Tiger won't shut down or restart

1. Speedy - 14 January 2006

   Hi everyone,

   ever since I upgraded to Tiger I can't shut down or restart my system any more. When I start shut down, everything seems to go smoothly at first. But then, when at last the screen only shows the blue background image, disk activity dies down and the system should actually shut down, it just sits there and won't turn itself off. I have to hold the power button in the back of the Mac down for several seconds to turn it off. Then, when the system starts up the next time it reports that the system hasn't been shut down correctly.

   This is a G4 iMac from beginning 2002 which I have been upgrading to Tiger when it came out. The various updates (including the latest, 10.4.4) didn't make the error go away, either.

   The system.log file lists a couple of -1712 errors:

   Jan 12 19:30:43 Marcus-Henneckes-Computer loginwindow[72]: sendQuitEventToApp (Archive Assistant Scheduler): AESendMessage returned error -1712
   Jan 12 19:30:44 Marcus-Henneckes-Computer loginwindow[72]: sendQuitEventToApp (Transport Monitor): AESendMessage returned error -1712
   Jan 12 19:30:44 Marcus-Henneckes-Computer loginwindow[72]: sendQuitEventToApp (Palm Desktop Background): AESendMessage returned error -1712
   Jan 12 19:30:45 Marcus-Henneckes-Computer loginwindow[72]: sendQuitEventToApp (PopChar X): AESendMessage returned error -1712 Jan 12 19:30:46 Marcus-Henneckes-Computer loginwindow[72]: sendQuitEventToApp (IOXperts Device Monitor): AESendMessage returned error -1712

   At least PopChar X does seem to quit though as its little 'P' icon in the corner of the screen disappears. Furthermore, there are a whole bunch of error messages from sniffer:

   Jan 12 19:30:50 Marcus-Henneckes-Computer mdimportserver[16860]: sniffer can't check in... 1102

   Does anybody have an idea how I should proceed from here? What could be the cause or how could I find out? How could I remedy the problem?

   Thanks in advance for any help!

   Marcus

2. matt neuburg - 14 January 2006

   Speedy wrote:

   I can't shut down or restart my system
   any more. When I start shut down, everything seems to go smoothly at first. But then, when at last the screen only shows the blue background image, disk activity dies down and the system should actually shut down, it just sits there and won't turn itself off.

   Delete (or move onto the desktop) everything in the top-level /Library/StartpItems folder and see if that helps. That's what worked for me. m.

   matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt/ Tiger - http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html AppleScript - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005571 Read TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com

3. Clark Martin - 15 January 2006

   Try repairing permissions.

   Clark Martin
   Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting

   "I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"

4. Speedy - 16 January 2006

   Sorry, my mistake, of course I should have mentioned that I did repair permissions. In fact, I do this everytime before and after installing or updating any software and did so with every system update as well.

   Marcus

5. spudnuty - 16 January 2006

6. spudnuty - 16 January 2006

   Sorry for the double post hit the wrong button.
   I had this issue in my G4 Sawtooth running Panther so it might not apply. It turned out to be the battery, even though I tested it on my DVM and it read 3.6 V. Under load (only a few mils) it dropped to 1.8 V. Never saw bad batteries cause shut down issues before only start up ones but hey it's worth a shot.
   Richard

7. Paul Nevai - 16 January 2006

   I bet you have those SpeedTools thing. I recommend to deinstall them.

   /PaulN

8. Speedy - 16 January 2006

   Hey thanks! This did indeed work for me as well! There were three items in that folder and it turns out that if I only leave the SpeedTools one out, things are fine. Didn't use SpeedTools anyway.

   Thanks again!

   Marcus

9. Speedy - 16 January 2006

   Hadn't heard of SpeedTools before but in fact, removing this item from the /Library/StartUpItems folder made the problem go away.

   Thanks!

   Marcus