Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Name

Troubleshooting and Maintenance

Synopsis

Force quit an application that’s stuck?

Option-

-Escape opens a window showing all of the running applications. Select the troublesome application, and click the Force Quit button.

Option-click the application’s icon in the Dock. A pop-up window will appear next to the icon with the Force Quit option; move the mouse over and release it on that option.

Applications → Utilities → Process Viewer → select the process that’s causing the problem → Processes → Quit Process

Restart my computer automatically after a power failure?

System Preferences → Energy Saver → Options pane → select the checkbox next to “Restart automatically after a power failure”

Turn on crash reporting so I can see why an application crashed?

Applications → Utilities → Console → Preferences → Crashes panel → select both options. Now when an application crashes, the Console application automatically launches and displays the cause of the crash.

Where are crash logs kept?

It is kept in ~/Library/Logs.

Fix a disk that won’t mount?

Applications → Utilities → Disk Utility → select the disk that won’t mount → First Aid.

Restart my system when it has completely frozen?

Hold down the Shift-Option-

keys, and press the Power-On button.

Make sure that my system is okay after it has completely ...