September 12, 2005

• Is your disk full? That is a known cause of lost settings and damaged preferences.
• So, you're using MacOSX, eh?
• I would also suggest checking if your disk is full. If Finder only reports around 200 MB of disk space free, it could be that OS X Is running out of swap space, and lots of things fail after that (most observably, OS X gets really sluggish). This can cause iTunes to fail to save your library back to disk, because there's no room left; I imagine this also accounts for your bookmarks going away. So delete something you don't need, try to free up around a gigabyte, and see if that helps. Make sure you empty the trash, too.
• So, you're using MacOSX, eh? That's just the kind of comment I'd expect from a Windows user.
• Man, if that's true, then between my Windows use and my masturbation, I'm like kitten Hitler.
• I'm using windoze and never have to worry about page file problems. And I don't need a gig of free space. WTF? A Gig? Is that the largest waste of space an OS ever uses? Good lord I despise Microshit as much as anyone, but I like an OS that is useable.
• I'm using windoze and never have to worry about page file problems. And I don't need a gig of free space. How much space you need for paging depends on how many and what type (glares sideways at Java) of applications you run. One gigabyte is, in my opinion, far from extravagant for virtual memory. In fact, Windows also malfunctions when it runs out of disk space. By default, however, it keeps a swap file 1.5x the size of physical memory permanently allocated on disk, so you never get to see it as free space in the first place. You still need enough spare disk space for it to grow if you are going to do memory-taxing work, though. I'm not a fan of Windows's VM design. It appears to swap out very early - that's why it seems like it has to hit the disk every time you click on a menu. Unfortunately, OS X Tiger also seems to swap earlier than Panther did, which impacts performance quite a bit on a laptop with a slow disk drive.
• I assume you're already repaired permissions on the boot drive (using disk Utility from your OS X CD) Most of those settings are in one of two places: your home library and a very few (login picture, password, default shell) in the netinfo database. Copy the Library as a whole and you're likely to get whatever setting is wrong in your new account, but you can back it up and copy interesting parts of it to the new account. However, the drive full and disk permissions are likely to fix the thing as is.
• Yes, it probably IS disc fullness, because the harddrive is now magically FULL. New riddle: I just deleted nearly 10 gigs of things (movies, music, etc..), only to watch the hard drive get fuller, and fuller, and fuller, until it's now got only 20 MB free. WTF is going on?!
• Could certain people just answer the fucking question rather than attempt to start some dumb OS war? Thank you.
• Odds are you've got one of either a couple different things going on. Most likely: some sort of major corruption of your HD's directory structure. If you have access to DiskWarrior, you may be able to fix it -- though if it's this bad, you're likely to lose rather a lot of files. Less likely: some application running in the background is borked and constantly writing to a log file or some such. The speed you are losing disk space (as you describe it), makes this somewhat less likely a cause, but does not rule it out. Easiest solution (not necessarily the most graceful, mind you, but easiest), is to back up your home folder to an external HD if you can, then repartition the drive using the Disk Utility on your installer CD/DVD (available from the menu bar). Re-install, then recreate your user account and copy your data back. Keep in mind, that repartitioning the drive will permanently erase ALL data on the drive. And by permanent I mean 'with no hope of recovery.' The assumption I'm making is that it's directory damage causing your problem, and if this IS the case, it is unlikely DiskWarrior or any other utility will be able to fix such major damage. I could be wrong. Best of luck. OS X is one rock-solid beast most the time, but if your hard drive's directory structure is hosed... well, no OS on Earth can cope with a toasted directory.
• This might seem obvious, but as you're a new OS X user: you did empty the Trash after "deleting" those 10 GB, didn't you?
• Try downloading OmniDiskSweeper, which will tell you what's occupying the most space on the drive. One possibility is that you have a log file growing at a furious rate for some reason...
• I second douggles. The symptoms _may_ be of a badly corrupted hard drive. If it's a major physical corruption your drive may need to be repaired or replaced. There's an app in your Utilities folder called Disk Utility which can at least tell you if this is the case or not. However just because Disk Utility says it can repair your drive does not mean it actually can. If any data on your drive is critical, back it up and consider getting professional help. If not, good luck.
• 1 2 3 4 i declare os war
• Two quick thoughts with little detail... cmd-opt-P-R at startup will (on some? macs) reset parameter RAM, a small bit of non-volatile memory on the motherboard. I believe (but am not sure) that some varieties of OS X still use this. This is probably in the "won't hurt, but probably won't help" either group. Similarly, holding down the shift key while starting up will disable extensions; if you do this and things seem stable, it's likely that some third party software is mucking things up. If it is directory corruption, I have no other advice to offer on repair but once it *is* fixed, you might want to "Enable Journaling" on the partition in question. There's a small (10%-ish) performance hit on disk I/O, but makes thing much more robust.
• if you can try MacJanitor - OS X is a Unix, and it can generate a ton of log files (esp. if you've attached something with some flaky drivers - have heard of some problems with game pads and whatnot). there are scheduled tasks that usually clean up, but unless you leave your system on all the time they typically don't get run. MacJanitor will run them for you. some of those tasks clean up /tmp and archive log files, which can free up some disk space.
• mrg has a point. flakey drivers can write to the log files 1 zillion times/minute. Go to folder /var/log and sort by size. If there's a log with a huge size, then that's the problem.
• danielo, I think I may know what your problem is (having gone through the almost identical problem a year back). Do you by chance have File Vault protection turned on (System Preferences/Security)? If so, that is most likely your culprit... Just my hunch. Good luck!
• Also, as you are a new mac user, may I suggest MacFixIt as an excellent site for help in every aspect of Mac questions, problems, etc... They have an excellent forums board. I've resolved numerous problems by accessing their boards.
• Thanks all! Got it fixed. [sugarmilktea] was right, I did have File Vault engaged, though I'm not convinced that was it. In the end, I created a completely new admin account, but that didn't fix anything until I wiped out the old one completely. Suddenly, I had TONS of free space and all problems are gone. I suspect those who suggested an out-of-control log file were on to something....
• File Vault uses a growable encrypted partition (a "sparse image"). Unfortunately, growable doesn't necessarily mean shrinkable, so deleting files inside the Vault won't always free up the space.
• Ah, the OS flame wars. Just think how much more fun they will be when people are writing in with questions like "I'm dual-booting Windows and OSX, and I keep getting this problem..." Glad to hear your problem was fixed, danielo. In the future it might pay to have some sort of backup plan handy - I keep a bootable Linux disk lying around, if all else fails I can restart my system from that disk and still access all my files for backup purposes (provided the HD isn't borked). If such a thing exists for a Mac, I've not heard of it, but if there is the option of doing something similar you might wish to look into it.
• I sometimes feel people take my comments far too seriously.
• Unfortunately, growable doesn't necessarily mean shrinkable, so deleting files inside the Vault won't always free up the space. Bingo. Glad to hear you've resolved your mac issue danielo.