Hey guys, this is my first post here

I've got an annoying problem with my Finder: it doesn't run and I'm not able to start it either. It all happened after installing the latest update (iTunes and Quicktime). I had to reboot after updating and then it happened: Fider was gone and when I a ctrl-click on the Finder icon in the Dock it says: "Finder Not Running".

The strange thing is that everything else works just fine. I'm running OS X 10.3.5 on a 17" Powerbook Aluminium (1.33Ghz, 512mb ram, etc). I've also posted some info about this on my weblog: http://www.filipdewaard.com/archives/26-OS-X-Finder-Headaches.html

Could somebody give me a hand?

I installed the Quicktime update (after running Disk Warrior and repairing permissions), then ran DW afterwards. DW found some problems, which it fixed. You might try this. If you don't have DW, try running Repair Disk from Disk Utility, even though DU isn't a tenth as good as DW.

You may try to run the Finder from the Terminal in order to view console error messages. Do this:

1. Open the Terminal application.
2. Type:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder &
and press return.
3. Note down any error message that appears and post it here if so.
4. To close the terminal session type Ctrl-D.

Another idea. Have you tried to login as a different user? Try it because you account may have some corrupted preferences. In this case, the solution would be to isolate the corrupted preference files and delete them.

I hope you find my post useful. Good luck.

I too have a major problem, probably with the Finder, after the most recent software updates. DiskWarrior and Norton Utilities both unable to fix it.

I have only the Dock on my Desktop. No hard drive icons, and a few menu icons. Starting up into a different account only brought up the generic set of Dock icons.

I am using a G4/733.

I tried running Terminal and the result was [1] 470
Changing users did not help
Nor did rebuilding the directory with DiskWarrior
Nor did running Norton Utilities, which found only minor problems

I had the same problem and a few other Mac users had the problem too. You might have to re-install OSX, But don't do a clean install. What happens is that your old data will be placed into another folder and you can drag and drop them over to new file. Once you recovered data, you can also trash the old system folder. Mark that, you should backup any files if you can. Log-in on root and try to recover them there.
It seems in your case that the finder became corrupt. I not sure though, but the Mac Tech advised me too. That is why I use 3rd party Repair and Otimizing programs to main a healthy drive. Tech Tool Pro 4 is the best for me.


iMac 450+DV
768 Mram
Emprex DVD burner External
External 80 G External
120 G internal
OSX.3.5

Ok, the output [1] 470 indicates normal execution. The number 1 means that this process (the Finder) is the first one you launched with the & background option. The number 470 is the process id that the operating system assigns to it. If no other error message is printed, I can't tell you what's wrong.

okay. i'm experiencing pretty much exactly this problem (finder not launching, no icons on desktop...etc) after a recent batch of updates. i'm not eager to do any OS reinstalling just yet. i'd like to try some of the other solutions listed above (i.e. disk utilities) but - maybe this is a stupid question - how do i launch applications without using the finder? i've even tried downloading some utilities to do this, but of course i can't see their mounted disk images anywhere and launching from safari's download window does nothing but force me to kill and relaunch safari!

it always struck me as strange that finder was the only way to launch applications and open files...maybe it's not?

is there a magic key combination that i'm not aware of?

--edit--

also, trying to reinstall updates doesn't work - the installer gets to a certain point (before actually installing anything) and freezes. hmpf.

--edit again--

the installer doesn't work for anything i've tried so far....

also

i got into the terminal:

bart:/system/library/coreservices/finder.app/contents/macos woman$ /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder &
[1] 1104
bart:/system/library/coreservices/finder.app/contents/macos woman$ dyld: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder Undefined symbols:
DiscRecordingContent undefined reference to _kDRDeviceMediaTypeDVDPlusRDoubleLayer expected to be defined in DiscRecordingEngine
DiscRecordingContent undefined reference to _kDRFlagsKey expected to be defined in DiscRecordingEngine



which is not too enlightening to me. trying to run Finder from the terminal (without the &) just gives me

Finder: command not found

hmmm.

disk utility also does not seem to run?


--edit-- getting a bit smarter here. learning some things.

okay, maybe i should go ahead and delete some of the above babbling, but i prefer to let my naivete hang out for all to see.

ran DU which repaired some things - no result
deleted the finder preferences - no result
also tried logging in as another user - no result

as i understand the above error (now that i actually look at it) Finder is trying to access some variables or functions (or whatever) in DiscRecordingEngine, which it cannot find?

.....this is internal to the finder application? meaning finder is simply corrupt? er, how do i replace finder without doing any os reinstallation?

Rubberglove, when making significant additions to what you originally posted you'll be better off replying to the thread again instead of editing your original post, because a reply bumps the thread up the list and indicates that there's new information to be seen.

For future reference.

yes this is true (replying to the thread to bump it up)

here's my thinking at present, please someone correct me if i'm making some false assumptions or just being stupid:

finder was updated in one of the recent updates, but the library DiscRecordingEngine was not (for some reason), so when finder tries to access the (new, updated?) variables _kDRDeviceMediaTypeDVDPlusRDoubleLayer and _kDRFlagsKey it finds them undefined and stops loading.

i'm assuming the library is not simply corrupt, since i tried replacing it with another i found at
http://www.macbidouille.com/downloads/MBDiscRecordingEngine.sit
which resulted in the same errors (yes i'm pretty confident that i put it in the right place. and also backed up the original first).

so, is it possible that replacing the DiscRecordingEngine library with one that is up to date (10.3.6) from another computer would allow finder to load (or at least to the next out of date library)?

does the above make sense?

is there another solution that might save me the trouble of finding and replacing, say, 3 dozen libraries manually?
would replacing finder with a slightly older version, then trying to reapply updates work?

i've reinstalled windows more times than i'd like to remember, that i don't want to start doing the same for os x. not to mention the possibility of losing my girlfriend's settings/files, which would result in a black eye for me. (that's a joke. i swear)


any advice from someone who actually knows what they are talking about (as opposed to someone like me, who's just guessing) would be much appreciated.

thanks.

oh, also, i ran diskwarrior which fixed many things, but not the finder problem.