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Adventures with a wonderful machine.... and file vault...
Friday, a customer brought in her machine to upgrade the RAM. Usually these are quick things that I knock out in about 5 minutes... but things went south fast.
After installing the RAM, I give the machine back to the customer (who shouldn't even be allowed to use a computer to begin with... this thing was gross and dirty. Desktop was full of clutter). As soon as I give it back, she checks the machine to see how it is running. Well, to no surprise (as I knew there was further work that needed to be done) the machine still ran like crap. She begins to test various apps, of which Word is crashing on start. She starts to freak out (because she had a paper that was due in 2 weeks). It took me, the Supervisor (I will just call him Bob), and the GM (Lets call him Jim) to get this lady to check her machine it so I can fix it. This is where the fun begins.
When a machine gets checked in, they all go through diagnostics (full ASD (Apple Service Diagnostics), hard drive scans, and general functionality testing) before reaching a tech. Well... the diag guy found that this wonderful lady had FileVault enabled (on 10.5 and 10.6, it encrypts the user folder). This just made my job a lot harder. Luckily the drive was sound.
The machine took about 5 minutes to boot and almost another 2 minutes to load the profile (FileVault encrypts and decrypts as you go). Once I was in, I had to turn off FileVault so I can work on the machine properly. This is a simple act (as long as you know the user password).
System Preferences > Security > FileVault tab. Click "Turn off FileVault"
Now here is what sucks. I could have had this machine fixed in about an hour, but I had to have FileVault decrypt everything which takes a while. Well... the sparse bundle didn't have enough room to decrypt, so I had to move data from her home folder (at least 17GB) and then delete it. Afterward, I was able to turn off FileVault... which took 30 hours.
The weekend passes
I come in today, and the machine had finished its task. Now I can FINALLY fix this lady's machine.
After doing some browsing through her machine (which it is MUCH faster now), I found out why Word is crashing. It is on the root of the drive. YOU NEVER PUT APPS ON THE ROOT OF THE DRIVE, ESPECIALLY OFFICE! So I move it back to the Applications folder, under Office 2011 folder. No joy. Word is crashing and now PowerPoint is too... The only way to resolve this is completely removing Office 2011. For this process, you don't have to get rid of anything under Application Support under Library and the User Library. This process takes about 30 minutes, but for me it was done in less than 10.
Afterward, I reinstalled Office, and everything was working.
Onto the next issue - Safari.
When Safari is running like crap, I do 3 things: Reset safari, rip out its plist from ~/Library/Preferences and remove all plug-ins in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins.
To reset Safari, you got to Safari, at the time, click Safari, and click "Reset Safari". Select everything and click Reset.
For the plist, got ~/Library/Preferences (press CMD + Shift + G and type in the path). Find the item that says "com.apple.Safari.plist" and delete it.
Then go to ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and check for anything plug-ins in there. If there is anything.
Next go to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins. Create a folder called Disabled Plugins and move everything BUT the following:
BOOM, Safari should work like a charm.
She also had some keychain issues, so this one is simple. Since she was running Snow Leopard, I fired up a 10.6 install disk and went to the Utilities tab. Select "Reset Password".
Select your drive and select your user name. Click reset password. I don't put anything for a password. Click save.
While I am here, I also go to the bottom where it says "Repair ACL (Access Control Lists) and Home Folder permissions". Click Reset. This will fix any kind of funky permission issues that may be in a home folder and access issues.
Also, go to Disk Utility and run permission repair. This will fix permission issues in the system.
After all this, I booted from my trust super stick (OSX on a stick) and ran disk warrior to repair the volume and fix other issues.
When I logged back in, I was prompted with something about a keychain. Here, always select "Create New Login Keychain". This will fix all keychain issues, but you will have to reenter all your passwords for mail and stuff.
After all of this, her machine was FINALLY fixed. I am tired... Anyone got a beer?
