Help (Stuck at Logout)

Post by Nick Naym
I was having some minor problems, and decided to logout and then log back
in. However, apparently the iMac is stuck at logout: The grey screen
appeared, along with the spinning gear icon, but it hasn't progressed beyond
that. It's been "hung" like this for the past hour.
Suggestions?
PS: I'm quite hobbled without my Mac...I'm using someone else's Windows
machine to post this.

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

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Nick Naym

2008-10-17 18:17:59 UTC

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

OK...I'll give it a try.

1. Do I need to turn off my external drives (I'm concerned about
losing/corrupting data, inasmuch as I didn't dismount tem prior to logging
out)?

2. How "unusual" is this situation (i.e., what could cause such a "hang
up")?

Barry Margolin

2008-10-17 19:06:45 UTC

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

OK...I'll give it a try.
1. Do I need to turn off my external drives (I'm concerned about
losing/corrupting data, inasmuch as I didn't dismount tem prior to logging
out)?

In general you should never turn off or disconnect external drives while
the OS is running. The problem you're having might possibly cause data
loss, but turning off the drive can only make it more likely.

Post by Nick Naym
2. How "unusual" is this situation (i.e., what could cause such a "hang
up")?

I used to have this happen all the time with my MacBook at work, when I
was running Tiger. When I upgrade to Leopard and also replaced the
MacBook with a MacBook Pro, the problem went away. My suspicion was
that it had something to do with unmounting network file shares, but I
was never able to pin it down.

--
Barry Margolin, ***@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

Dave Balderstone

2008-10-17 19:14:29 UTC

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

OK...I'll give it a try.
1. Do I need to turn off my external drives (I'm concerned about
losing/corrupting data, inasmuch as I didn't dismount tem prior to logging
out)?

Just shut down the Mac, already.

Post by Nick Naym
2. How "unusual" is this situation (i.e., what could cause such a "hang
up")?

Shit happens.

--
I kill all messages, and replies to messages, from Google Groups. See
http://improve-usenet.org for details.

Nick Naym

2008-10-17 19:47:31 UTC

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

OK...I'll give it a try.
1. Do I need to turn off my external drives (I'm concerned about
losing/corrupting data, inasmuch as I didn't dismount tem prior to logging
out)?

Just shut down the Mac, already.

LOL!

OK...I did. After restarting, about a million windows opened up (seems like
every window i had opened in the past 48 hours); obviously, my original
"logout" attempt never was executed.

Post by Nick Naym
2. How "unusual" is this situation (i.e., what could cause such a "hang
up")?

Shit happens.

Any idea what _kind_ of shit? ;)

Barry Margolin

2008-10-17 20:09:23 UTC

Post by Nick Naym
OK...I did. After restarting, about a million windows opened up (seems like
every window i had opened in the past 48 hours); obviously, my original
"logout" attempt never was executed.

This is an annoying bug that Apple has had for decades. Finder window
closures don't get saved until a clean logout (or shutdown in the
pre-OSX days). So any time you have a system crash, any windows you had
opened during the previous login will be reopened when you login again.

I don't understand why Finder apparently records opening windows
immediately, but doesn't record closing them until it exits.

--
Barry Margolin, ***@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

Dave Balderstone

2008-10-17 20:20:15 UTC

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

OK...I'll give it a try.
1. Do I need to turn off my external drives (I'm concerned about
losing/corrupting data, inasmuch as I didn't dismount tem prior to logging
out)?

Just shut down the Mac, already.

LOL!
OK...I did. After restarting, about a million windows opened up (seems like
every window i had opened in the past 48 hours); obviously, my original
"logout" attempt never was executed.

The Finder didn't shut down properly.

Post by Nick Naym
2. How "unusual" is this situation (i.e., what could cause such a "hang
up")?

Shit happens.

Any idea what _kind_ of shit? ;)

All kinds 'o shit.

--
I kill all messages, and replies to messages, from Google Groups. See
http://improve-usenet.org for details.

