Originally Posted By: deniro
I've done a lot of things now, which obviously makes it tougher to know what worked.

I'm sure of one thing, that after I deleted my second account/guest account, restart and shutdown changed dramatically and are now instantaneous. Startup is somewhat faster, but still slow. I'm waiting to see if this is normal slow or abnormal slow.

Other things I did:
  • Repaired permissions with Disk Utility and then Onyx.
  • Terminal seems to work now. Console was giving me messages about "Failed to count the number of files in System/Library/StartupItems: no such file or directory." So I googled that problem and, based on advice, typed "cd /System/Library" and then "sudo mkdir StartupItems" and then my password.
  • Disabled Login Items atext and Clip Menu.
  • Deleted Logitech mouse software and replaced with demo of USB Overdrive.
  • Re-installed FinderPop. I suspect this did nothing, though I may switch to an older version.
  • Disconnected backup Firewire drive, which for many months I've left plugged in, turning it on only when I'm about to backup with SuperDuper.
  • Disconnected DAC, which I've been using for about five days, turning it on only when I use it.
I should add that the slow restart and shutdown remained even after I disabled login items, deleted the Logitech software, and repaired permissions. Those obvious fixes weren't the solution. ETA: I suspect also that little was gained by unplugging the Firewire drive and the DAC.

I dunno... I guess your guest account somehow messed with sudo and deleting it cleared up the issue.

Just to play it completely safe I'll suggest that you now boot from your install disc or another volume and run Repair Disk from Disk Utility, and follow that with a rerun of the scan command (which should take about 80 800 minutes). (I guess it's best to let it run while you're out or sleeping; I'm not sure if you can work while it's running.)

I'm happy to hear that things are at least better.

Last edited by artie505; 01/30/16 02:08 PM. Reason: Oops!
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