I thought we once dealt with long blue screen durations. If so, point me there as I couldn't find it.

If not, here's the problem. I'm experiencing extremely long startups today and this is what I've done.

Booted from a clone and, after very long boot process:

Rebuilt the directory with Disk Warrior
Disconnected power to reset SMC
Cleared PRAM

Still got very long startup so I reinstalled 10.6.8 Combo.

After restart was still:

Blue screen 50 seconds
Chime followed by grey screen for 1:55
Followed by Blue Screen for 8 minutes.

At this point I'm not going to turn it off again without some guidance.

Thanks

> ...I reinstalled 10.6.8 Combo.

Don't forget that your Safari is now reverted to v 5.0.5 and must be upgraded to Safari 5.1.7 for Snow Leopard.

As for your issue, the best I can do is suggest that a verbose (command-v) boot may tell you something.

Edit: I assume you meant the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1? (Both v 1 and 1.1 revert Safari.)

Actually I did do that...just forgot to mention it....but couldn't make hide nor hair out of the information.


Yup.


Just done and it wants a restart to install. Well, here goes....if I'm not back in an hour, send a search party.

Edit: Send the search party home, I'm back....although it takes 10 minutes to boot.

I'm continuing in that mode and have tried to think of more clues.

1. A few days ago I twice experienced a low hum when the machine was dealing with some graphical material. It was brief and disappeared long with the graphics.

2. Last weekend I installed about 4 drivers from Canon to make one of their pieces of software (MP Navigator Ex) work. The site was not clear of which drivers were which is why it took four tries.

Is it possible I should start from scratch with the Canon software? If so, how would I locate and remove their drivers?

Have you checked SMART status? You can do this with Disk Warrior (you don't have to boot from the DW CD to do it; launch the copy of DW on your hard drive instead).

Thanks, Jon. I just now gave that a shot and the response was that the diagnostics indicate the drive is operating normally.

The drive is not too old....machine was purchased in 2009 and we're not heavy users.

In thinking about new clues I had forgot that a few days ago we had a power outage while I was using the machine. I have surge-protected AC but, who knows, there may have been a spike too large to get clamped. That might make me wonder about Logic Board damage, although I'd think I would have more serious problems.

I'm starting to think these blues should be in E .....for exasperation.

Or if you don't have $100 to spend on a third party utility you can check the S.M.A.R.T. status with Disk Utility which comes with every version of OS X. Disk drives can and do fail right out of the box. In fact the most exhaustive test of hard drive failure was conducted by Google Labs and found high or low usage failures were more likely to occur in the first six months of use. It also found S.M.A.R.T. tests are a poor indicator of drive health. The best indicator of impending drive failure is a surface scan. For that you will probably need TechTool Pro or Drive Genius.

I have checked it with Disk warrior but DW says things look okay.


I also own TechTool Pro and did run a surface scan (for the first time ever) about a month ago. It didn't find any issues. I could do another one but that'd likely be tonight given the amount of time it takes.

Is it meaningful that, once past the 10 minute boot time, when the machine is up and running it operates normally?

Any Login items? Odd Console System entries from the startup?

I've just looked at the Console Messages and the most current entries are somewhat disconcerting. They have a lot of references to Mackeeper, a program I would not knowingly install.


Sep 20 10:19:11 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6932]): posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
Sep 20 10:19:11 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6932]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 20 10:19:11 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Sep 20 10:19:21 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6933]): posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
Sep 20 10:19:21 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6933]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 20 10:19:21 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Sep 20 10:19:31 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6938]): posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
Sep 20 10:19:31 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6938]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 20 10:19:31 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Sep 20 10:19:41 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6939]): posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
Sep 20 10:19:41 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6939]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 20 10:19:41 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Sep 20 10:19:51 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6940]): posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
Sep 20 10:19:51 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6940]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 20 10:19:51 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Sep 20 10:20:01 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6943]): posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
Sep 20 10:20:01 mymachinename-imac com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[131] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[6943]): Exited with exit code: 1

Ah! You could run a local search for MacKeeper (Helper), but you might as well start a full uninstall right away, using one of the instruction sets listed here, like this one.

