iChat nonfunctional at launch
Several users have experienced an issue in which iChat launches but provides no functionality, rendering itself essentially useless.
Apple Discussions poster pitou74150 writes:
"I've just bought a new MacBook and iChat is not working at all. It worked fine yesterday and today, when I launch iChat, there is no contact list and I can't go in any menus, all the options are in grey."
Affected users have tried basic troubleshooting routines, including the following:
- Deleting iChat's preferences
- Repairing permissions
- Repairing the Keychain
- Creating new accounts
- Changing various iChat settings (ports, SSL, etc)
Despite these attempts the problem persists, and has happened on both and new systems, indicating that the problem is with a core setting in the system. It seems this issue is related to the language settings for the system, which may be supported by the fact that international users have been the ones reporting this problem.
One affected user went so far as to purge his system of all unnecessary applications and languages, among other packages. While this fixed the problem, users might have more direct success by manually turning off unused languages on the system.
Potential Fixes
Disable unnecessary languages Mac OS X is built to support many language localizations as plug-ins to the operating system and applications. When applications get new localization information, the system can use it based off the language priority preferences set in the "International" system preferences. If a language is corrupted, or if the localization for a specific program is corrupted, the system may display errors such as those expereienced by these users. To strip down the system to only use one language, follow these steps:
Turn off Global language packs
- Open the "International" system preferences and in the "Language" tab click the "Edit List..." button.
- Uncheck all languages except for the one to be used, and select OK.
- Restart the system for changes to take effect.
- Locate the iChat application (in /Applications/) and get information on it (File > Get Info).
- Locate and expand the "Languages" section by clicking the triangle.
- Uncheck all languages except for the desired one, or optionally select the ones that will not be used and click the "-" button to delete them.
In addition to manually disabling and removing unneeded languages from the system, users can also try running third-party language management applications such as Monolingual to ensure the system is fully purged of unused language packs.
Perform standard fixes Although language errors might be the root of the problem, users might benefit from running various maintenance scripts, including those both in Disk Utility (permissions fix and drive verification) as well as those available in OnyX such as cache rebuilds along with permissions fixes and daily, weekly, and monthly built-in system maintenance routines.
Workarounds
Archive and Install Because this problem is caused by some core system conflict, making new accounts and reinstalling iChat will not fix the issue. If turning off languages does not solve the problem, then for now the easiest solution may be to perform an archive and install of the operating system. For newer computers this may be the best solution if not much has been customized or installed in the system.
Resources
