From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Folks:

MacOS 10.2.6, lots of everything.

All of a sudden, folder 'xyzzy' crashes the Finder whenever I try to open
it. Equally, several common apps crash when I try to navigate to that
folder. There's a couple of megabytes, maximum, in the folder.

Using the command line I can navigate into the corresponding directory and access everything inside with no problem, thus I've recovered all the
contents by copying them elsewhere -- I think.

(Yes, I'm saying "folder" in the Finder context, and "directory" in the command-line context. Seems to be a reasonable distinction, even if the
actual item is the same.)

Norton and First Aid don't find any problems.

I'm presuming something has gone wrong inside the "." entry that chokes the Finder and some command-line operations.

I tried

cd xyzzy
cat * > ~/foo

in just for fun. It didn't terminate for tens of seconds and --when I checked-- seemed to be creating an infinitely large file, so I killed it.

Questions:

(1) Any idea why a folder would suddenly go bad?

(2) Any way to repair it? Or sniff the directory to see what's bad?

(3) Any danger from simply deleting the directory? Delete it as a folder or
as a directory?

Thanks,

Henry

henryn@zzzspacebbs.com




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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In <BB2B01A1.CCE0%henryn@zzzspacebbs.com> Henry wrote:

All of a sudden, folder 'xyzzy' crashes the Finder whenever I try to
open it. Equally, several common apps crash when I try to navigate to
that folder. There's a couple of megabytes, maximum, in the folder.

I tried

cd xyzzy
cat * > ~/foo

in just for fun. It didn't terminate for tens of seconds and --when I checked-- seemed to be creating an infinitely large file, so I killed
it.

The hard drive's btree may be screwed up. Run Disk Utility or
DiskWarrior. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt
REALbasic: The Definitive Guide! 2nd edition! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596001770/somethingsbymatt
Subscribe to TidBITS. It's free and smart.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 17:04:04 +0000, Henry wrote:

I'm presuming something has gone wrong inside the "." entry that chokes the Finder and some command-line operations.

have you tried deleting the '.DS_Store' file inside the folder?

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

JBB:

Thanks for your response to my post:

in article pan.2003.07.06.17.46.41.161115@mailexcite.com, johnny bobby bee
at stepore@mailexcite.com wrote on 7/6/03 10:46 AM:

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 17:04:04 +0000, Henry wrote:

I'm presuming something has gone wrong inside the "." entry that chokes the >> Finder and some command-line operations.

have you tried deleting the '.DS_Store' file inside the folder?

Yep. Doesn't seem to have any effect.

Note that a typical application also crashes when I attempt to navigate the "open" dialog into the defective folder. In this mode, there's a minimum
of GUI action -- some, I suppose, but less than opening the same folder in
the Finder. As far as I can tell ".DS_Store" contains data about the
folder relating to the screen display of the folder and its contents.

Thanks,

Henry


henryn@zzzspacebbs.com remove 'zzz' antispam

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Matt Neuberg:

Thanks for your reply to my post:

in article 20030704103803363-0700@news.la.sbcglobal.net, matt neuburg at matt@tidbits.com wrote on 7/4/03 10:36 AM:

In <BB2B01A1.CCE0%henryn@zzzspacebbs.com> Henry wrote:

All of a sudden, folder 'xyzzy' crashes the Finder whenever I try to
open it. Equally, several common apps crash when I try to navigate to
that folder. There's a couple of megabytes, maximum, in the folder.

I tried

cd xyzzy
cat * > ~/foo

in just for fun. It didn't terminate for tens of seconds and --when I
checked-- seemed to be creating an infinitely large file, so I killed
it.

The hard drive's btree may be screwed up. Run Disk Utility or
DiskWarrior. m.

I don't have DiskWarrior, but I tried Disk Utility and Norton. The only diagnostic I own that I haven't tried is fsck in single-user mode. But I
have rebooted a couple of times and I think fsck is run as part of the
process anyway.

Thanks,

Henry

henryn@zzzspacebbs.com remove 'zzz' antispam

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