I don't appear to have the actual application as I couldn't find it by searching with Spotlight or by using CleanApp. I wonder if any of that information might indicate it's doing something by having popped in a cookie or other device.

Perhaps it time to use OnyX or Cocktail to flush a few things out.

Sure, but there are a bunch of Library files listed in the second link I provided that might/will evade those utilities, and that you could look for and remove yourself. And if those files aren't there, that'll tell you something too.

I have looked and can't find any that were described in the second link. What does their absence tell me?

That would tell you that the occurrence of 'MacKeeper Helper' in your Console log is not due to a regular install of this 'utility'. This is particularly true if you also ran a search (including System files*) for 'zeobit, '911' and '911bundle', in addition to 'MacKeeper", and that search came out negative. Such a result is strange on the face of it, but it is what it is.

*) Note that System files are excluded from Spotlight searches by default.

OnyX found:

com.zeobit.MacKeeper.affid.pkg.bom
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.affid.pkg.plist
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.pkg.bom
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.pkg.plist

....all of which I've trashed, and I'll now try another restart.

EDIT: No joy in Mudville. The restart was:

00:00 Black screen
00:30 Chime followed by grey screen with the Apple only
04:45 Black screen and chime again followed by grey screen and Apple with spinning thing
07:30 Blue screen
16:00 Log-in screen

OK, what does your Console log say now? Is MacKeeper Helper still listed?

Ya......rats!!

12-09-20 6:51:41 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.SystemStarter) Failed to count the number of files in "/System/Library/StartupItems": No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:51:46 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[448]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:51:46 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[448]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:51:46 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:51:56 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[459]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:51:56 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[459]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:51:56 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:52:06 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[460]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:52:06 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[460]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:52:06 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:52:16 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[466]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:52:16 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[466]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:52:16 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:52:26 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[467]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:52:26 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[467]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:52:26 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:52:36 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[475]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:52:36 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[475]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:52:36 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:52:46 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[477]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:52:46 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[477]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:52:46 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
12-09-20 6:52:56 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[478]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
12-09-20 6:52:56 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[478]) Exited with exit code: 1
12-09-20 6:52:56 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[133] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

Well, I can't say I am surprised, given your continuing boot delay. Anyway, if you haven't done this already, you might want to read first and then follow exactly (= to the letter) the uninstall instructions in the second link I provided above. Sorry to push this, but it's still not clear if you missed something that caused this to persist. If that still won't work, we'll have to figure something else.

I did look at those but the first instruction is to drag the MacKeeper icon from the Applications folder to the trash. I don't have a MacKeeper icon.

I understand. What I meant to say is follow every step of the uninstall instruction, and remove everything that is there. We clearly missed something so far, as the thread Repeats Every 10 Seconds ????? suggests (never mind how it got onto your Mac for now).

I've now been through all the folders and haven't found any of the items mentioned. I've also done more Onyx searches (after updating the search database) and nothing there.

OK, then I take it you also cleaned your Keychain, and checked Activity Monitor for any MacKeeper related processes still alive? Those processes include items with 'zeobit, '911', '911bundle' or 'Wine' in their name.

It looks like you used to have MacKeeper at some point in the past, but you deleted it. However, it was set to launch at startup, and it is taking a long time to launch because it keeps searching for MacKeeper but can't find it.

Check your Login Items by going to system preferences->accounts->login items. Note that if you see it, you need to click on it and hit the - button. Unchecking it doesn't make it go away; it just tells it not to launch hidden.

> OnyX found:

com.zeobit.MacKeeper.affid.pkg.bom
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.affid.pkg.plist
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.pkg.bom
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.pkg.plist

Those are items you'd find somewhere in /Library/Receipts after installing MacKeeper.

A search of /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist on my deuced Mac(hina) finds entries that tell me that I once installed MacKeeper...4 times in a bit more than an hour...I dunno, but I haven't got your items; I assume I had them once and deleted them.