Oliver

2008-10-17 20:20:11 UTC

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

I seem to have the same problem occasionally, and I use the power button
too, but not to shut the Mac down, but to make it sleep. When I wake it up
the password dialog appears and I can switch to another account. From
there I log back into the hanging account via terminal and kill all
processes of that user which is then logged out.
(by shutting-down my Mac the hard way, I have just lost access to an
external disk, which could not be repaired with OS X's onboard tools.
Fortunately DiskWarrior could do it).

oliver

Dave Balderstone

2008-10-17 20:28:36 UTC

Post by Oliver

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

I seem to have the same problem occasionally, and I use the power button
too, but not to shut the Mac down, but to make it sleep.

You are able to make the Mac sleep when it's displaying a grey screen
with the spinning gear icon?

Post by Oliver
When I wake it up
the password dialog appears and I can switch to another account. From
there I log back into the hanging account via terminal and kill all
processes of that user which is then logged out.
(by shutting-down my Mac the hard way, I have just lost access to an
external disk, which could not be repaired with OS X's onboard tools.
Fortunately DiskWarrior could do it).
oliver

--
I kill all messages, and replies to messages, from Google Groups. See
http://improve-usenet.org for details.

Oliver

2008-10-18 11:50:19 UTC

Post by Dave Balderstone
You are able to make the Mac sleep when it's displaying a grey screen
with the spinning gear icon?

I think so. What I mean is the point in the log-out sequence when all apps
have (apparently) quit and there is no window open. IIRC the background is
blue, not gray, when the Mac stops doing anything.

And I remember that this seems to happen only (or just more often, I don't
remember) with FileVault accounts. Another reason not to shut-down hard
because who knows what would happen to the FV's disk image.

oliver

Barry Margolin

2008-10-18 14:35:16 UTC

Post by Oliver

Post by Dave Balderstone
You are able to make the Mac sleep when it's displaying a grey screen
with the spinning gear icon?

That's a different problem. If you still have the blue background, it's
not yet in the process of shutting down, I think it's still trying to
logout.

The point we're talking about is after the screen goes dark. At this
point, clicking the power button does nothing, you have to hold it down
for several seconds to power down.

--
Barry Margolin, ***@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

Oliver

2008-10-18 17:27:34 UTC

Post by Barry Margolin
That's a different problem. If you still have the blue background, it's
not yet in the process of shutting down, I think it's still trying to
logout.

Right. I was not trying to shut down the Mac when I had the problem.
I tought the OP had the problem when he only logged out of an account
- because the thread subject is "Stuck at logout" not "Stuck at shutdown" ;-)

oliver

Mike Rosenberg

2008-10-18 17:44:55 UTC

Post by Oliver
Right. I was not trying to shut down the Mac when I had the problem.
I tought the OP had the problem when he only logged out of an account
- because the thread subject is "Stuck at logout" not "Stuck at shutdown" ;-)

You've raised an interesting point, as the OP not only used "logout" in
the subject, he specifically stated he was trying to log out and back in
to his account. However, he also said, "apparently the iMac is stuck at
logout: The grey screen appeared, along with the spinning gear icon."

I didn't pick up on that when I first read his post, but the spinning
gear is not something you would normally see at logout.

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Dave Balderstone

2008-10-18 18:13:44 UTC

You've raised an interesting point, as the OP not only used "logout" in
the subject, he specifically stated he was trying to log out and back in
to his account. However, he also said, "apparently the iMac is stuck at
logout: The grey screen appeared, along with the spinning gear icon."
I didn't pick up on that when I first read his post, but the spinning
gear is not something you would normally see at logout.

OMFG! Someone asking for help on usenet, and NOT providing accurate
information or terminology!

Film at 11!

And people wonder why I exude cynicism some days...

--
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who
have not got it." -- G.B. Shaw

Mike Rosenberg

2008-10-18 19:12:08 UTC

Post by Mike Rosenberg
You've raised an interesting point, as the OP not only used "logout" in
the subject, he specifically stated he was trying to log out and back in
to his account. However, he also said, "apparently the iMac is stuck at
logout: The grey screen appeared, along with the spinning gear icon."
I didn't pick up on that when I first read his post, but the spinning
gear is not something you would normally see at logout.

OMFG! Someone asking for help on usenet, and NOT providing accurate
information or terminology!

Actually, I was thinking that perhaps he really did mean log out and not
restart and that what happened could be more serious than a usual logout
hangup.

Wes Groleau

2008-10-18 19:19:19 UTC

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Actually, I was thinking that perhaps he really did mean log out and not
restart and that what happened could be more serious than a usual logout
hangup.

