I had my International settings (System Preferences) set on on the languages English and then German. I've had this setting for years from OS 10.1.0 through 10.3.0. Today I wanted to try something out and moved German above English. I thought that my system would immediately change to the German version where possible. But nothing happened. For some reason I decided to relaunch the Finder. Something went wrong. The menu bar started blinking. I couldn't properly log out or restart my Mac. So I turned it off by pressing the on-button for a few seconds. I restarted my Mac. When I logged into my user account, the Finder wanted to launch but then it quit. I see the Desktop but no icons are showing. The Dock works. All the programs seem to work OK. But the Finder is not running. So I cannot access my Macintosh HD, open the System Preferences or do a Software Update from my account. Fortunately, my wife has also an account with administrator rights. So I logged into her account. Her Finder runs perfectly! Her System Preferences are unchanged: First English then German. So I decided to update to OS 10.3.2. This worked fine but did not help my problem. Does anyone know what is going on? Would reinstalling OS 10.3.0 from the CDs help???
Veljo
Mac Enthusiast
Looks like some sort of preference file got severely corrupted. You could search through and trash them, but if things work properly in your wife's account I suggest you log into her account, delete your account, then create a new account for yourself and everything should be fine.Markim said:
Zammy-Sam
Desertchild
Veljo said:
Deleting your current account and creating a new one is a great idea instead of reinstalling.
But let me add some stuff:
You can't change the os language by changing the "country". This is just for keyboard settings, currency, clock format and for some applications spelling and grammar adjustments. I believe you wanted to have the whole system language to change between english and german (deutsch). This is not possible. Anyway, why don't you log into your account, click on apple-logo (left topmost corner) and pick System Preferences (Systemeinstellungen). Try to undo the country settings. If your Finder still doesn't start, do what Veljo proposed.
Viel Glück!
Arden
Where mah "any" keys at?
If you're a Terminal kind of guy, open it up and type sudo rm -f /Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, followed by your password. If you're not a Terminal kind of guy, log into your wife's account, and navigate to the above directory: Users > yourname > Library > Preferences. Look for the file I mentioned and delete it (you'll probably have to put in your password for this).
Thanks for your help! I tried to replace the preference file com.apple.finder.plist but that didn't help. I tried to replace some other preference files but no positive effect. I didn't really feel like creating a new account since I would have to organize it to make it look and work like my old account. Well, I actually found a backup copy of my preference files. Just replacing the com.apple.finder.plist did still not help. So I decided to replace all the preference files with my back up files. - And my Finder works again! But it's really strange: All of my preference settings were lost, in every program! This is really weird since I replaced them with solid preference files. So I had to reset all the system and program preferences manually. The only explanation for this I have is that my backed up preference files were from OS 10.3.0 and my system is actually on OS 10.3.2. - So, it must have been a preference file that caused the problem. If I had found out which one it was, I could have saved myself some work. But at least my Finder is back alive and my libraries (iTunes, iPhoto) work correctly.
Quote: "You can't change the os language by changing the "country". This is just for keyboard settings, currency, clock format and for some applications spelling and grammar adjustments. I believe you wanted to have the whole system language to change between english and german (deutsch). This is not possible."
The Preferences "International" are for changing the displayed/system language. That is the big advantage of OS X. "Input Menu" is for changing the keyboard settings and "Language" will change the system language. I think that my fault was to relaunch the Finder after having changed the language. I also could not reset the languages to English and then German because without the Finder running it is not possible to access the system settings.
So here is a tip: When you change your System Preferences, do not dare to relaunch the Finder afterwards! (Apple didn't plan for users do to this.)
Quote: "You can't change the os language by changing the "country". This is just for keyboard settings, currency, clock format and for some applications spelling and grammar adjustments. I believe you wanted to have the whole system language to change between english and german (deutsch). This is not possible."
The Preferences "International" are for changing the displayed/system language. That is the big advantage of OS X. "Input Menu" is for changing the keyboard settings and "Language" will change the system language. I think that my fault was to relaunch the Finder after having changed the language. I also could not reset the languages to English and then German because without the Finder running it is not possible to access the system settings.
So here is a tip: When you change your System Preferences, do not dare to relaunch the Finder afterwards! (Apple didn't plan for users do to this.)