(I just took a look at MacKeeper's MacUpdate page, and although I can't imagine having even d/l'ed, let alone installed it in the face of the reviews, I obviously did.    Thinking about it, I remember never running it, rather running in the other direction, instead, when I saw the requirement that I log in to a ZeoBit account. Someday my morbid curiosity will get the better of either me or my deuced Mac(hina). )

Edit: I just perused 50 pages of MacUpdate reviews of MacKeeper, and the oldest one was posted more than 4 months after I d/l'ed, so I've got no idea what was posted at the critical moment.

I also Googled "MacKeeper reviews," and it has elicited excellent reviews from professionals, as opposed to those from users.

I've done both. The Keychain listing didn't have any names I didn't recognize and I couldn't find anything in the Activity Monitor.


I have only 5 log-in items and they're names of things I use.



Being an adventurous soul....after finding this link , which appeared to have the same issue....based on what I saw there, I created this instruction:

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.helper.plist

....and entered it into Terminal. Now the most current Console messages are the following.

Note: Although the references to MacKeeper seem to have gone away, this action hasn't changed the log-in time.


12-09-21 3:07:07 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM: mach-o, but wrong architecture
12-09-21 3:07:07 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] 2012-09-21 03:07:07.704 tiogadriver[468:307] Cannot find function pointer BJPMPluginFactory for factory C653974E-6834-11D8-B2D9-003065BDFF8C in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x35d0c0 </Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
12-09-21 3:07:07 AM tiogadriver[468] Error loading /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM: dlopen(/Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM: mach-o, but wrong architecture
12-09-21 3:07:07 AM tiogadriver[468] Cannot find function pointer BJPMPluginFactory for factory C653974E-6834-11D8-B2D9-003065BDFF8C in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x35d0c0 </Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
12-09-21 3:07:07 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] start_process: sandbox_init failed: Operation not permitted (Operation not permitted)
12-09-21 3:07:09 AM ClamXavSentry[435] clamd launched successfully. Continuing...
12-09-21 3:07:09 AM ClamXavSentry[435] scan email files
12-09-21 3:07:09 AM ClamXavSentry[435] I will quarantine infected files
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM tiogadriver[469] Error loading /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM: dlopen(/Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM, 262): Library not loaded: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Frameworks/BJPrinterUtility2.framework/Versions/A/BJPrinterUtility2
Referenced from: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM
Reason: no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Frameworks/BJPrinterUtility2.framework/Versions/A/BJPrinterUtility2: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] 2012-09-21 03:07:09.672 tiogadriver[469:307] Error loading /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM: dlopen(/Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM, 262): Library not loaded: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Frameworks/BJPrinterUtility2.framework/Versions/A/BJPrinterUtility2
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] Referenced from: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Canon290PM
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] Reason: no suitable image found. Did find:
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Frameworks/BJPrinterUtility2.framework/Versions/A/BJPrinterUtility2: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM tiogadriver[469] Cannot find function pointer BJPMPluginFactory for factory C653974E-6834-11D8-B2D9-003065BDFF8C in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x65e1a0 </Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] 2012-09-21 03:07:10.155 tiogadriver[469:307] Cannot find function pointer BJPMPluginFactory for factory C653974E-6834-11D8-B2D9-003065BDFF8C in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x65e1a0 </Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon290PM.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
12-09-21 3:07:10 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] tiogadriver(469) stopped with status 2!
12-09-21 3:07:11 AM makequeuesagent[442] There are no drivers posted for 'MANUFACTURER:Canon;MODEL:MX710 series FAX'.
12-09-21 3:07:11 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[415] 2012-09-21 03:07:11.068 makequeuesagent[442:903] There are no drivers posted for 'MANUFACTURER:Canon;MODEL:MX710 series FAX'.
12-09-21 3:11:53 AM com.apple.backupd[494] 2012-09-21 03:11:53.059 FindSystemFiles[495:907] Looking for system packages
12-09-21 3:11:53 AM com.apple.backupd[494] 2012-09-21 03:11:53.212 FindSystemFiles[495:907] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Flip4Mac QuickTime Components.pkg
12-09-21 3:11:53 AM com.apple.backupd[494] 2012-09-21 03:11:53.214 FindSystemFiles[495:907] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Flip4Mac Web Plugins.pkg
12-09-21 3:11:53 AM com.apple.backupd[494] 2012-09-21 03:11:53.276 FindSystemFiles[495:907] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/PIXMA iP5000 290.pkg
12-09-21 3:11:54 AM com.apple.backupd[494] 2012-09-21 03:11:54.221 FindSystemFiles[495:907] Using system path cache.
12-09-21 3:28:09 AM Quicken 2006[531] Error loading /Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec: dlopen(/Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec: mach-o, but wrong architecture
12-09-21 3:28:09 AM Quicken 2006[531] Error loading /Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec: dlopen(/Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec: mach-o, but wrong architecture

