Mac Tech Support Tips

Basic Conflict Management.......

ALWAYS load new software with extensions one at a time so that if conflicts develop, you have a good idea as to the offending extension(s). Extension management is at least 50% of Mac OS Classic tech support!

If your Mac freezes/hangs/crashes during startup or within the Finder, you must restart with ALL extensions OFF by holding down the shift key during the startup process until the "Starting Up" window is on the monitor screen. You must then manually delete the offending extensions or drag-n-drop them into the "Extensions Disabled" or "System Extensions Disabled" folder. I also recommend Casady & Greene's Conflict Catcher for more extensive extensions management.

EVERY time you buy new software or install new software, check the manufacturers web site BEFORE installation for updated extensions or updates to the software. This is often the best way to resolve a problem extension issue, avoid, or resolve one.

Saving ColorSync Settings may be difficult with regard to system software upgrades. This proves an issue until settings are reset manually within the ColorSync control panel, and then the Adobe Gamma control panel (if installed). This is where you have my empathy, as some professionals are very precise as to their settings.

NEVER install more extensions than you need into your System Extensions folder-and BEWARE BETA. Every extension patches critical system functions, and extension issues are the very MAJOR cause of faults in the operation of your Mac. Just because you just love the heck out of that shareware-freeware or even commercial extension dosen't mean your Mac does. Some control panels are a cause of problems as well. Always run the latest version of software for your OS version, which will limit any of these issues.

Always install new software (unless you are TOTALLY sure that the combination you are installing is tried and true) one program at a time and then restart the computer and try the program and other software out. Once I found that installing Microsoft Word's make html feature (in an older version 6.0) that my Netscape 3 web browser was disabled! (You bet Microsoft heard about THAT one) You may have to manually add RAM allocation to the program if it crashes with a Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 error. Open File menu (in Finder Desktop) > Get Info > Memory and type in some higher numbers a few megabytes or more and hit return, which locks it in the higher number. Anyway you have to make sure the program works with your other software. Other than memory allocation....if a program runs badly (rare) then at least you can easily remove it and any Extensions it installed or Contextual Memory Modules, Control Strip Modules, etc.

Be very wary and careful when upgrading system software as newer versions of the Mac OS may cause extension conflicts with 3rd party system extensions. Always perform a clean install of major system upgrades (an installation option on every modern Mac OS) and carefully load your old extensions and control strips and control panels one, or a few at a time, never replacing new versions of specific Apple system components with old.

.......with Apple Extensions Manager Control Panel

When Apple designed the Mac OS back in the 1980's, it was a very stable system. My Mac Plus running System 6 virtually never crashed. However, as the Mac OS evolved, new functions and features were added on by way of system extensions -- patches of computer code that modified and enhanced System or application functions. Unfortunately, these little guys don't always peacefully coexist.

If you are running System 7 or later versions of the classic Mac OS, you will have almost certainly experienced crashes, lockups, and freezes from time to time. Not all of these are caused by extension conflicts, and in fact most are not. Running out of Finder memory (which can and does happen even if you have plenty of RAM installed) is a prime culprit, as are memory collisions between programs.
However, if you begin having a lot of crashes, especially after installing a new system version upgrade or a new software application version, (third-party software now frequently installs System extensions), extension conflicts may be to blame.

Fortunately, there is a tool in the Mac OS that can help you track down extension conflicts, and manage extensions in general. It's in the Control Panels Folder and called Extensions Manager. You can open it from the Apple Menu like any other control panel, or at startup by holding down the while you boot your Mac. In the latter case, handy if your Mac is crashing at startup, Extensions Manager will appear after the startup screen is displayed. The spacebar at start up method is preferable because in that mode you will also get a menu that adds a number of additional features to Extensions Manager, including a File menu with commands that let you duplicate, rename, delete, or create a text report about extension sets you create (see below); an Edit menu with a Find Item command that takes you to the actual icon in your System Folder; and a View menu that lets you rearrange the list of control panels and extensions, making packages or clusters of them alphabetically.

However, now any third-party software you have that requires system extensions will not work. In order to restore functionality and isolate the culprit that had been causing the problem, proceed as follows:

1. Open your Mac's System Folder (in the hard drive window), find the extensions and control panels folders, open them respectively, select all items (Command > A), and select Label from the File Menu. Apply a bright color (e.g.: red) to all the items in these folders.
2. Now restart and open Extensions Manager again. All the items in the basic Mac OS extensions and control panel sets should be highlighted in the color you chose, which will be helpful in distinguishing basic extensions and control panels from third party ones.
3. Click the "Duplicate Set" button and and create a new custom set with a name like "My Custom Set One" or whatever you like.
4. Select "By Package" from the View menu (provided that you opened the Extensions Manager by holding the spacebar down on startup). That will sort extensions and control panels in groups according to the program that they are associated with.
5. There are now several ways to proceed, but the one I recommend is to enable the packages of extensions and control panels one application at a time, restarting with each one, to see if things are still working properly.
6. If an extension conflict was the problem, it should reappear after enabling a particular package of extensions. Disable that package began, and restart to double-check. If all is now well again, you can be reasonably sure that these extensions were the ones doing in dirt.

The reason could be that the third-party extensions are incompatible with the Mac OS version you're using, especially if you have just upgraded to a new Mac OS version; possibly they are just buggy, or perhaps corrupted.

Check the Read Me document for the problematic application for compatibility notes, and you could also try trashing the troublesome extensions and reinstalling the program (or just the extensions in a custom install).
If that doesn't work, you may have to settle for doing without that piece of software, or upgrading to a later version.