Friday, a customer brought in her machine to upgrade the RAM. Usually these are quick things that I knock out in about 5 minutes... but things went south fast.
After installing the RAM, I give the machine back to the customer (who shouldn't even be allowed to use a computer to begin with... this thing was gross and dirty. Desktop was full of clutter). As soon as I give it back, she checks the machine to see how it is running. Well, to no surprise (as I knew there was further work that needed to be done) the machine still ran like crap. She begins to test various apps, of which Word is crashing on start. She starts to freak out (because she had a paper that was due in 2 weeks). It took me, the Supervisor (I will just call him Bob), and the GM (Lets call him Jim) to get this lady to check her machine it so I can fix it. This is where the fun begins.
When a machine gets checked in, they all go through diagnostics (full ASD (Apple Service Diagnostics), hard drive scans, and general functionality testing) before reaching a tech. Well... the diag guy found that this wonderful lady had FileVault enabled (on 10.5 and 10.6, it encrypts the user folder). This just made my job a lot harder. Luckily the drive was sound.
The machine took about 5 minutes to boot and almost another 2 minutes to load the profile (FileVault encrypts and decrypts as you go). Once I was in, I had to turn off FileVault so I can work on the machine properly. This is a simple act (as long as you know the user password).
System Preferences > Security > FileVault tab. Click "Turn off FileVault"
Now here is what sucks. I could have had this machine fixed in about an hour, but I had to have FileVault decrypt everything which takes a while. Well... the sparse bundle didn't have enough room to decrypt, so I had to move data from her home folder (at least 17GB) and then delete it. Afterward, I was able to turn off FileVault... which took 30 hours.
The weekend passes
I come in today, and the machine had finished its task. Now I can FINALLY fix this lady's machine.
After doing some browsing through her machine (which it is MUCH faster now), I found out why Word is crashing. It is on the root of the drive. YOU NEVER PUT APPS ON THE ROOT OF THE DRIVE, ESPECIALLY OFFICE! So I move it back to the Applications folder, under Office 2011 folder. No joy. Word is crashing and now PowerPoint is too... The only way to resolve this is completely removing Office 2011. For this process, you don't have to get rid of anything under Application Support under Library and the User Library. This process takes about 30 minutes, but for me it was done in less than 10.
Afterward, I reinstalled Office, and everything was working.
Onto the next issue - Safari.
When Safari is running like crap, I do 3 things: Reset safari, rip out its plist from ~/Library/Preferences and remove all plug-ins in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins.
To reset Safari, you got to Safari, at the time, click Safari, and click "Reset Safari". Select everything and click Reset.
For the plist, got ~/Library/Preferences (press CMD + Shift + G and type in the path). Find the item that says "com.apple.Safari.plist" and delete it.
Then go to ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and check for anything plug-ins in there. If there is anything.
Next go to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins. Create a folder called Disabled Plugins and move everything BUT the following:
- JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
- nslQTScriptablePlugin.txt
- Quartz Composer.webplugin
- QuickTime Plugin.plugin
BOOM, Safari should work like a charm.
She also had some keychain issues, so this one is simple. Since she was running Snow Leopard, I fired up a 10.6 install disk and went to the Utilities tab. Select "Reset Password".
Select your drive and select your user name. Click reset password. I don't put anything for a password. Click save.
While I am here, I also go to the bottom where it says "Repair ACL (Access Control Lists) and Home Folder permissions". Click Reset. This will fix any kind of funky permission issues that may be in a home folder and access issues.
Also, go to Disk Utility and run permission repair. This will fix permission issues in the system.
After all this, I booted from my trust super stick (OSX on a stick) and ran disk warrior to repair the volume and fix other issues.
When I logged back in, I was prompted with something about a keychain. Here, always select "Create New Login Keychain". This will fix all keychain issues, but you will have to reenter all your passwords for mail and stuff.
After all of this, her machine was FINALLY fixed. I am tired... Anyone got a beer?