Apple Quirks

[wilfredo]

This forum has been a great source of helpful information on IMACS. I have a new mystery. If I leave the computer on and walk away for a while it seems the mouse stops working and then I get a message about a Blue Tooth connection (I have no idea what that's about) and nothing works. I am then forced to shut down the computer by turning it off. As far as the computer is concerned, there is no Mouse connected when this happens -- although it is.

Another mystery. Even though I follow the procedure to eject, say a flash card. The next time I turn on the computer I get a warning message that an item was improperly ejected and files may have been lost.

Anyone know what's going on?

Thanks,
Wilfredo
Benitez-Rivera Photography

[pleeson]

Do you have the wireless keyboard or mouse?
If not, I'd go into the System Preferences and turn off bluetooth.
If so, then be sure the box is checked that allows bluetooth devices to wake the computer.
To eject a disc, etc drag the icon to the trash basket, then disconnect.

[ho_co]

As Phil said, drag a card/disk/disc to the trash can in the dock to eject. The trash can turns into an 'eject' icon when you do this. Then wait until the system clears that item from your desktop before physically removing it. Depending on what else the computer is doing at the time, this can take several seconds.

If you're already doing that and still getting the 'improper removal' message, that goes beyond my knowledge. What you're describing shouldn't happen regularly, and should happen only if you remove the item before the system has finished with it.

---HC

[ceflynn]

Here are some instructions that have been posted by Micromat about using Hardware Growler to determine that a volume has been properly unmounted before you unplug or remove it.

The problem is that the volumes's icon disappears from the desktop before the volume is in fact unmounted. The system may be busy with another task, and unmount the volume just a fraction of a second later than usual, after it has been dragged to the trash:

The utility “Hardware Growler” provides notice that it is safe to unplug a drive.

Download Growl from: Growl Downloads

Installation instructions for Growl are at: Installing Growl .

Hardware Growler is included in the Extras folder on the Growler disk image.
Installation instructions for Hardware Growler are at: HardwareGrowler documentation . It should be added to the user’s Login Items at System Preferences—>Accounts—>Login Items.

There are other “Growl-enabled” applications.

[rob_x2004]

Could be worse, you could have bought the new screen iMac 20". How do you like your yellows in your black and whites by the way?

[spylaw4]

An alternative non-drag way of ejecting a drive is simply to Ctrl+ 'click' on the icon of the drive and select "Eject xxx". Then wait a second or so after the icon disappears before physically removing/powering down the drive.

[andrzej]

Or highlight card icon on desktop and punch "command E".
In case if you open picture in some application and later close window with it
sometimes OS see this file as used and refuse to eject volume ( card etc. )
Solution is to quit that application.

I hope i'm correct.

regards
andrzejB

[wilfredo]

I'll try ejecting as suggested here, but the problem also happens even when I don't eject an item. I just printed a picture. When I came back to the computer I had the "Improper Removal" message although I hadn't removed or ejected anything. As a result, everything froze, I couldn't use the mouse which is connected to the computer and the keyboard wouldn't work either, so I had to shut it down manually and couldn't save the changes I had made to my picture. This is very frustrating. Apple's are not flawless. I'll turn off the Blue Tooth and hopefully that will solve the problem.

Wilfredo
Benitez-Rivera Photography

[wilfredo]

Back again. I turned off the Blue Tooth and emptied the Trash. I left a picture on the screen for about ten minutes to see what happens and the infamous message appeared again, only this time the mouse worked. So that's an improvement at least.

Thanks for the help.

Rob: I continue to use my Ultra Sharp Dell Screen along with the IMAC.

Cheers,
Wilfredo

Benitez-Rivera Photography

[ho_co]

Wilfredo--
Others know much more about the Mac than I, but your problems sound serious to me.

If this were going on with my computer, I would probably call Apple's pay-per-incident line. But you're still within the first year of ownership, aren't you? So a support call would still be free for you.

Since you're finding the "improper removal" message for no reason, maybe you should disconnect all your peripherals (except keyboard and mouse) and see if you still get the problem. If you don't, try reconnecting peripherals one at a time to see when it first recurs. Then disconnect the last thing you connected and see if the problem doesn't recur when that is disconnected.

Not the same as what you're seeing, but I once had a broken wire in a mouse cable. It was erratic, but when it lost contact, it took out the keyboard and mouse. I didn't get any error message, but did lose complete control of the computer.

Good luck. This definitely shouldn't be occurring.

--HC

[lemalk]

Is there a USB hub connected the machine? I've been having similar issues with a powermac g5 and I've isolated the incident to either the hub or a kernel extension in OS X 10.4.10 that has some USB issues.

[wilfredo]

Yes, there is a high speed USB hub connected to the IMAC. I'll try disconnecting the only peripheral I have connected to it and see if the problem persists. If it does, it is still under warranty, and I purchased an extended warranty when I bought it on top of that.

Thanks,
Wilfredo+
Benitez-Rivera Photography