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Troubleshooting Extension Info Control Panel Info
Extensions, Their Fights, and How to Mediate
The Macintosh is a groundbreaking computer, and always has been. When the designers created it, they were striving to make it a friendly computer that was not only easy, but fun to use. Part of making it fun and friendly involved letting the user customize the look and feel of the Mac to his or her own preferences. All the user needed to do was drop a small program called an Extension in the "System Folder," and anything or everything could be changed. To understand how this works, one needs to know how the Macintosh operates. (If you have a weak stomach when it comes to technical explanations you can skip this section.) Many times a second, the Mac checks the mouse, the keyboard, and the screen. It makes sure everything is updated and responds to any input from the user. Every action made by you or your Mac triggers a "Trap," and the address of every trap is stored in one central location. An extension replaces the standard instructions pointed to by a "trap" with its own instructions, and this lets it do just about anything. That's all fine and dandy, but every once in a while more than one extension will try to do something at the same time. When that happens one of many things can occur.
- Only one of the extensions has an effect, and you get confused when the other doesn't work like you wanted it to.
- Both extensions work out their differences and for the time being they both work. You never know the difference, and the problem lies dormant.
- They fight for the same thing, and your computer "freezes" (everything stops moving) or some other strange and unpredictable thing happens.
Great - so now you know that extensions can fight. How do you fix
the problem? There are two ways. The first is to buy a commercial product that will do the
job for you. At first these didn't work too well, but they're getting a lot smarter now
and can often do the job faster than you could by hand. The second option takes longer but
is cheaper and often more accurate. Follow the steps below, and you should be able to
discover the problematic extension/s. Good Luck!
Conflict Isolation Note: If you have an Extension Manager
(like the one that comes with System 7.5) use it to disable all non-essential
Control Panels and Extensions, then skip to step 4.
| Step 1: | Open your system folder and make two new folders: "Extensions (disabled)" and "Control Panels (disabled)" |
| Step 2: | Move all non-essential extensions from the "Extensions" folder to the "Extensions (disabled)" folder. (Be honest about this. Only keep the bare minimum!) |
| Step 3: | Do the same for the Control Panels - move them from the "Control Panels" folder to the new "Control Panels (disabled)" folder. (Again, be honest!) |
| Step 4: | Restart your computer. The Extensions and Control Panels you just moved won't load this time, so you'll just start up with the "essentials." |
| Step 5: | See if you still have the problem. If you do, then one or more of your "essentials" is causing the problem. (If you really were honest, try reinstalling your system software and then start again.) |
| Step 6: | If the problem stopped, then you know that one or more of the things you moved was causing the trouble. Now comes the tedious part... |
| Step 7: | Slowly, put back the things you moved from the Extensions and Control Panels folders. Groups of four or five usually work well. Make sure you keep track of the last ones you moved back! |
| Step 8: | Each time you put more back, restart and see if the problem occurs. If it does you know one of the last things you moved is the culprit, and you can try to isolate that. If the problem doesn't occur, go back to step 7. Eventually, by trial and elimination you'll discover the extension or two that is causing the trouble. It takes a long time, but its worth it! Good luck, and as always if you want extra help, or you have a suggestion, please feel free to e-mail me! |
