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  • 10.2.6 crash-o-matic folder; directory OK

    From Henry@henryn@zzzspacebbs.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Friday, July 04, 2003 17:04:04
    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 matt neuburg@matt@tidbits.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Friday, July 04, 2003 17:36:22
    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 johnny bobby bee@stepore@mailexcite.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Sunday, July 06, 2003 13:46:41
    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 Henry@henryn@zzzspacebbs.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Monday, July 07, 2003 16:32:55
    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 Henry@henryn@zzzspacebbs.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Monday, July 07, 2003 16:36:14
    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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