was: Re: FLASH: Flash crash is: Mac troubleshooting

[Frederico]

Some folks have said:


>> >Flash 3 and 4  crash my Mac 4 or 5 times a day.


So, when this happens, what do you do besides just force-quit and 

restart? Do you run DFA? Rebuild your DTs? Toss damaged prefs? Inspect 

your drives for fragmentation that easily and quickly corrupts VM and 

temp files? Or do you just restart and look surprised when it happens 

again? I'm sorry to be so snotty about this, but I'm just astonished that 

people fail to read the user's manual or seek other forms of free advice 

(that works) until they've beaten the System so badly that far more than 

simple repairs are required.


Simple fact of the day:   A Properly maintained and dressed Mac running 

OS8.1 or 8.6 and proven apps will *not* crash! Period! Seriously! Doing 

stupid things like quitting applications out of order and launching new 

ones without purging the RAM, using RAM allocation improperly, failing to 

maintain your System and volumes, or installing conflicting properties 

are about all that will crash a Mac these days. Anyone crashing once or 

more per week, who is not running alpha, beta, or otherwise unstable apps 

(F3/4 are fine, Communicator isn't) isn't using the Mac properly. Mac 

feeling wonky? Reboot before you crash, it'll feel better. Happen 

frequently? Buy more RAM. Have plenty of RAM? Make sure it's not 

defective. Not defective? Adjust cache allocations. Still 

sluggish/unstable? Look for SCSI or peripheral conflicts. No conflicts? 

Use good utilities to dress your volumes, and use multiple drives and/or 

volumes (partitions) to further stablize your System by creating devoted 

scratch/VM volumes. Crashes while surfing? Delete your cache, logs, and 

history files. Other issues? Think you shouldn't have to do any of this? 

Welcome to the world of pro-computing. The day you installed Flash is the 

day you asked to have to do the things Pros do. 


More advice on request.


(B&W and iMac owners should also check in with Apple 

<http://www.apple.com/support> to see if there are new ROM updates, there 

have been more than one released)


try this (in order, do not skip anything):


1) Boot from CD or other volume.


2) Delete (or move to Desktop) Finder prefs, Apple Menu Options prefs (or 

Be Heirarchic), General Controls prefs, Mac OS prefs, System prefs, Sound 

prefs, Appearance Prefs, File Exchange prefs, Flash prefs.


3) *Delete* (not just rebuild) your Desktop DB/DF files (Use a utility 

like ResEdit or Trash Desktop 1.2.1, freeware), not TechToolPro or other 

replace/rebuilders. Traditional DT rebuilding commands won't work for you 

now)

* (don't restart yet)


4)

     a) If you own Disk Warrior (if you don't, buy it), use it (at least) 

on your System and applications 

volume(s), note any errors and repair them. (note: your DTs will rebuild 

as each volume is remounted with DW)


*or*


     b)  Run Disk First Aid 8.5.2, note any errors and repair them.


*and*


     c) Use Drive Setup 1.7.3 to update/repair your disk drivers 

(skipping this item is suicide).


5) Restart from CD, zapping PRAM on the way in (CMMD-OPTION-P-R) Allow 

DTs to rebuild (4b only).


6) Inspect your volumes for fragmentation. Use a *quality*   *optimiser*  

(not TechToolPro) to defrag/optimise your files for better use of VM and 

scratch files.


7) Select the Flash application icon, do a 'Get Info' (CMMD-I) and 

increase the 'Preferred Memory' allocation to not less than 35MB (35000), 

more for larger projects. Do not adjust the 'Minimum Memory' setting.


8) Reboot from main System, select MacOS x.x Base from the Extensions 

Manager, reboot, turn AppleTalk and Filesharing 'OFF', launch Flash, and 

take detailed notes as to exactly what happens, what other apps are open, 

and what steps lead to a crash, should they reoccur. 


9) 

      a) If a Flash-only crash occurs, delete the Flash-prefs, repeat 

steps 2-6 as needed, increasing memory each time, and/or reducing 

extensions load each time, and try eliminating the other open apps until 

you see a clear pattern of conflict.


       b) If a System-wide crash occurs, repeat steps 1-6, then as in 

[9a] and/or completely delete the Flash application, Flash-installed 

System items and reinstall.


10) If System-wide crashing persists:


     a) perform a clean (preferably virgin) install of the OS to a 

separate volume.

     b) prior to anything else, duplicate the newly-installed 'Finder', 

'System', and 'System Resource' files, put them in a safe place.

     c) reboot to the new System, install Flash, increase the memory 

prior to launch, and see how it acts there running 'Mac OS x.x Base' 

without any other applications installed.

     d) if System crashes again, boot from CD, delete 'Finder', 'System', 

and 'System Resources' files from the new volume, and replace from the 

backups. This, finally, should cure all woes. If it does, you can install 

the same files to your original System, and see how it behaves, restore 

prefs settings, etc.


11) If this fails, check for proper SCSI termination and conflicts, and 

also use FWB Hard Disk toolkit to perform a media-level scan for damaged 

sectors (Disk Setup isn't thorough enough). If bad sectors are found, 

repeat the steps above, including a clean-install. If no bad sectors are 

found, and you've done everthing above, you need a MacGuru.


Please let us know what resolves your problems, or write for more advice 

or the address of a MacGuru near you to help you along.


Frederico


~The problems we have can not be solved by 

                                    the same  

                                         level 

                                            of 

                                            thinking that created them.~

	                                                --Albert Einstein


Think PC?   Think Y2K?   Think not. 


Think Different.   Think Better.   Think Macintosh.



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