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NeoOffice :: View topic - Neo won't start
Neo won't start
 
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:35 am    Post subject: Neo won't start

When I tried to start up NeoOffice (3.1.2) on my iBook G4 running Tiger this morning, it bounced on the Dock several times, but would not start.

Removing Preferences and changing Users did not resolve the problem. I was able to boot from an external hard drive with a (several months old) clone of the internal drive, and Neo started on it.

I'm attaching a crash log. I'm also attaching the console log and a mdimportserver crash log. As you can see, the console log is full of mdimportserver crashes, both before and after Neo's failure to start, and I thought they might be related.

If they are, I'm guessing I'll have to wipe the drive and reinstall Tiger. Time consuming, but not a big problem. This isn't my primary machine anymore, and I can "migrate" from the clone for most of what I need. But I'm certainly open to other suggestions

Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:53 am    Post subject:

Your crash log indicates that the following user preference file is corrupted:

Code:
~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0/user/config/javasettings_MacOSX_x86.xml


Can you delete that file and then try launching NeoOffice? Does NeoOffice still start launch?

Patrick
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 12:02 pm    Post subject:

Although this may be overkill, I really would recommend that you do disk repair of your main volume.

Repair your main volume by rebooting and holding Command-S while rebooting so that Mac OS X will boots in single user mode. When the command line prompt appears, type the following command, press the Return key, and wait for your machine to execute the command and reboot:

Code:
fsck -fy ; reboot


I recommend this because you are running a PowerPC machine and you have numerous "mdimportserver" crashes in your Console log. Running a PowerPC machine makes me assume that your machine's hard disk has probably had many years of use and the "mdimportserver" crashes indicate that Mac OS X's Spotlight subsystem (which primarily reads files on your machine's hard disk) is running into severe problems.

Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 5:27 pm    Post subject:

Removing the specified preference file didn't fix it. I've attached the new crash log, just in case it's different. I'll run the fsck command and post after it's finished.

It is an older computer/drive; I purchased it in the Spring of 2006, and for the last year or two that it was my primary computer, the drive was near or at capacity.

Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:05 pm    Post subject:

The crash is still occurring because it cannot read that file. I don't know if this will help, but after you run the fsck command, can you launch /Applications/Utilities/Terminal command, copy the following command into the Terminal window, press the Return key, and paste any output into your reply post?:

Code:
ls -l /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Libraries/libjvm.dylib


Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:32 pm    Post subject:

Thanks for working on this, Patrick. I do understand, though if other work/responsibilities mean you can't reply quickly. I do have a working primary machine, plus I can always boot the iBook from the external clone.


Here's the Terminal output:

Code:
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  15 Jun 16  2009 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Libraries/libjvm.dylib -> libclient.dylib


I ran the fsck, but console's still showing multiple mdimportserver errors.

Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:46 pm    Post subject:

At this point, I only have 2 possible theories for what you are seeing:

1. More than one NeoOffice user preference file is corrupted
2. One more folders that your preferences are in are are not writable

Can you test the first theory by moving the following folders (if they exist) to your Desktop or Trash so that NeoOffice will try to create a default set of user preferences?:

~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0
~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2

If NeoOffice still crashes during launch after moving the above folders, can you copy the following commands into a Terminal window, press the Return key, and post any output?:

Code:
touch ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0/user/config/javasettings_MacOSX_x86.xml
ls -l ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0/user/config/javasettings_MacOSX_x86.xml


Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 7:20 pm    Post subject:

No change when I moved the specified folders, which doesn't surprise me, as I tried that before my first post. Here's the terminal output:

Code:
-rw-r--r--   1 Lorinda  Lorinda  0 Oct 24 21:18 /Users/Lorinda/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0/user/config/javasettings_MacOSX_x86.xml


Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 9:39 pm    Post subject:

That is very strange. The file is zero bytes in size. This tells me that the file is never getting created at all and it was the "touch" command that I had you do that created the file.

