Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac

Learn how to solve any Mac problem with Joe Kissell's expert advice!

We may love our Macs, but they can still suffer significant problems. In this essential guide from best-selling author Joe Kissell, you'll learn 17 basic troubleshooting procedures and how to solve 9 common problems, along with an easy-to-follow way to troubleshoot novel problems. Whether your Mac won't turn on, experiences kernel panics repeatedly, or is glacially slow, this book has the calm, friendly advice you need to find a solution.

This ebook contains a lot of information for $10. Seriously, I thought it would be much lighter than it was. It's actually pretty much indispensable. Well done, Joe Kissell and Take Control, I say. —Mark Webster in his mac.nz book review

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Contents & Intro
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Read Me First
Introduction: Don't Panic!
Troubleshooting Quick Start
Prevent Problems
Prepare for an Emergency
Learn Basic Troubleshooting Procedures
Solve Common Problems
Troubleshoot Novel Problems
Learn More
About This Book

Read Me First

Macs are easy to use, but they can experience problems like any other machine. When something goes wrong with your Mac, use this book to discover the solution. This book was written by
Joe Kissell, edited by Adam Engst, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc.

Introduction: Don't Panic!

You've always heard that Macs are easy to use and less prone to misadventures than Windows PCs. And that's true. But they're still only machines. And sure enough, one day it happens: you encounter a serious problem with your Mac and have no idea what to do. Perhaps, since you're reading this book, that day is today.

Repeat after me: Everything is going to be all right. Now take a deep breath and try again, this time with feeling! Everything is going to be all right. I want you to believe that. Even if you're feeling panicked right now because your Mac is doing something wonky and you're facing a deadline, I want you to set aside your anxiety for a moment.

Almost every Mac problem you may encounter has a solution. True, some solutions are more elusive, more time-consuming, or more expensive, than others, but still: don't worry. I've been solving problems with Macs for more than 15 years, and I'm here to tell you that solutions come more quickly and easily when you have a clear head and approach a problem systematically. That's what this book helps you to do.

Make yourself a nice cup of tea. (Keep the tea away from your Mac, by the way—let's not add to your problems, eh?) Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then page through this book to learn the most efficient way to deal with whatever difficulties you may be having.

I've seen more than one Mac troubleshooting book that was upwards of 600 pages long, and troubleshooting Web sites with thousands of pages of suggestions. By contrast, this book makes no attempt to be comprehensive, because merely listing vast numbers of problems and their accompanying solutions doesn't help one bit if you have a different problem or don't realize how your problem is like some other one. What I hope to do, instead, is show you some handy troubleshooting techniques, provide instructions for solving several common problems, and then help you figure out what to do when a problem's cause or solution isn't immediately apparent. In other words, I want to teach you how to be your own technical support person—to do what I do when something goes wrong with one of my Macs.

Because my focus here is on getting your Mac back into working order, I intentionally skip over lots of background information and technical details. So don't worry if you're unsure exactly why some technique solves your problem. If you're really interested in the deep background, some exploration on the Web will probably turn up oodles of detail.

As confident as I am that most Mac problems have straightforward solutions, I must point out that some problems can't be solved with a few mouse clicks or other clever fiddling. If flames are shooting out of your Mac or the screen is in a thousand pieces, you'll need more help than I can provide here. Even simpler hardware problems, such as a faulty component on your logic board or a busted power cable, may require a trip to the repair shop. And a few—very few—hardware problems are either entirely beyond repair or more costly to repair than is worthwhile. Nevertheless, don't panic. By the time you finish this book, you'll not only know how to solve most problems, you'll have the tools and techniques you need to prevent many problems in the first place, or at least to nip them in the bud. And even if you have a problem that requires professional help, following the steps in this book will help you talk to a repair person more effectively.

If you don't have any problems right now and are merely reading this to prepare yourself for future mishaps, good for you! You'll especially appreciate the information in the first couple of sections about preventing problems and preparing for an emergency.

This book is designed to help troubleshoot problems with any version of Mac OS X from Tiger (10.4) onwards, though many of the techniques also work with older versions. At press time, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard hadn't yet been released, but based on my preliminary testing with beta versions, I expect that everything in this book will continue to work with it. Click Check for Updates on the cover to check for any new information or updated versions of this book.

Font of knowledge: One large category of Mac trouble I don't cover here is font misbehavior. If you need help troubleshooting a font-related problem, read Sharon Zardetto's Take Control of Font Problems in Leopard.

Troubleshooting Quick Start

When your Mac has problems, you undoubtedly want to jump right to the solution. So feel free to skip immediately to Solve Common Problems and see if your symptom is listed there. If not, and time permitting, I recommend reading through this book in order, because earlier sections provide useful background information for later sections. However, you may also try the steps in Troubleshoot Novel Problems, following the cross-references as necessary to earlier parts of the book where certain procedures are described in detail.

Prepare for trouble:

Even if your Mac is healthy now, take steps to keep it that way. Read Prevent Problems.
When your Mac starts acting up, you'll be glad to already have a toolkit with which you can diagnose and fix it. Learn what you need to have on hand in Prepare for an Emergency.
Most of the steps you'll go through when a problem occurs rely on several common procedures. Learn how to do these tasks before problems arise so that fixing them will be easier. See Learn Basic Troubleshooting Procedures.

Solve problems:

If your Mac misbehaves, the problem may be something that many other people have experienced (and that's easily repaired). Start with Solve Common Problems.
Not all problems are common. If you encounter something not covered in the previous section, learn how to solve it--or find someone who can—in Troubleshoot Novel Problems.

