Yesterday I did my Software update (Tiger 10.4.11) and since then at regular intervals all my icons on the desktop including Macintosh HD and other drives blink and disappear and then come back again. Whatever app I’m using, the Finder jumps to the front. It’s happened 5 times while typing this. It’s pretty scary seeing all your icons blink and vanish for half a second.
Anybody else had this problem or can recommend something?
That blink you are seeing is the Finder itself crashing and restarting. Seeing the windows close and reopen, and the Finder coming to the front confirms it. I can’t tell you offhand what the cause might be, but hopefully knowing it might help you find a solution.
You may have to go to Apple’s support site, and download the “Combo Update” for 10.4.11. What this does is reinstall files for 10.4.11 as if you had 10.4.0. This often fixes problems that were caused by a software update that didn’t quite get things right.
Very helpful thank you Joe. What I’ve done as a quick fix is to Restore the OS to a state before the update. As it happens, the previous Update screwed the Network Panel in Sys prefs. Anytime that was clicked a constant message of "Network settings have been changed by another application.’ popped up, and clicking OK did nothing. This was virtually impossible to get rid of. So your comments about an update that didn’t quite get things right before this last update makes sense. Other members of this forum also reported the same problem.
Since the update is rather new, others may have been experiencing problems like this as well. A good source for notices/fixes for common update problems (as they manifest themselves and workarounds are determined) is looking at:
A quick perusal did not reveal that topic covered…yet.
Delta - thanks for that, spot on. I tried Weaver’s Combo update suggestion and that fixed it, but it’s good to know that if it happens again in the future to try the Stuffit approach.