Just a thought.......does it mean anything that my Super Duper clone, which was made prior to these issues, experiences the same long boot time?

My SD clone boots slowly the first time after I update it. Thereafter, it boots normally until I update it again.

But probably not in the 15 or 16 minute range.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. If the boot delay on the clone is persistent and not seen only on initial boot as Jon stated, wouldn't you have noticed the delays on the main boot volume (which starts out identical) sooner? But it's a good point to realize that backups like Time Machine and clones may also contain MacKeeper files, just as there may be other, not MacKeeper-related problems hiding in the wings. TM in particular may need to be checked for MK and purged. Once that's done, it's recommended to fix permissions, and —if warranted— ACLs.

If permissions are OK, the next step is to identify other processes listed in Console logs during/around delays or time gaps in the logs. There are two gaps in the sequence you posted, around 3:07-3:11 and around 3:11-3:28. FWIW, the former is 'associated' with printer drivers and backup activity, the latter with backup activity and QuickTime. Time for a closer look at TM?

I was speculating that, if the boot up of the physical machinery is related to the way the software is working, was there any logic in the fact that apparently good software (the clone) was acting in the same way as compromised software (the internal drive)? Just applying my simple-minded logic.


I am having problems with Time Machine. Get Info says the drive is now about 5 GB smaller than normal. As well, TM is not functioning. I can go into it and select a point in time but it doesn't seem able to Restore.

That's easily solved. I'll simply erase the drive and do a fresh TM when this is over and done. I don't have anything that I'd worry about from past copies.


I wonder if there's a relationship with the fact that, prior to these problems, I downloaded a bunch of drivers for my new printer. The Canon site wasn't really clear about which I actually needed, so I downloaded and installed several.

Any chance that removing drivers might help? If so, I'd need to know how to locate them.


I do notice that, if I try to open WMV Player, it says"QuickTime Player must be installed to run this application" - even though QuickTime Player is on my drive.

Whoa, the plot thickens...

- I'm still not sure I follow your rationale, but if the clone has the same or a similar delay as the main drive, that delay may be 'normal' for what the System is supposed to do, but NOT normal in that it has to do that in the first place, and in that it takes far too long. If the main drive did NOT experience boot delays until recently, but the clone did, the clone's problems are NOT identical. Do you reboot from the clone after cloning? Highly recommended for this and related reasons.

- If TM is not working, and WMV Player can't find QT, you seem to have a good sized SNAFU here. Starting from scratch may be appropriate, but let's see if others have alternative suggestions. I can think of potential Launch Services database, permissions and/or directory issues. They can all be rebuilt/repaired. If you have a spare HD, you could start TM from scratch without having to ditch the backup, if only for testing purposes.

- I doubt any extra drivers are the problem, but improperly installed printers may be. In that case, you may want to delete those (System prefs - Printer), reinstall and test. To find installed printers, go to: /Volumes/Mac/Library/Printers. And be careful with that axe, Eugene...

Okay, clarification. I meant that I thought it strange that the clone, made before any of the issues arose with the internal drive, would have the same long boot time. I only make my clone about every 7 or 8 days. Here's the last sequence:

- Clone is made
- various new drivers are installed for printer
- couple of days later, internal drive experiences a power failure while in use
- sometime thereafter, boot problem arises
- decision is made to rebuild directory from clone drive, find clone drive has same long boot issue


No...never have. Regular M.O. is to have Super Duper do the clone and shut down after. (Allows me to enjoy a glass of wine while the software works)


I await, prepared to try any ideas offered....although not fussy about that "start from scratch" proposition.


