MBP Doing Weird Things, Help!

I bought a MBP about 6 months ago and it has been doing some strange things over the last few months.

The biggest problem is that the laptop will occasionally freeze and then after I restart the machine, all of my desktop and dock settings get reset. Upon restart, the dock will have reverted back to it default setting (ie. all of the applications I have added to it are gone and all of the applictions that I removed are back in place). I also lose any Expose settings that I had set up and all of my desktop wallpaper setting. Its mostly just annoying, but I don't understand why its doing that.

Last night, however, it did something even more strange. In the middle or web surfing, the entire screen went blue (light blue, like the color of the default wallpaper, not like a Windows blue screen) and the mouse icon disappeared. This lasted for about 5 seconds. Then the mouse icon reappeared but, the rest of the screen stayed blue. I could not access anything on my desktop nor could I see/use the dock. I shut down the computer and when I restarted, all of my wallpaper and dock setting (as described above) had been reset.

I also realized that my homework assignment (Word document I had been working on earlier, that I had saved prior to the blue screen) had been corrupted and was unuseable. This is what made me the most upset and is what prompted this message.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem is or how I can fix it? I'm thinking about just wiping it clean and re-installing OSX. Being a student, the thought of losing my work again really scares me. Plus, I'm just kinda bummed b/c this is my first Mac and the reason I spent the extra money was to avoid issues like this.

 

Well, did you rename your Home Folder? That usually causes quite a lot of issues.

I suggest you do some other Troubleshooting. Check out the Troubleshooting section of the Mac Switcher's Guide, do the different resets and repairs and see if it helps.

And of course, if all doesn't work, the easiest way would be to reinstall OS X.

 

Yeah it sounds like you changed the Short Name. A clean install is definitely one option (maybe the best) or you can try to recover your files.

Read this Apple Support Document, Return to default desktop, apparent "loss" of home directory:

Mac OS X 10.4 Help: About the Home Folder's Name

 

Thanks for the quick replies, however, I'm pretty sure I didn't change the name of my Home folder. It has always been called Machintosh HD and that's what it is named now as well. I have never renamed it knowingly. Is it possible do rename the drive w/out doing it on purpose?

Could the FileVault program be to blame? I turned that on months ago and now it won't let me turn it off. It says I need 4,000 GB of free space in order to do so!! I think I might re-install just so I can turn that off.

 

Yes, FileVault has been known to cause problems. I think in order to turn off FileVault at least half of your hard drive needs to be free space. Reinstalling OS X is a fairly painless process. If you decide to reinstall OS X, look into the Customization Options to save disk space.

 

Yeaps, I think your best bet then is to reinstall OS X. Remember to make copies of your important files, deauthorize your computer from iTunes and uninstall any single-user license software first!

 

Thanks Sam and Xander for all the great advice!

 

Check to see how much free HD space you have. If the HD is over 90% full that the problem. Also run the File permision check (under utilities) and correct. This should be done after all Apple updates and/or installs.