, or must he reformat the drive to get around all of this?
G

[d00d]

LCC Daemon wouldn't be doing it. That's the driver software for Logitech devices. I'm fairly stumped. Maybe there's a preference file to delete that stores these settings?

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
Wow...This is a dilly of a pickle...Isn't it? Hhhmmm. Looking through [Home]/Library/Preferences, I would try deleting...
com.apple.internetconfig.plist
com.apple.internetconnect.plist
com.apple.internetpref.plist
com.apple.systempreferences.plist
NOTE: You may have to reconfigure your Internet settings after this but it'd probably be worth it. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
MacCheetah3
Apple PowerBook G4 Titanium 1GHz, 1GB, 60GB, SuperDrive, Airport, Mac OS X, 20GB iPod (4G)
Debug Computer Services http://www.click2debug.com

[Grant_G]

Thanks guys. I've sent him another email with these suggestions, including the LCC Daemon explanation.
G

[Grant_G]

Well, he finally got around to trying the last suggestion and it didn't work either. Anyone else? I'd hate to have to tell him to reformat the drive, but if that's what it takes ...
Thanks, G

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
It's probably a long shot but maybe I've found something. Take a look at these...
Apple Knowledge Base Article #153380 - Mac OS X 10.3: Using an automatic proxy configuration (pac) file

10.3.2 auto proxy configuration
Maybe backup, and than try deleting that .plist.
MacCheetah3
Apple PowerBook G4 Titanium 1GHz, 1GB, 60GB, SuperDrive, Airport, Mac OS X, 20GB iPod (4G)
Debug Computer Services http://www.click2debug.com