Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Daniel's Advice

Translucent Gray Box in OS X, AFP Connection Problem in Classic Stump Mac Daniel

Dan Knight - 2006.07.12

Sometimes I just love a good mystery. Other times I just wish the problem would go away.

I solved problems using my cell phone with iSync (see Getting iSync to Work with an Unsupported Cell Phone). I uncovered all the details about using "big" hard drives - ones over 128 GB in size - on older Macs (see How Big a Hard Drive Can I Put in My iMac, eMac, or Power Mac?).

And sometimes I'm stumped. This column covers two problems I'm having that I simply haven't been able to get to the bottom of. Thankfully I've been able to attack both of these by simply logging in and out of my account for one problem and restart the Classic environment when trying to solve the other. It beats a full hardware restart any day.

I'm hoping one or more readers may be able to shed light on these problems and point to a solution.

AFP Connection Status

The first one goes back a long ways, at least to the OS X 10.3 era. When I launch Classic, I get a dialog box that says Classic is looking for the IP address 192.168.2.37. That window will stay open for a long, long time if I don't hit Cancel, and Classic won't finish booting until then.

There's also a much longer delay at the end of the Classic boot sequence than there is on my eMac or PowerBook G4, but since I usually have Classic running all the time, that's not such a big issue.

What's particularly frustrating is that it only happens on one of my Macs, and it happens even when I log in as a different user.

I've used Google to research this. I've gone to Mac OS X Hints and other sites. And I haven't found anything about this problem, let alone how to solve it.

I have deleted preferences in System Folder > Preferences. I have changed the settings in various control panels. I've made sure there is nothing in the Recent Servers folder. Yet the problem persists.

I haven't found anything in my OS X User folder that might address this either.

 

The Translucent Gray Box

The second problem started on my eMac a couple months back and manifested on my Power Mac G4 within the past week. All of a sudden I have a translucent gray box that won't change in size, can't be moved, can't be vanished, and persists in the same location regardless of screen resolution.

It's a real eyesore. Although I can work right through it, it's very annoying. Very. And I can't figure out what's causing it or how to solve it.

This box only appears when I am logged into my main account; switch to any other account and it doesn't show up.

I'm guessing this isn't related to OS X 10.4.x itself, but probably to one of the many apps and background tasks I have running. These include the No-IP.com Update Client, SMARTreporter, WeatherMenu, the BOINC client, WINswitch, Palm Desktop, and Plaxo's synch tool. Disabling these, logging out, and then logging back in has not solved my problem.

Neither has deleting these apps and replacing them with fresh (sometimes newer) versions.

Activity Monitor shows dozens upon dozens of active processes, and in most cases I have no clue what they might be and whether it might be safe to disable them. This is a far cry from troubleshooting in the "bad old days" of the Classic Mac OS.

I'm at a loss with both of these problems. If you have any ideas on how to solve either issue, please email me at low_end_mac (at) yahoo.com. I'll share the solution to both problems here.

Thanks in advance! LEM

Translucent Gray Box Solution

A huge thanks to Matthew Ryan who recognized this problem from his own trouble-shooting experience. It turns out the translucent gray box was a by-product of WinSwitch, a neat little freeware app I'd pretty much forgotten I was even using.

The solution was to uninstall WinSwitch (using the program's installer), delete the .plist (preference) files related to the program, log out, and then reinstall WinSwitch. Problem solved!

Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.

Recent Mac Daniel columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.