Or maybe he intended to log out and just let go of the muse button
before he got to the bottom of the menu (on my setup, Shut Down
is directly above log out.

--
Wes Groleau

Danger: Foreign Language Being Spoken
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=451

Barry Margolin

2008-10-18 19:40:22 UTC

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Actually, I was thinking that perhaps he really did mean log out and not
restart and that what happened could be more serious than a usual logout
hangup.

Or maybe he intended to log out and just let go of the muse button
before he got to the bottom of the menu (on my setup, Shut Down
is directly above log out.

I suspect that many personal computer users conflate "logout" and "shut
down", since they almost always do them together.

--
Barry Margolin, ***@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 00:38:26 UTC

Post by Barry Margolin

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Actually, I was thinking that perhaps he really did mean log out and not
restart and that what happened could be more serious than a usual logout
hangup.

Or maybe he intended to log out and just let go of the muse button
before he got to the bottom of the menu (on my setup, Shut Down
is directly above log out.

I suspect that many personal computer users conflate "logout" and "shut
down", since they almost always do them together.

No, I did log out...I did it from the prefs panel.

I said "grey" screen...but I think it actually was light blue.

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Mike Rosenberg

2008-10-19 14:46:45 UTC

Post by Barry Margolin
I suspect that many personal computer users conflate "logout" and "shut
down", since they almost always do them together.

No, I did log out...I did it from the prefs panel.

From the prefs panel??? How exactly?

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 18:09:59 UTC

Post by Barry Margolin
I suspect that many personal computer users conflate "logout" and "shut
down", since they almost always do them together.

No, I did log out...I did it from the prefs panel.

From the prefs panel??? How exactly?

Sorry...I must've been half asleep when I wrote that.

I logged out by pressing Command-Shift-Q; the dialog box asked for
confirmation, and I confirmed. (For some reason, in my above response I
confused the dialog box with the Accounts prefs panel. My intended point was
that I didn't use the Apple menu to log out, so I couldn't have accidentally
clicked on Shut Down.)

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Mike Rosenberg

2008-10-19 18:32:58 UTC

Post by Nick Naym
I logged out by pressing Command-Shift-Q; the dialog box asked for
confirmation, and I confirmed. (For some reason, in my above response I
confused the dialog box with the Accounts prefs panel. My intended point
was that I didn't use the Apple menu to log out, so I couldn't have
accidentally clicked on Shut Down.)

Okay, so that gets us back to the point I made several posts ago, that
seeing the spinning gear at all doesn't normally happen when one logs
out, so I suspect that you had something different happen than the
logout problems others have talked about.

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 20:50:41 UTC

Well, I have been having some "minor" problems, and I wanted to see if
logging out/in might improve things. Specifically:

I had downloaded and began to use ClamXav. It worked OK at first, ID'ing a
whole bunch of potentially problematic emails (all of which I had copied
over from my old OS 9 machine). But then I updated its virus defs, and it
refused to run, returning the message "Problem with internal logger." Since
I had also been experiencing a lot of slowdowns and SBBODs recently (which,
BTW, I have the feeling is associated with Entourage) which were not
remedied by rebooting, I decided to try logging out and in again to see if
that might clear things up.

Currently, I've also noticed that the grey background in each of the name
labels on my Dock icons has all but faded. It's been happening periodically,
and is only restored after rebooting.

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Mike Rosenberg

2008-10-19 21:04:40 UTC

Post by Nick Naym
Well, I have been having some "minor" problems, and I wanted to see if
I had downloaded and began to use ClamXav. It worked OK at first, ID'ing a
whole bunch of potentially problematic emails (all of which I had copied
over from my old OS 9 machine). But then I updated its virus defs, and it
refused to run, returning the message "Problem with internal logger." Since
I had also been experiencing a lot of slowdowns and SBBODs recently (which,
BTW, I have the feeling is associated with Entourage) which were not
remedied by rebooting, I decided to try logging out and in again to see if
that might clear things up.
Currently, I've also noticed that the grey background in each of the name
labels on my Dock icons has all but faded. It's been happening
periodically, and is only restored after rebooting.

