OSX Delocalizer - ah crap.
April 29, 2005 6:15 AM   Subscribe

I recently ran the OSX utility 'Delocalizer' and my mac has been screwy ever since. I think I've found the problem in this MB thread. I need advice on how to recover from this.

Here are all the details:

I followed this recent Lifehacker link to a story about delocalizer and ran it without even bothering to check if it supported 10.3.
Turns out, Delocalizer works fine on 10.3 UNLESS you have a program called Data Recycler Installed, which I do.

From the message board topic linked above:

"The problem is indeed with Prosoft's Data Recycler utility. This utility gives one a chance of recovering files that have been accidentally trashed. Unfortunately, with some programs like DeLocalizer, it chokes the system when an attempt is made to trash a massive amount of files at once.
If you use DeLocalizer and have Data Recycler installed, disable it or uninstall it first."

Data Recycler is shareware and all I get from running it is a "trial period over" dialog, so that may or may not be the problem. Any diagnosis / repair help is welcome!

Symptoms:

- Hard drive is going crazy w/ activity 100% percent of the time
- CPU activity will show normal levels and occaisionally jump to 100% for a few minutes.
- Every click takes about 60 seconds to register.

Help?
posted by adamkempa to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)
 
I would cut my losses and reinstall the OS and applications--trying to find out exactly what got hosed could take ages and you'd never be certain you caught everything. You can backup your Home folder so you won't lose your documents or preference settings; it's HIGHLY doubtful Delocalizer would have affected anything in there.

Do you have access to another Mac? If your computer is too unresponsive, you might want to hook it up to another Mac and put yours in Firewire Disk Mode, which will let you copy your Home folder off pretty simply.

If not, you should be able to boot from the system CD your Mac came with and at least reinstall the OS. Just look for the settings that allow you to use your existing Home folder. If that gets your system running, I would recommend still trashing any 3rd party apps from your Applications folder and reinstall them to be in the safe side.
posted by bcwinters at 7:14 AM on April 29, 2005


Best answer: Does the Activity Monitor utility show a crashed process, or one that's taking up a huge amount of CPU time?

Do you have Diskwarrior? If so, try running that from CD. If not, run fsck as follows:

Click on Apple menu – Restart

During bootup, press and hold Command + S to startup in Single User mode

At the command prompt local host:/ root# / type the following:
/sbin/fsck –fy

Press the Return key. This executes the File System Check and allows any repairs needed. Notice the display indicating what is being checked (HFS Plus volume, Extents Overflow file, Catalog file, multi-linked files, Catalog hierarchy, volume bit map, volume information)

If errors are found, you’ll see the message FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED.

Run the File System Check command again until all errors are repaired and you see the message The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK At the command prompt local host:/ root# / type the following:
reboot
posted by iconoclastic flow at 7:35 AM on April 29, 2005


Response by poster: iconoclastic flow:

I ran 'top' in terminal this morning - no CPU heavy processes.
It showed 2 'stalled' processes (I think that's what it said), but I'm not at home right now, and OSXvnc isn't responding.

I'll try your advice - thanks!
posted by adamkempa at 7:39 AM on April 29, 2005


Best answer: I ran 'top' in terminal this morning - no CPU heavy processes.

top doesn't sort by CPU by default, and so some system processes are almost never seen on a screen of the default size. To sort by cpu, type "xocpu" in top, where "" just means to press the enter key. Once you do this, during the times when the CPU spikes you probably will see some process or another up there, though I have no idea what it will be.
posted by advil at 9:35 PM on April 29, 2005


um, I should have said something like: type "xocpu[enter]" where "[enter]" means to press enter (I used angle brackets accidentally the first time).
posted by advil at 9:37 PM on April 29, 2005


or you can just to "top -u" to begin with.
posted by kindall at 10:54 AM on April 30, 2005


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