Too late...I've erased it. (Didn't I mention was also impetuous?)


I used OnyX to look for duplicates in Applications and it found folders for Canon in the Applications folder and in the Utilities folder. I've eliminated the duplicates but nothing else.

EDIT: I have subsequently used Cocktail to repair permissions and reset ACLs. I also had it clear every systems cache. No change.

It looks to me like the Canon driver(s) may indeed be the problem, judging by the Console excerpt you provided following your Terminal adventure. In particular, the

Error loading long convoluted path: no suitable image found. Did find: long convoluted path: mach-o, but wrong architecture

entries suggest that you may have installed one or more PPC drivers.

Forgive me if this was covered earlier in the thread, but have you tried a Safe Boot? That would seem to be an obvious step when troubleshooting long boot times.

I'm betting that the MacKeeper-related Console entries, whatever the explanation for their presence, were a red herring, and that the real issue is incompatible software.

The normal fix for that is to reinstall Flip4Mac (WMV Player is a component). In the latest version, Flip4Mac 3.0, it is called Flip Player. You can access the free upgrade through the Flip4Mac pane in System Preferences. (If you had Flip4Mac Pro installed the upgrade costs $9.00.

A Safe Boot gets me to the log-in window in only 3 minutes. However, although the cursor moves, the log-in window does not accept instructions from either the keyboard or the trackball.

I did a forced shutdown and used the opportunity to once again do an SMC reset. I figured it couldn't hurt.

EDIT: I have since used OnyX and it found two versions of each of these:

Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector EX (5.2.0)
Canon IJ Network Tool (3.2.0)
Canon Quick Menu (2.0.0)

Each pair were the same two dates August 18 and September 12, so I deleted the September 12 version of each along with the associated items recommended by OnyX.

However, little change.

If I have PPC drivers, what tells me that something is a driver? How will I know which is PPC or Intel?

Okay. Thanks. Now done. FYI, for Snow Leopard it's V2.4.4.2

Jumping back to square one, perhaps some of what meant nothing to you will mean something to somebody else.

Is there anything you can post? (If there's too much to remember, you can photograph your screen, import the image, upload it to a remote host, and link to it.)

I'm sure how to go about the posting et cetera but I thought I'd take a shot and transcribe it.

I did a Verbose start and it was much different than previously. Where there had been a screenful before, this time there were only about 6 or 7 lines. The shot was too blurry to read.

I did another Verbose start and this time I was back to a screenful. Three shots but all too blurry. This is something that'll have to wait until I get a tripod out.

Mean while I did remove a lot of drivers - all drivers that were not Canon and all of the Canon drivers except these:

CanonIJBJS700.ppd.gz
CanonIJDS700.ppd.gz
CanonIJMX700series.ppd.gz
CanonIJMX710series.ppd.gz

A restart took about 5 or 6 minutes less time than the last few.

00:00 Chime
00:20 Grey screen with Apple and the spinning device
01:35 Blue Screen
09:10 Log-in screen

I then found in the Launch Agents folder:

com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper.plist
Com.Adobe.ARM. (a bunch of numbers and letters) .plist

I removed both and restarted. This time the restart was much longer and more convoluted.

00:00 Chime
00:20 Grey screen with Apple but NO spinning device
04:20 The machine restarted on it's own
04:40 Grey screen with Apple but NO spinning device
10:40 The machine restarted on it's own
11:00 Grey screen with Apple and the spinning device
12:15 Blue screen
20:15 Log-in screen

I have restored the 3 Canon drivers. The two plists (MacKeeper and Adobe) have not returned.

Based on my recollection of many posts by V1, I'd be looking for lines that say something like "We are hanging here" or for the lines that precede a delay in the boot process; I think the stuff that whizzes by is expected.

Ryck:

I know that this is a shotgun approach, but you might want to Archive&Install if nothing else works.

I again tried to get a shot of the screen but to no avail....even with the lights out and camera on a tripod. The problem is that my digital camera is an older point and shoot making it too hard to get focus. My SLRs and good lenses are all film.

I don't recall seeing anything that jumped out to say "I might be the problem".