Did I miss an earlier post in which you described these problems in the
first place, along with telling us which Mac you have, with which Mac OS
X version, how much RAM is installed, and which version of MS Office
you're running?

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 21:12:36 UTC

Did I miss an earlier post in which you described these problems in the
first place,

No.

Post by Mike Rosenberg
along with telling us which Mac you have, with which Mac OS
X version, how much RAM is installed,

See my sig, below.

Post by Mike Rosenberg
and which version of MS Office
you're running?

Office 2004.

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Mike Rosenberg

2008-10-19 21:28:31 UTC

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Did I miss an earlier post in which you described these problems in the
first place,

No.

I should also have asked whether you're actually looking for help with
them.

Post by Mike Rosenberg
along with telling us which Mac you have, with which Mac OS
X version, how much RAM is installed,

See my sig, below.

Oh, sorry, I hadn't noticed. That brings up a valid point, though, which
is that such information may well go unnoticed in a signature. I tend
not to read sigs, and I know I'm far from alone, and of course all
decent news clients will, by default, not quote a sig.

Post by Mike Rosenberg
and which version of MS Office
you're running?

Office 2004.

Okay, but which version? There have been a slew of updates, all the way
to the current 11.5.2.

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 21:47:27 UTC

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Did I miss an earlier post in which you described these problems in the
first place,

No.

I should also have asked whether you're actually looking for help with
them.

Post by Mike Rosenberg
along with telling us which Mac you have, with which Mac OS
X version, how much RAM is installed,

See my sig, below.

Post by Mike Rosenberg
and which version of MS Office
you're running?

Office 2004.

Okay, but which version? There have been a slew of updates, all the way
to the current 11.5.2.

I'm one update behind (11.5.1). By the time you read this, however, I may be
up to date (I just downloaded 11.5.2, after reading your question).

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 22:15:23 UTC

...

Post by Mike Rosenberg
and which version of MS Office
you're running?

Office 2004.

Okay, but which version? There have been a slew of updates, all the way
to the current 11.5.2.

I'm one update behind (11.5.1). By the time you read this, however, I may be
up to date (I just downloaded 11.5.2, after reading your question).

OK...I just updated. But I noticed that the individual apps haven't changed,
except for Excel (i.e., Excel went from v.11.5.1 to 11.5.2; Word remains at
v.11.5.0, PowerPoint remains at v.11.5.1, and Entourage remains at
v.11.4.0). The nature of the versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Entourage
after the 11.5.2 update suggests that the Office updates don't always update
every one of the individual apps.

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Nick Naym

2008-10-21 13:42:30 UTC

In article C52115E1.12EF5%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com, Nick Naym at
nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com wrote on 10/19/08 4:50 PM:

...
...

Post by Nick Naym
Currently, I've also noticed that the grey background in each of the name
labels on my Dock icons has all but faded. It's been happening periodically,
and is only restored after rebooting.

Has this happened to anyone else?

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Nick Naym

2008-10-23 21:09:58 UTC

As a follow-up to this, I can't seem to figure out what is causing this
inability to log out...why the Mac seemingly begins to log out, but
"stalls," displaying a light-blue screen with the spinning gear. The only
way I can get out of it is to force a restart via the power button.

FWIW, the problem remained when I safe-booted and logged in to my account;
and again when I safe-booted and logged in to a "test" account I had created
months ago. In both cases, the Mac "stalled" at that light-blue screen with
a spinning gear, and I had to force a restart.

Elsewhere, someone suggested that I may have a corrupted system, and
recommended a reinstall. I'm not sure what could've happened to corrupt the
system (especially since my iMac is only six months old), and I certainly
would like to avoid going through a reinstall effort, unless it's absolutely
necessary. So, I'm hoping someone here might have some other ideas -- things
I could try before resorting to a reinstall effort.

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Dave Balderstone

2008-10-19 01:09:44 UTC

Post by Barry Margolin

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Actually, I was thinking that perhaps he really did mean log out and not
restart and that what happened could be more serious than a usual logout
hangup.

Or maybe he intended to log out and just let go of the muse button
before he got to the bottom of the menu (on my setup, Shut Down
is directly above log out.

I suspect that many personal computer users conflate "logout" and "shut
down", since they almost always do them together.

No, I did log out...I did it from the prefs panel.
I said "grey" screen...but I think it actually was light blue.

