Chile Forum

My husband is having issues with his MacBook. He can't copy & paste, drag and drop or print. It seems the issues are all related and I have found this:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread. ... ost7980907

Which seems to be the remedy we're looking for.

Problem is, that I'm an IT idiot and am worried that I might stuff something up if I do the above.

I have so far done the following:

1. Sut down and rebooted
2. Repaired permissions
3. Rang about a 10 IT people ("Mac specialists" who all promised to be here at 9 the next day, but never turned up, or wanted to charge us a Gringo tax of 85,000 plus fuel, plus travelling time to come and see if they might be able to figure out what's wrong (aka: 2 hours of diagnostics before leaving with the damn thing anyway for 3-5 business days)

I can't back up, as I can't drag & drop, so at this time a complete reinstall is out of the question.

Can someone perhaps give me the solution (in the link above) in dummy language? I know how to open a new terminal window and I know the password, but am not sure that if I do what the instructions suggest, that I wouldn't stuff up anything else.

Any thoughts?

> sudo su
password: (write your administration password. If you only have one user in the machine, mostly your user is the admin, so type your own password)
> cd /
> ln -s /private/tmp ./tmp


you wont break anything wiht those commands, worse you will get is a error saying hte link already exists, and if it does, then thats is not your fix back to googling a solution

give it a go, remember its case sensative

Don't assume it's not hardware related.

1) Did you install RAM yourself? Sometimes the third-party SIMMs aren't seated properly or they're just flaky. Try the machine without the "foreign" SIMMs.

2) Reset the PRAM ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379 ) - then reboot with nothing attached to USB or FW ports.

Ram? who mentioned ram?

zer0nz wrote:Ram? who mentioned ram?

I mentioned RAM because in my experience it can cause odd or random behavior if one of the SIMMs is bad or not installed properly. It's just one possibility. Problems like this can have a hundred different causes -- you're a genius if you can think of twenty five of them.

I had a problem years ago (Mac OS 9 days) and blamed it on an application. It turned out to be a loose cable on an internal modem. The opposite can be true as well. One laptop acted as though it had a hardware failure, but the real cause was a "bad" font file.

Ah, no i thought you ment in tombis original post was mentioned that ram was replaced....

topic4084.html#p41146

Tombi wrote:I've got a Mac support guy coming around this week and will give feedback.

I'm looking at upgrading from Tiger to Snowleopard on my machine, upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard on my husband's machine, fixing a bug on my husband's Macbook (he can't copy & paste or drag & drop - which means we can't back up, along with the expected irritation of not being to c&p), setting up time machine, setting up a home network, replacing my MacBook Pro's battery and a few other issues.

There's a big Mac store with support on Av Kennedy, but we're getting a private guy as I'm out of warranty anyway and the issues with my husband's machine aren't warranty related (like my battery that dies after only about 3 minutes off the plug).

Apparently the Chilean Mac tech could not fix the problem and it has existed since Leopard before the upgrade to Snow Leopard.

Tombi, we are waiting for the results of the Terminal commands.

The root user in OSX is disabled by default. So you can't do a sudo or su to root until you enable it.

See:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1528


And if you don't know what a command is (like sudo or su) then use whatis in a terminal window to find out.

$whatis sudo
sudo(8) - execute a command as another user

The one after the other Mac tech failed to turn up (I've had 3 appointments now unattended!). Mac store on Kennedy wants to keep the machine for 3-5 business days and we still haven't done the upgrade (as per EEUU's quote, as I can't back up due to not c&p'ing), so my husband's still running Leopard.

Tried to do the commands, but it's not letting me enter the password (it's not that it is the wrong password, it just stays blank when I try and enter the password). I had an IT guy here for other stuff, but he doesnt' know Macs and couldn't figure it out either (even with my links to the commands) and thinks that we will just have to bite the bullet and let the Mac Center take the MacBook for the 3-5 days and sort it out.

Tombi wrote:The one after the other Mac tech failed to turn up (I've had 3 appointments now unattended!). Mac store on Kennedy wants to keep the machine for 3-5 business days and we still haven't done the upgrade (as per EEUU's quote, as I can't back up due to not c&p'ing), so my husband's still running Leopard.

Tried to do the commands, but it's not letting me enter the password (it's not that it is the wrong password, it just stays blank when I try and enter the password). I had an IT guy here for other stuff, but he doesnt' know Macs and couldn't figure it out either (even with my links to the commands) and thinks that we will just have to bite the bullet and let the Mac Center take the MacBook for the 3-5 days and sort it out.

I am curious. In a terminal window, try this:

$cd /
$ls -la

What do you see?

Specifically I see these 3 items in my list (the other files I have omitted):

lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Oct 26 2008 etc -> private/etc
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Oct 26 2008 tmp -> private/tmp
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Oct 26 2008 var -> private/var


Do you see the three defined links in your listing? Or not?

Well, I don't think you can enter the password if your root id is not enabled. I had to enable mine to delete some files. Did you try to activate your root id and set the password for it (as per the instructions in the link I gave)?

This is so frustrating! Please excuse my ignorance, I told you I was a dummy...

From the link you gave me

Mac OS X v10.5

1. From the Finder's Go menu, choose Utilities.
2. Open Directory Utility.
3. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.
4. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.
5. Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.
6. Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.

I can do 1 & 2, then it searches for directory servers and tells me "No Directory Servers configured". I can still do the rest, but it doesn't work (I went back to terminal and tried, but it's still not letting me type the password) as I presume it needs a directory server?

I am curious. In a terminal window, try this:

$cd /
$ls -la

What do you see?

$cd /
I get -bash: / A is a directory

$ls -la
I get command not found.

I'm entering it exactly as you typed above...

no $ sign......