I've made a Super Duper clone from scratch and am doing the same for Time Machine in case that becomes the only option. However, I'm not quite sure how to approach it as Snow Leopard doesn't have the traditional Archive & Install.

My system disks are the original system which won't write over 10.6.8. I'm wondering if I have to partition my main drive, install and update to 10.6.8, and then migrate from my clone. After that, go back to no partition. I only use about 80 GB of a 320 GB drive.

However, it'd really be a pain to have the issue migrate too and get me back to where I started.

Instructions for the Archive and Install method (Mac OS X 10.6)
Apple Discussions about A&I in 10.6

From what you've described and posted, it really seems to me that the computer is hanging on launch because it is still attempting to find and start MacKeeper, which is long gone. Somewhere in the bowels of the computer, there's something that's instructing Mac OS to locate and start MacKeeper.

One of the things that MacKeeper does is it creates a login item in your Keychain. If you have searched the startup items in the Users preference pane and you haven't found a reference to MacKeeper (or to a program called helper.app, which is its startup file), try opening the Keychain Access program in your Utilities folder and search for anything referencing Zeobit, MacKeeper, or helper.app -- remove anything you find.

Still no dice? Re-install MacKeeper (the demo version should do nicely), restart your computer, then uninstall MacKeeper using the procedure here.

Thanks. I wonder if that statement "....only archives a few things that the system thinks are incompatible" means it would archive whatever is giving me grief.

There's was only one item in my Keychain that I didn't recognize - and it's now gone - even though there was nothing to suggest it was related to MacKeeper.

I'll give this a shot before anything more drastic, although it seems curious that this issue would pop up "out of the blue". I certainly don't have any recollection of a MacKeeper installation, which would suggest it would have been quite a while back. Strange.

SuperDuper! has an option to restart from the clone after completing the cloning process. Again, highly recommended.

> I certainly don't have any recollection of a MacKeeper installation, which would suggest it would have been quite a while back. Strange.

Navigate to /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist and search, (Edit:) i.e. command-F, for either MacKeeper or ZeoBit, and see if you come up with anything.

This didn't work. In fact, after I did that and restarted, the machine went into a cycle of restarting every five minutes with the grey screen and the Apple (no spinning device) between restarts.

After 20 minutes I gave up and forced a shutdown.

I'v now done the complete process from the original disk and through the updates from 10.6.1 through 10.6.8, and the Safari update, one at a time. After 10.6.1 and 10.6.2, the chime to log-in window took less than five minutes.

Thereafter it was always exactly 9 minutes 55 seconds.

Interesting, even getting to logout takes nearly five minutes, entirely with the blue screen.

There aren't any receipts but the History Plist shows:

<key>date</key>
<date>2011-09-19T19:35:49Z</date>
<key>displayName</key>
<string>MacKeeper</string>
<key>displayVersion</key>
<string></string>
<key>packageIdentifiers</key>
<array>
<string>com.zeobit.MacKeeper.affid.pkg</string>
</array>
<key>processName</key>
<string>Installer</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>date</key>
<date>2011-09-19T19:35:53Z</date>
<key>displayName</key>
<string>MacKeeper</string>
<key>displayVersion</key>
<string></string>
<key>packageIdentifiers</key>
<array>
<string>com.zeobit.MacKeeper.pkg</string>
</array>
<key>processName</key>
<string>Installer</string>

<key>date</key>
<date>2012-09-22T22:41:05Z</date>
<key>displayName</key>
<string>MacKeeper 2012</string>
<key>displayVersion</key>
<string></string>
<key>packageIdentifiers</key>
<array>
<string>com.zeobit.MacKeeper.affid.pkg</string>
</array>
<key>processName</key>
<string>Installer</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>date</key>
<date>2012-09-22T22:41:10Z</date>
<key>displayName</key>
<string>MacKeeper 2012</string>
<key>displayVersion</key>
<string></string>
<key>packageIdentifiers</key>
<array>
<string>com.zeobit.MacKeeper.pkg</string>

What does it indicate? Successful clone?

Similar to what I've got...a record of a forgotten installation, but no receipt.

