FileVault

[teacher]

I have been playing around with security a bit on my computer. I now have it set up with FileVault turned on and so I must log in when I turn my laptop on. I really do not have anything critical on my computer at this time but I figured it was a great time to play with settings.I discovered that my email program does not work today. It can't seem to work and I have it set up to access the passwords for my accounts. Anyone know what I am missing? The funny thing is I pulled up entourage and imported everything and it works fine. Anyone else playing with it? What are your opinions of it? Is this a fluke on my part or not? Or does this have something to do with the updates from last weekend?

[bjf123]

Sorry, Julia, I've never played around with File Vault.

[roger2002]

I don't use File Vault but I do have a suggestion about the email issue. Whenever I see there is an update available, before I install it, I go to Disk Utility and repair permissions and then after the update I do the same. I saw this on MacFixit as the most often recommended fix for just about every bit of weirdness that occurs and so far have had no problems with any update. I also run Onyx regularly (monthly) and have it clean everything so maybe that helps too. Anyway, I would try that before anything else. PS.I found this listing on a website but I can't give credit where it is due because I didn't bookmark it but have found it very helpful:FIRST AID 01 Restart. 02 Check/fix the filesystem. 03 Make sure you're not running out of free space on the System volume. 04 Repair permissions. 05 Create a new user account, and see if the problem persists there. 06 Check system logs07 Disable Application Enhancer, if you're running it. 08 Clear system & user caches. 09 Startup in SafeBoot mode, and see if the problem persists there. 10 Startup in Verbose mode11 Unplug all USB, Firewire devices except Apple mouse. 12 Zap PRAM. MORE SERIOUS TROUBLESHOOTING13 Reset system firmware 14 Reapply the latest combo updater. 15 Unplug 3rd Party PCI cards. 16 Run the Apple hardware diagnostic CD. 17 Check the hard drive for bad blocks. 18 Take out 3rd party RAM. 19 Reset PMU. 20 Archive and reinstall the OS21 Reinstall the system from scratch. 22 Send the machine back to Apple. 01 Restart. - If a restart cures the problem, and the problem doesn't reappear, your troubleshooting work is done. Congratulate yourself on a hard task well done. 02 Check/fix the filesystem. - There are many different ways to do this. If you feel comfortable with the Terminal, you can boot into Single User mode and run fsck. Hold down cmd+S at start up to boot into single user mode. Once you get all the way booted into single user mode type the following code:Code:/sbin/fsck -yMake sure you type in the full path (ie have /sbin + /fsck). Or you can boot off the OS X Installation CD, run Disk Utility, and select Repair Disk. (Apple's instructions for Disk Utility and fsck are here.) Or even better, use a 3rd party tool like DiskWarrior or Norton Disk Doctor. These 3rd party tools can fix some kinds of error that the free Apple tools cannot. (But don't ever install the Norton components on your hard drive - just run the tools by booting off the Norton CD.) If there were errors that needed to be fixed, and your software reports that they were all successfully fixed, you may have solved your larger problem. NOTE: If fsck/Disk Utility can't fix your problem, then you need to get some other tool, or reformat the disk, before doing any other troubleshooting. Repeat running fsck until it reports that no errors are found. Sometimes fsck cannot repair some things and you will need to use a third party application like mentioned above.03 Make sure you're not running out of free space on the System volume. When the system is running out of memory, it needs to write 80MB swapfiles to your hard drive. If your hard drive is already almost full, then the system will bog down into unusability. Keep tabs on how much free space you have on your boot disk by getting info on that disk in the Finder. Alternatively, you can use the excellent freeware DiskSpace application, which will give you a display of free space on your menubar. You should want to have at *least* 500MB to 1GB of free space at all times. Realistically you would want more than that, especially if you plan on burning CD/DVD's. A good idea to have is always keep about 10% of your hard disk free. Remember that even if you have more free space than this when you first booted, swapfiles can eat up diskspace quickly. If you want to see how many swapfiles you've made that are eating up your disk space, go into the terminal and type: ls /var/vm if you have 10 or 15 swapfiles, that can be well over 1GB of disk space that has disappeared since you first booted. To fix: trash unneeded files and applications off of your System volume to free space. And try to create fewer swapfiles by adding more RAM or running fewer applications simultaneously. 