DNASTAR on Macintosh, system 8.6

[Doug Eernisse]

In article <3798B341.B7ADE52A at mail.cmmt.ubc.ca>, Scott Givan
<sgivan at mail.cmmt.ubc.ca> wrote:

> "Frank O. Fackelmayer" wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > I´ve been using the DNASTAR package for some time now without
> > difficulties. However, since I upgraded the operating system from 7.6 to
> > 8.6 three weeks ago, I reproducibly get a system crash when using the
> > "OPEN" or "SAVE" commands (in all modules). Re-installing from the
> > original CD-ROM did not help, and the programs run normally when I boot
> > my computer from a system 7.6 CD-ROM. Thus, there appears to be some
> > incompatibility between DNASTAR and system 8.6, at least on my computer.
> > Has anyone else encounterd similar problems? Please also let me know if,
> > on your computer, DNASTAR and system 8.6 run well (so the problem could
> > be in my system configuration...).
> >
> > Frank
> 
> Frank,
> 
> I've found that most of the times in situations like this that one or more
> system extensions is/are the cause of the problem.  Have you tried using
> DNASTAR after you have started your Mac with the extensions turned off
> (hold the SHIFT key down during startup)?  If DNASTAR works normally with
> the extensions off, you can start turning on extensions to see which one is
> causing the problem.  You could also turn on groups of extensions (ie, base
> 8.6 extensions, which is an option in the Extensions Manager) to more
> rapidly find the troublesome extension.  If you find the culprit, you would
> at least know where the problem lies.  Possibly the extension isn't useful
> to you and it could be turned off.
> 
> scott


You might first try turning off the newer feature, "System Wide Platinum
Appearance" in the "Appearance" control panel. I have heard that
System 8.0 (or 8.1?) broke some older programs that didn't like their
dialog buttons replaced by the newer System in this way, but I
don't really have much direct experience with this problem. Both
"Open" and "Save" might involve such problems if they use custom
routines.

Good luck.

-- 
Doug Eernisse
Department of Biological Science
California State University
Fullerton, CA 92834-6850 USA
<http://biology.fullerton.edu/deernisse/>