I don't know that it necessarily indicates a 100% successful clone, but it at least lets you know that what you've got is bootable.

This may be a stab in the dark, but how old is the internal backup battery? A weak battery can cause odd symptoms. In my G4, I had partial startups and then a shutdown. In my Mac Pro, there were problems waking from sleep. In both cases, replacing the battery cured it.

Apple says that the battery in iMacs is not user-replaceable so you may have to go to Apple to have it done.

Worth a thought.

EDIT: I seem to recall that I asked about the battery in a previous thread and that it wasn't an issue. If that was your thread, ignore this reply. If not, keep it in mind.

Good thought. I don't know the age. I purchased in 2009 but it was a refurbished machine which, according to the serial number, was from early 2008. I don't know if 'refurbished' means a new backup battery.


Quick side question: Following the system install & archive, I am now about 5 GB larger...which is causing problems for my 80GB Time Machine backup. i.e. it can't. EDIT: It was my fault. I hadn't emptied the download folder of all the OS updates. Duh!

Do you know how I locate of anything archived so I can trash it?

From your library receipts, it looks like you have at some point had an older version of MacKeeper (not MacKeeper 2012, the current version) installed.

A lot of folks have complained that MacKeeper is very hard to remove, and that if you try to clone or archive and install, the errant bits of MacKeeper will still be there. I've found a Web page that talks about eradicating older versions of MacKeeper here:

http://applehelpwriter.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/comment-page-2/

FWIW, that's the page I linked to in post #23433.

I've got a record of having installed MacKeeper exactly 2 weeks after ryck...presumably pretty likely the same version, and I remember ridding myself of it by simply deleting everything EasyFind found, and with no aftereffects. (I note that I never ran the app, merely installed it, which may make a difference.)

Lucky, I guess.

Thanks both of you for the link. I have been through that process too, with the clone shut down, and have subsequently made a new clone from scratch. I had Super Duper restart and boot following cloning. I've used techTool to look for corrupted files and there are a few I'm about to remove....to see if that helps.

I am fairly certain I don't have any MacKeeper bits around. Also, the thing that puzzles me is, if the MacKeeper bits were going to be a problem why would they start up a year after I first removed the program?

This may be completely off-the-wall, ryck, but since nothing else has either worked or hinted at what's wrong with your iMac, I wonder if your running Apple Hardware Test would be at all productive?

In troubleshooting you tend to start with 'the' obvious problem(s), then take it from there. Given the symptoms you reported, it was IMHO not unreasonable to start looking into a MacKeeper issue. But there's always the possibility of a clusterf*(!, something I acknowledged earlier on in this thread.

As things developed in this thread, more and more symptoms and conditions appeared that suggested MK might not be the only problem around. What the exact chain of events was I don't know, but presumably a recent interaction brought the MacKeeper issue to the fore, as sort of the point item of a veritable Gordian Knot of problems. Sometimes, those can be unraveled and resolved piecemeal, at other times only the nuclear option can prevail. We'll see how this one develops.

It appears you may have won the prize.

After doing more experimenting with removing drivers and duplicate files related to the printer installation, I ended up with a printer not functioning fully. The printer and copier parts both worked fine but the scanner did not.

The scanner would not indicate whether it was warming the scanner, although it said "processing" on the printer itself. However there was nothing on the computer screen and the software Navigator didn't open. Some words, not to be repeated here, were uttered.

As a result, I reinstalled the scanner driver and Navigator software. The long boot has gone away. Hopefully, it has left for good.

Thank you everyone who took this long trek with me.

Although I'm back up and running, there are still little "glitches" that I'm keeping an eye on. For example, sometimes in changing from one screen to another I'll have a quick pixelated flash.

Therefore, I'm wondering if the hardware test might be a reasonable preventive assessment. Do I recall correctly that it's best done overnight in order to have the software loop through the process a few times?

I don't know whether your "glitches" are anything Apple Hardware Test can diagnose, but it can't hurt to run it.

An extended test will probably yield the best results, but whether you run it overnight so it doesn't interfere with your normal computer usage or during the day so it does is up to you.

KILL IT WITH FIRE!