04 Repair permissions. Run this in Disk Utility in your normal login. Open Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilities folder. Select the boot drive (probably "Macintosh HD"), click on the First Aid tab and click the Repair Permissions button. See if this cures the problem.05 Create a new user account, and see if the problem persists there. You do this by creating a new user in the Accounts tab of System Preferences, logging out of your main account, and logging into the new account. If this makes the problem go away, it means the cause is in your user account. While it's good that we know approximately where the problem is, unfortunately there's a lot of stuff in the user account to pick through. And now you will have to do some serious troubleshooting. Oftentimes, this will be a preferences file in ~/Library/Preferences/. If you can pinpoint that one bad file, you're done. If you have no idea what's going on you can try the laborious process of keeping that new account you made, and bringing over the files one by one until you find the one that was the problem. Even easier is to ask an expert if it's a frequently seen problem, first letting them know that it was a problem in your user account. 06 Check your error logs. Check your system logs to see if there is anything relevant to your problem listed there. To do so simply go to the apple menu and select about this computer. A window will pop up displaying some basic information about your computer. Click on the more info button at the bottom of the window. This will bring up Apple System Profiler (ASP). The last tab furthest to the right of the ASP will be labled “Logs†click on it and then select console. It should list error messages related to each application you are having problems with. Another way you could do this is, wait for you computer to error out, then immediately check the system log from /var/log from the terminal. Once your system errors, or something crashes launch your terminal from /applications/utilities. Once the terminal is loaded use the following code:Code:tail -50 /var/log/system.log | moreThis will display the last 50 lines of your system log. You can play with the -50 number is you need more or less lines. If you do not understand any of the error messages you are getting post them on a forum and see if anyone else can help you. Copying and pasting is a real handy tool to use when using these forums.07 Disable Application Enhancer, if you're running it. Haxies from Unsanity. They're great, and they're pretty well programmed, but they're hacking the system in non-standard ways. Unsanity claims that APE will be disabled by holding down the shift key while logging in. However, if you want to be ultra-safe about it, download the APE installer from Unsanity and use the 'uninstaller' option to remove all traces. 08 Clear system & user caches. Use a 3rd party tool like Cocktail or Jaguar Cache Cleaner to deep clean all caches. Reboot. See if this cures the problem. 09 Startup in SafeBoot mode, and see if the problem persists there. You do this by holding down the shift key during bootup. If this makes the problem disappear, then it is a problem with Extensions or StartupItems. And most likely, those would be 3rd party Extensions or StartupItems. Most of those are kept in /Library/Extensions/ and /Library/StartupItem/. Move those items to the desktop, and see if you can isolate which one was causing the trouble. There are also some 3rd party extensions that are *annoyingly* installed in /System/Library/Extension/, however you must be very very careful mucking around in there, as almost all of those Extensions are supplied by Apple, and your machine will not function without them. Use common sense, and ask the experts. 10 Start your system in verbose mode. Start up your computer in verbose mode, hold down cmd+V at start up. You will see the a bunch of text scroll down the screen as everything starts up. Look for anything that gives an error message and record it. Try doing google searches, or search http://www.macosxhints.com forums to see if the problem has already been discussed and a known fix has been established. A lot of times you can find fixes on these forums, they are a great tool.11 Unplug all USB, Firewire devices except Apple mouse. Reboot with everything unplugged. If this makes the problem go away, then you have a bad external device, bad cable, or bad port on your computer. Try to isolate which one it is. Be especially wary of USB hubs. 12 Zap PRAM. Hold Down the Command, Option, P, and R keys as you restart the computer, and keep them held down until the computer chimes 3 times. See if this cures the problem. 