My iMac just spazzed big time

[Distant Cousin]

So I'm just using my iMac as I always do, suddenly every program I have open (iTunes, Adium, Safari) 'Close unexpectedly'. Then the Finder keeps flashing on and off and I can't do anything. I had to unplug it and start again, and it seems ok at the moment, but I'm a bit worried now

Any help?

[Valken]

Could be a preference mess up or profile corruption. Can you get into System Preferences and make a new user or does it fall over before you can get that far?

If possible make a new user and log in with it to see if the problem is the same! Report back with what happens.

[Distant Cousin]

I'm on the new profile I just made to test it out, all fine here. Dunno what it was tbh =/

[Pavey]

Happens to me once in a blue moon,and it's normally when i have had the machine on or sleeping for a long time,i.e not properly off.

A restart normally helps.

[Distant Cousin]

Yeah I restarted it, but I had to unplug it to do that.

Like I said, it's alright now, just a bit worried in case it happens again.

[andrewfee]

Very unusual for something like that to happen on a Mac...

I'd download OnyX and run everything in the "automation" section to make sure things are as they should be.

[Valken]

If it's fine on a new profile then it's usually just some buggered files in the ~/Library folder. It happened to me once on my Intel iMac when I first got it but I just renamed that folder, logged out and in again and it was fine (minus all my settings but nuts to that).

The new account thing effectively does the same thing. It's age old OSX troubleshooting since as mentioned, not a whole lot can really go wrong that deleting a .pref file can't fix.

OnyX doesn't do much other than run the following commands that normally should go off at night when most Macs are in sleep mode.

The usual Mac maintenance is in a terminal run:

sudo periodic daily
sudo periodic weekly
sudo periodic monthly

and repair permissions and to a file system check from Disk Utility. Also check the SMART status of the disk to see if it's on the way out.

[andrewfee]

It repairs permissions, does a system optimization, executes the maintenance scripts (that you've mentioned) and it'll clear all caches and other items that can cause problems in one step.

Yes, you can do most of it without OnyX, but it's a lot easier to just load it up and click a button.