Find more information:

For further instruction in troubleshooting, check out the electronic or printed books in Learn More.

What kinds of problems does this book help with?

The book will help you get more comfortable and efficient with troubleshooting on a Mac, so that you can more easily identify problems and possible solutions. So, even if your problem isn't one of the 9 common ones that the book specifically covers, you'll still find useful advice. (The 9 common problems are listed on the More Info tab—click it just above this paragraph).

The book doesn't particularly look at font-related problems, because Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X (this ebook primarily covers Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger) and Take Control of Font Problems in Leopard (as you can guess from the title, this ebook focuses on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) offer many pages of advice for solving font problems.

This book will help you identify if a particular application is causing a problem, and it offers general advice for solving a problem caused by an application, but it doesn't delve deeply into specific problems with specific applications. So, if you need help with a problem such as making your columns work in Pages, making Excel behave, or figuring out if wacky InDesign behavior is a bug or a feature, this book isn't the one you want.

Does this book cover Snow Leopard?

This ebook was updated in May of 2009 to fully include Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and to work in special details for the MacBook Air, along with several other changes to make it current. It also still includes information about older versions of Mac OS X. With respect to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, there are a few small differences, but they are not important enough to cause us to create a new version of the ebook right away. You can read about them here.

Will this book tell me how to fix the search function in Address Book that causes it to freeze when I search for a particular address?

Brendan F. wrote in to ask this question. Here's our reply:

The book doesn't specifically answer your question, but it does help you get into the troubleshooting frame of mind. For instance, you could check if it's just that one address (then likely everything else is fine, but that address needs to be deleted and rekeyed), or if it's several addresses (time to delete your Address Book data file and revert to a backup, with fingers crossed), or if it's all addresses (try deleting caches/preferences, updating the app if you are behind on updates, and/or reinstalling it). The book would give you somewhat more specific directions, but since it's general to all applications, it won't tell you exactly how to, say, find and delete the Address Book data file.

If you need help from an Address Book expert, checking resources such as the Apple Support Forums, a Macintosh consultant, or a Genius Bar, is probably the route to a solution. The book specifically notes these—and other—ways to ask for and find help.

Can I read this ebook on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch?

There are lots of great ways to read PDFs on these devices. For more details, please read our latest Device Advice.

Ask a Question

Feel free to ask us if you have a question about this book!

Update Plans

September 2009 -- Although we expect to eventually update this PDF, at this time we are not actively working on the project. Version 1.1 of the ebook (a free update to everyone who bought 1.0) includes Leopard details and the changes that we might make because of Snow Leopard are very minor.

—Adam C. Engst

Snow Leopard Troubleshooting Changes

September 30, 2009 --

Most of the content of this ebook applies equally to Leopard and Snow Leopard. However, Joe has looked it over and flagged these aspects of the ebook that don't apply to Snow Leopard:

AppleJack (sidebar, p. 17) is not yet Snow Leopard-compatible, but an updated version is under development.
In the sidebar "A Clean Start" (p. 57), Joe says that if you need to reinstall Mac OS X, you should use "Archive and Install." However, if you're reinstalling Snow Leopard, since Archive and Install is no longer available you should erase the disk, do a clean install, and migrate your stuff. Joe explains this carefully in Take Control of Upgrading to Snow Leopard.
The "Printing Doesn't Work" section (p. 74) should be updated to talk about Snow Leopard's auto-downloading printer drivers, and in Step 7, note that there's currently no version of Print Therapy for Snow Leopard.

—Tonya Engst

SuperDrive Gone South?

September 17, 2009 --

Although most people who've upgraded to Snow Leopard have done so without causing any unusual SuperDrive behavior, TidBITS Publishing has received several email messages recently from readers about problems with broken SuperDrives, seemingly triggered by running the Snow Leopard installation DVD.

We've done some investigating, and it seems that while the latest crop of complaints is related to Snow Leopard, the problem is older, more widespread, and more complex than a simple "installing Snow Leopard broke my drive." To read a detailed analysis of the problems and solutions that have appeared on the Internet, plus get a list of possible solutions, read Doug McLean's TidBITS article, Exploring Widespread SuperDrive Problems.

—Tonya Engst

Two New Ebooks on Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Mac

May 21, 2009 --

There's no lack of advice available for how to run your Mac efficiently and solve pesky problems, but it's scattered all over the Internet. Our latest Take Control ebooks, both by Joe Kissell, provide a well-organized, go-to source for a comprehensive Mac maintenance plan and effective advice for handling any problems that might arise.

The first, Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition looks at how to start on the right foot with keeping your Mac running smoothly, and then it explains weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks that anyone can perform easily to enjoy peak performance and avoid pesky problems. Along with telling you what to do, it includes a section about what not to do, explaining several time-consuming tasks that don't provide any real benefits.

The second ebook, Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, version 1.1, goes beyond maintenance to teach you how to solve any problems that might pop up. In particular, you'll learn how to perform 17 specific problem-solving tasks (including clearing caches, running disk-repair utilities, and checking your RAM), how to solve 9 common problems (including printer problems, mouse problems, and Mac-won't-turn-on problems), and how to proceed if you encounter a novel problem.

In both cases, Joe has updated the ebooks for the latest versions of Mac OS X, and for the latest versions of various utilities that play a role in Mac maintenance and troubleshooting.

—Adam C. Engst

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