You mentioned that the disk drive is near capacity. Since Unix-based operating systems like Mac OS X need some disk capacity to function reliably, can you coy the following command into a Terminal window, press the Return key, and post the output? This will tell us how close to no disk capacity you are:

Code:
df -k


Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:06 pm    Post subject:

Here's the results:

Code:
Filesystem              1K-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s3             58474008 55646848  2571160    96%    /
devfs                         103      103        0   100%    /dev
fdesc                           1        1        0   100%    /dev
<volfs>                       512      512        0   100%    /.vol
automount -nsl [149]            0        0        0   100%    /Network
automount -fstab [210]          0        0        0   100%    /automount/Servers
automount -static [210]         0        0        0   100%    /automount/static
/dev/disk1s10            68020160 52846268 15173892    78%    /Volumes/iBook Clone - La Cie
/dev/disk1s12            87994368 82943184  5051184    94%    /Volumes/Extra Storage 1


The internal hard drive should not be quite as full as it once was. When I bought a new computer, I was able to remove some things from this one. But there's no doubt more I should do in that regard.

Lorinda
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi


Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:16 pm    Post subject:

Just over 2GB is not much, but for an iBook with not too much RAM, it should be enough for normal operation. OTOH, once you have had few larger software packages running, a GB or more is taken up by virtual memory.

On average, I try to have 4GB free.

Good luck,
Oscar

_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:31 pm    Post subject:

Lorinda wrote:
The internal hard drive should not be quite as full as it once was. When I bought a new computer, I was able to remove some things from this one. But there's no doubt more I should do in that regard.


You are at 96% capacity on your main volume. In my experience, that is way too high for most Unix-based machines and my current theory is that there is not enough available disk for Mac OS X to reserve virtual memory for Java.

IIRC, on Mac OS X 10.4 Java will physically reserve a file of the requested virtual memory size to ensure that Java can be swapped out of RAM if necessary. My theory here is that your machine does not have enough available disk to allow that step to happen so Java fails to load. That, in turn, causes the user preference file to not be written to disk and NeoOffice does not know where to load Java from.

Can you get disk usage under 90% on your machine, then move your ~/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0 folder to the Desktop or Trash, and try to launch NeoOffice? Does NeoOffice still not start with disk under 90% capacity?

Patrick
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:45 pm    Post subject:

pluby wrote:
Can you get disk usage under 90% on your machine, then move your ~/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0 folder to the Desktop or Trash, and try to launch NeoOffice? Does NeoOffice still not start with disk under 90% capacity?


One more step I forgot to add: can you reinstall NeoOffice 3.1.2? Installing NeoOffice creates a lot of temporary files so if disk space was close to 100% capacity when you installed NeoOffice, that could have left you with an incomplete installation.

Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 2:09 pm    Post subject:

I got the capacity down to 90% and tried to start Neo, with no luck. I then reinstalled Neo. While the installation claimed to be successful, I noticed that Neo attempted to start near the end of installation, but was unable to do so.

I realized I'd forgotten to track the old preferences folder, so I did that and tried again. Same results; Neo crashes (silently) while opening. I discovered something interesting, though. It crashed in the middle of creating the NeoOffice 3.0 preferences folder and its contents. Notably, the ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0/user/config folder is completely empty. Also, the only folders in the user folder are config and registry. This seems rather slim to me.

Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 2:33 pm    Post subject:

Lorinda wrote:
I realized I'd forgotten to track the old preferences folder, so I did that and tried again. Same results; Neo crashes (silently) while opening. I discovered something interesting, though. It crashed in the middle of creating the NeoOffice 3.0 preferences folder and its contents. Notably, the ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-3.0/user/config folder is completely empty. Also, the only folders in the user folder are config and registry. This seems rather slim to me.


That is very weird behavior. Since the default user preference files are fairly small (less than 500 MB), maybe the real problem is Java and when Java loading fails, NeoOffice aborts the user preference file creation process.

So, to test this theory, can you following the steps in the this NeoWiki article. Note that I would like you try to it for both Java 1.4.2 and 1.5.0 since you are running Mac OS X 10.4.

Does the Java test work for both Java versions without error? Or are you seeing any failures?

Patrick
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