Basic troubleshooting for Mac

As a result of all the Mac issues that keep comming up I went to the Apple site to search for some usefull tips. Here are a number of them, that will give you some basic insight into how Mac OS functions, and how you can do a little troubleshooting yourself:

1. "My application quit unexpectedly"

This explains, among others, how Mac OS temporarily resets the applications preferences:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1927.html

2. "Isolating issues in Mac OS X":

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388?viewlocale=en_US

3. "Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck"

To add to the last suggestion of Apple in the "Isolating issues in Mac OS X" article -to bring your computer to a dealer- here is a

discription how to test with Disk Utility first, and where you can find it:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

BE AWARE. Don't start up in single users mode, unless you're comfortable with UNIX:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8475.html

To switch back to the Mac OS X interface, type reboot and press the Return key.

4. "Application Issues and Basic Troubleshooting"

Although ancient, I believe this one is usefull too. It's about OS 9 and explains a little about dealing with conflicting extentions. This

doesn't seem to be supported by SO X anymore, but a control panel in System Preferences is easily disabled. There is an extentions manager in Sketchup though, under preferences:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA40255?viewlocale=en_US

5. There is a nice Mouse Utility, that seems to be able to disable Apple's mouse settings better than others, like Logitecs (although I didn't thoroughly test this):

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/usboverdrive.html

6. Don't forget the usefull links on this site. Start here:

SketchUp Sage/Mac Issues

Hi bob,

Just wanted to say thanks for this really great proactive post. A

little education goes a long way toward solving problems. W appreciate

the help!

Vicky