That may just be the monitor color temp. The blue screen referred to in
the thread is definitely blue.

--
I kill all messages, and replies to messages, from Google Groups. See
http://improve-usenet.org for details.

Nick Naym

2008-10-19 01:21:33 UTC

Post by Barry Margolin

Post by Mike Rosenberg
Actually, I was thinking that perhaps he really did mean log out and not
restart and that what happened could be more serious than a usual logout
hangup.

Or maybe he intended to log out and just let go of the muse button
before he got to the bottom of the menu (on my setup, Shut Down
is directly above log out.

I suspect that many personal computer users conflate "logout" and "shut
down", since they almost always do them together.

No, I did log out...I did it from the prefs panel.
I said "grey" screen...but I think it actually was light blue.

That may just be the monitor color temp. The blue screen referred to in
the thread is definitely blue.

The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that it was an unmistakable
shade of light blue, and nowhere near grey.

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Nick Naym

2008-10-17 20:43:50 UTC

Post by Oliver

Hold down the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown. Then
start up again.

Thanks.

Actually, when the screen went black after I pressed the power button, I
thought that perhaps I didn't hold the button down long enough, and that in
fact I _had_ put the machine to sleep. However, no amount of mousing around
seemed to have any effect (i.e., the Mac didn't come back to life). I then
pressed the button and held it down longer, and the machine restarted.

Post by Oliver
(by shutting-down my Mac the hard way, I have just lost access to an
external disk, which could not be repaired with OS X's onboard tools.
Fortunately DiskWarrior could do it).

Huh? I don't quite understand (but it sounds like you are saying that the
forced shutdown could indeed screw up my external drives -- one of the
questions I had asked earlier in this thread).

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Sander Tekelenburg

2008-10-17 23:52:13 UTC

In article <C51E7146.12D90%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

Post by Nick Naym
Actually, when the screen went black after I pressed the power button, I
thought that perhaps I didn't hold the button down long enough, and that in
fact I _had_ put the machine to sleep. However, no amount of mousing around
seemed to have any effect (i.e., the Mac didn't come back to life).

Mouse movement doesn't wake up a Mac. It only affects the screen saver.
To wake a Mac up you'll need to hit the any key on the keyboard (or,
come to think of it, a mouse *click* should prolly do it too).

Btw, Sleep is indicated by the Power light pulsating.

[...]

Post by Oliver
(by shutting-down my Mac the hard way, I have just lost access to an
external disk, which could not be repaired with OS X's onboard tools.
Fortunately DiskWarrior could do it).

Huh? I don't quite understand (but it sounds like you are saying that the
forced shutdown could indeed screw up my external drives -- one of the
questions I had asked earlier in this thread).

Yes, it can. That's why you don't want to force reboots unless you have
to. But the chance at data corruption actually happening seems
reasopnably limited if you use Journaling (a disk formatting option, the
default). Besides, you have everything that matters to you backed up
anyway, so dataloss isn't that big a problem.

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Mac user: "Macs only have 40 viruses, tops!"
PC user: "SEE! Not even the virus writers support Macs!"

Nick Naym

2008-10-18 04:43:54 UTC

Post by Sander Tekelenburg
[...]

"Mousing around" included clicking (as well as mashing on a few keys ;) )

Post by Sander Tekelenburg
Btw, Sleep is indicated by the Power light pulsating.

Not on my iMac. :)

Post by Sander Tekelenburg
[...]

Post by Oliver
(by shutting-down my Mac the hard way, I have just lost access to an
external disk, which could not be repaired with OS X's onboard tools.
Fortunately DiskWarrior could do it).

Huh? I don't quite understand (but it sounds like you are saying that the
forced shutdown could indeed screw up my external drives -- one of the
questions I had asked earlier in this thread).

Quite frankly, I've always had a nagging feeling that perhaps even
performing a "normal shutdown" would cause a problem unless I first
dismounted the external drives (though someone here (Király) told me
otherwise). So, I was quite worried what a forced shutdown would do. Hearing
that journaling mitigates the problem is a bit of a relief. (I knew it was
part of the formatting I did when I got the externals, but never thought
about it until you mentioned it.)

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) OS X (10.5.4)

Barry Margolin

2008-10-18 14:39:19 UTC