I posted this question on the Apple Forum yesterday hoping one of the geniuses would see it and reply, but so far nothing. I sent it to Apple from my wife's iMac using Firefox 6.0.1 for reasons explained below. I'm sending this message to FineTunedMac using Safari on my MacPro which is not involved with this problem. Will you good people here please give this one a try?
This problem involves my wife's Intel i7 iMac11,1 with a 27" screen. She started having problems with her email app (Entourage). I was unable to fix it. I finally recommended that we restore a previous incarnation of the MacOS 10.6.8 by restoring from Time Machine to the main hard drive. She agreed and I went to work. After Restore had finished, I tried to open several apps without success. I then used Disk Warrior 4.3 to update the iMac by booting the DVD on my Mac Pro and putting the iMac in Target Disk Mode since the iMac can't boot DW 4.3, but 4.3 can be used via Firewire to create a new directory. The non-Apple apps seemed to run fine after that, but I still couldn't get some Apple apps to open. They would suddenly quit while they were in the process of opening. I then used the Apple Application Install DVD that came with the iMac to install the Apple Apps with the hope that the Apple Apps would open correctly and then I could update them from Apple Downloads or Software Update. When the install disk finished installing Apple Apps, I tried to open Safari to go the Apple Downloads, but Safari still quit suddenly during my attempt to open it. In desperation, I opened Firefox 6.0.1 and went to Apple Downloads. There, I downloaded Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v 1.1 followed by a security update that ended with the number 1. After restart, I found that Font Book and DVD Player and iDVD and Garage Band and Quick Time Player 10.0 and iCal and Image Capture and iMovie and Calculator and Automator and Address Book and the Mail app and Preview and System Preferences and Text Edit and Grab app and Terminal opened without quitting, but Safari and Dictionary and iPhoto and Dashboard and App Store and iTunes still quit suddenly when I tried to open them. I didn't try the remaining Apple apps. I tested some non-Apple apps. VMware Fusion and Google Earth and MacScan all opened without quitting.
There are four events that may shed additional light. The backup power source went flaky a couple of days ago and it went on and off battery power rapidly until I unplugged it. Second, a power strip for my wife's iMac has since been plugged directly into the house current with no backup battery. Third, yesterday, the room became quite warm and the back side of the iMac became very warm or hot, but not hot enough to burn skin. Fourth, my wife insists on storing many of her files on the desktop. The desktop is virtually full of icons. I took a bunch of folders that she had on the desktop and put them in a folder in Documents, but there a quite a few folders still on the desktop and I estimate they will more than fill the screen if the files in them were all moved out of the folders and on to the desktop. It's handy and she can work faster than looking for them in Documents. Is it possible that power bumps from the house current or from the flaky backup battery could have damaged hardware or could such events damage software that is not replaced by the Restore from Time Machine? Could overheating damage hardware or software that is not replaced by Restore or the 10.6.8 Combo Update? Could too many files and folders cause the problems I'm having? She's operated this way for a year without problems, but I think the number of files had gradually increased during that time.
Frankly, I'm stumped. Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated. Your replies will come to the email on my MacPro since that's what I have in my profile. The MacPro is working just fine thank you.
Last edited by JoBoy; 02/07/12 08:54 PM.