I should also note here that while the procedure I've described will cover most extension conflicts, there are other potential issues such as extension load order or the possibility that two third-party applications will work fine in isolation from one another, but not with their respective extensions enabled together. However these are beyond the scope of a basic tutorial for beginners.

System extensions which load all the time in the Mac OS are a thing of the past with OS X, which is no doubt a good thing.

If you run Microsoft Office 2001 In Classic....

Mac Tech Support....What Works....What Doesn't.......

Apple did an in-depth report of troubleshooting techniques and their effectiveness. This is what they found:

1. Extensions troubleshooting worked 56% of the times it was tried .

2. Clean installs worked 28% of the time they were tried.

3. Disconnecting SCSI devices worked 21% of the time that it was tried.

These are all valid troubleshooting steps. They have a high likelihood of resolving your problem.
To further clarify:

1. Extensions troubleshooting is the most widely applicable troubleshooting step. It is appropriate for any error type 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 25 or freezing in addition to miscellaneous weird behavior. If the issue occurs on startup or in multiple applications, this is the best bet. If you're going to guess anything, guess this.
2. Clean install. When all third-party hardware and software have been eliminated and the issue persists on startup or in multiple applications. Reinstalling system software may be appropriate. A clean install is not necessary if a custom-install or easy install will fix it. If you have narrowed down the issue to a certain file or the issue seems only to affect a certain component of the system software, you should be able to quickly custom-install that item and fix the issue. A custom-remove is also not, strictly speaking, necessary before a custom-install. There is a lot of recovery required after a clean install. Many users do not understand how to recover from a clean install. It's best avoided unless simpler steps don't fix it. At times it is appropriate, but other times, it's overkill. You can save a lot of time here by doing the quickest thing to resolve issue, not the easiest.
3. Disconnecting SCSI devices. This step is appropriate when a computer starts with a only gray screen and a pointer, but goes no further. Random hard freezes and recurring directory corruption can also be signs of SCSI chain problems. Many users do not realize that all SCSI devices must always powered on before the computer is started and then left on at all times while the computer is being used. There are no exceptions to this rule. This is explicitly stated in every Apple computer manual put out since 1996. Users often miss this point and have chronic problems because of it.

In contrast, the following troubleshooting steps are tried way too often.

From this we conclude that time spent doing these things is, for the most part, wasted. In an effort to provide relevant troubleshooting, please try to limit the use of these steps to the following situations:

1. Rebuilding the Desktop should only be tried to resolve generic file icons (but not the generic Chooser icon in Mac OS 8.1). A single generic icon is often a file level problem (such as a bundle bit), that rebuilding the desktop won't fix. In rare cases, application/document connection problems can be fixed by rebuilding the desktop. (For example, you double-click on a document and it opens the wrong application. However, Easy Open does this same thing by design.). This can easily waste several minutes while troubleshooting, especially on larger drives.
2. Moving Preferences should only be tried when an issue is isolated to a specific item (Finder, control panel, application). Usually, the program will crash on startup or the application-specific settings fail to "stick" when you quit the application. It is not necessary to actually delete the preferences, just move them.
   Resetting the PRAM should only be tried in cases where PRAM-resident settings are not "sticking". These settings include startup disk, keyboard control panel settings (repeat rate, delay until repeat), sound level, memory control panel settings (RAM Disk, Virtual Memory, Disk Cache, 32-bit Addressing), mouse control panel settings (double-click speed, tracking speed), selected AppleTalk port, highlight color, default printer, Date & Time Control Panel (Time Zone, Daylight Savings Time only), General Controls (Folder Protection, Insert Blink, Menu Bar blink only), plus undocumented features. Keep in mind that resetting the PRAM resets all of those settings to their defaults and requires you to reset any settings you changed. The following control panels are not affected by zapping PRAM: Energy Saver, File Sharing, Text, Numbers, Speech, PPP, TCP/IP and many others.
3. Resetting PRAM can affect ADB and serial port issues and little else.
4. Reformatting the hard drive should never even be attempted unless Disk First Aid reports problems that it cannot fix. Unless a bad hard drive is suspected, a low-level format should also never be tried. Zeroing all data should also never be tried unless you want to prevent data recovery.
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If Your Mac Crashes on Startup After
Upgrading or Installing a Program....

If Your Mac Crashes on Startup After
Upgrading or Installing New Hardware

Force your Mac to boot from a
different hard drive or CD Rom disk.

The best option is to use the Startup Disk control panel -- but sometimes you can't get there because the internal drive is set as default, and that drive has a problem.

Be sure to try booting with extensions off. Sometimes that will let you get around a software problem so you can use the Startup Disk control panel.

If not, hold down Command-Option-Control-Shift while booting. This combination is built into the Mac ROMs and makes Macs boot in the default sequence of the Mac Plus (which doesn't support the Startup Disk control panel). This key combination forces your Mac to scan the SCSI bus in this order: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
If there is a bootable drive or partition available at a SCSI ID higher than 0 (or the ID of your troublesome drive), this will let you boot from it. I can't say how this works with Macs using IDE/Ultra ATA drives; I've never tried it.

Failing this, you may need to use a boot floppy, Disk Tools disk, or boot from CD-ROM. Macs with internal floppies will boot from the floppy drive if a bootable disk is present at startup.

Booting from CD-ROM requires an Apple CD-ROM player or a third-party player that uses the Apple drivers, a Centris 610 or newer, and a SCSI ID of 3 for the CD-ROM drive. Holding the C key during startup forces these computers to check the CD-ROM for a bootable disk.