Mac OS X 10.4: Check for bad login/startup items

Both login items and startup items can cause problems when exposed to a new Mac OS X release.

To check if any login items are causing your startup/shutdown issues, go to the "Accounts" pane of System Preferences and click on the "Login Items" tab. Deselect any third-party items (and even Apple-originated items in some cases), restart, and check for persistence of the issue.

To check if any startup items are causing the issues, go to the /Library/StartupItems folder (that's the Library folder at the root level of your startup volume, not the user-level Library folder located at ~/Library) and, again, remove any third-party items, restart, and check for persistence of the issue.

MacFixIt reader Todd Koltis describes his case of stalled shutdown, which was resolved by removing a startup item.

Todd writes:

"There is a problem with the QuickBack component of Speedtools Utilities that can cause a stall at shutdown. To fix it, go to Hardrive/Library/StartupItems and remove the item with QuickBack in it's name (sorry, i don't remember the whole name anymore). You will probably have to force shutdown once more after this before it will take effect (as it is already loaded). Also, please note that this will mean that scheduling in the QuickBack application won't work until there's an update to SpeedTools."

Resources