Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / November 2007

Computers -- even Macs -- sometimes get befuddled. This also applies to
individual application programs. Quit/Relaunch/Restart often fixes the
problem, as it appears to have done in this case.

If it continues to happen, maybe there is something corrupted that needs
to be fixed. For an individual application, this may be the Preferences
file. To fix it, quit the application, find the appropriate Preferences
file, and trash it. When you launch the application again, it will
rebuild a new, clean preferences file.

Find the Preferences for an individual application in
[User] >> Library >> Preferences >> [appropriate preference file listed
by application name]

It is telltale if the problem occurs in one User account but not
another. This is almost certainly due to corruption of a Preferences
file in that User account. Each User account has its own set of
Preferences for each application.

If the trouble is not limited to one user, but still affects only one
application, consider reinstalling the application.

If the trouble is not limited to one application, that may indicate a
system-wide problem. Repair Disk Permissions may help; use Disk Utility
to do this. If that does not cure it, you may need to reinstall the OS.

The Mac help file gives troubleshooting tips.

If all else fails, call Apple tach support. They are actually quite
helpful. Tech support is free of charge if the computer is still in the
first 90 days, or if you have purchased Applecare Support.

That can only be caused by surfing online porn sites.

Sometimes, if I lose my internet connection while working in a mail or
newsgroup-readers application, sometimes even a browser, I find it
doesn't want to let the program go.  The program name in the menu bar
is reversed (white-on-black), and it's neither shut-down nor
accessible.  It just wouldn't quit completely.  So I force-quite it and
on rare occasions STILL find the thing won't die, seemingly starting
back up in "ghost" mode like this.

Regarding the apparent missing messages, she may well have had a
cleaned spam-directory or some such open.  That happened to me one time
and I was fearful I had lost all messages.

Is she running Leopard and using Spaces?  I've seen the problem where
Spaces loses one or more windows and the only thing that will get them
back, short of logging out, is to disable Spaces.  After the windows
become visible, Spaces can be re-enabled.

I've reported that problem and Apple confirmed that it was a known
problem and had been reported previously.

I can't count the number of times I've had to force quit Mail.app.  Large
IMAP mailboxes (with say more than 20K messages) may have contributed to
the problem.  Also some plug-ins also.  I have found Mail.app to be the
least stable of all of the things bundled with OS X that I regularly use.

I've only had to force quit Mail.app once since moving to Leopard.

-j