13 Reset Firmware. Resetting your firmware will reset all firmware settings back to factory defaults. Things like the boot rom, power management, etc. are found in the firmware. To do this hold down the following buttons on your keyboard at boot up: cmd+opt+O+F. Once in open firmware type these commands.Code:reset-nvram (hit enter)reset-all (hit enter once more, the system should reboot)This will successfully reset all firmware on your macintosh computer14 Reapply the latest combo updater. Download the latest OS X updater from Apple. These updaters come in 2 flavors, an updater which will only update the next most recent version of the OS, and a combo updater, which will update all versions since the last paid update. You want the combo updater. It will be labeled as the combo updater, and it will be much larger than the normal updaters - around 80MB at this time. (Find the updater on the Apple Downloads page.) Apply the updater, even if your system version number is already up to date. See if this cures the problem. 15 Unplug 3rd Party PCI cards. If this solves the problem, replace the cards one by one until you identify the problematic card. Contact the manufacturer to see if updated drivers are available. NOTE: Be careful to follow the directions that come with your Mac for accessing internal components, particularly with regards to protecting against Electro Static Discharge (ESD).16 Run the Apple hardware diagnostic CD. Boot off the CD by placing the CD in your optical drive and hold down the C key on the keyboard at start up. See if you get any useful information. 17 Check the hard drive for bad blocks. One way of doing this is to try to re-initialize your drive using Drive Setup from the OS X Installation disk. Unfortunately, this will wipe out all of your data, so back up first, if that's the route you go. If the initialization fails, your disk is worthless garbage and must be replaced. You can use the TechTool Deluxe CD that came with the Apple Protection Plan to check for bad blocks. Norton Disk Doctor will also allow you to test for bad blocks without erasing your disk using the Check Media option. Other 3rd party disk utilities may allow this as well. Hearing odd noises coming from your drive is a tip-off that this may be your trouble. 18 Take out 3rd party RAM. See if this cures the problem.19 Reset PMU. The PMU's location, and how to reset it, varies by machine. Go to the Apple website to find out how to do it for your particular machine. See if this cures the problem. Typically this will fix issues when your system will not power on. Make sure you only hold in the PMU button for a second. DO NOT hold it in for any longer and DO NOT press it more than once. If you do this it could result in corrupting the PMU itself. You can go to http://support.info.apple.com to search on documentation on how to do this. NOTE* each model of computer will be slightly different.20 Archive and install OS X. This will archive user/network settings and replace your current system folder with a new one. Boot off your OS X cd and run through the install as normal. Once you get to the screen where you select which hard drive you want to put the OS on there should be an options button under the hard drive. Select it and then select the archive and reinstall button. Then proceed through the install as normal. This may or may not fix your problem, and it can save you time from copying back ups back over, resetting user preferences, and reinstalling applications.21 Reinstall the system from scratch. This step is annoying and time consuming, which is why we've saved it for second to last. Apple's instructions for doing this can be found here.22 Send the machine back to Apple. This step is very annoying, very time-consuming, and if the machine is out of warranty, can be very very expensive. So try a couple of the other steps first. Talk to the technician before commiting to a service center. (Locate an an Apple Authorized Service Provider.)

[teacher]

Lots of hints there. I guess I could say that mine was the easiest fix possible. This morning when I turned my computer on again it was working fine. That works for me.i have a couple of utilities that i run. One is MacJanitor. That seems to do about everything. Another is CacheOutX which does not seem too be much of anything other than cleaning out your network files. I suspect that my problem is with the File Vault and how it uses space. Each time I close down it tells meit is using too much space and offers to reduce it. I think perhaps that is the culprit in it and I really don't need to run a program like that.

[roger2002]

Glad it's working again. Sorry I have nothing on file vault.

[teacher]

That's ok. It is fun to play and try out different things. File Vault takes about 20 minutes to convert a handful of files to encrypted or back again. Basically it takes whatever is in your /home and converts it to encrypted. It was not worth the problems it caused. If I traveled with my notebook a lot perhaps I would go for it but it usually does not go into too many public places.