general troubleshooting tips

One suggestion to help isolate certain DT/DN problems (e.g. Disappearing Sorter) that may be side effects of interactions with other apps:

• Temporarily disable Login Items by holding down the Shift key during login until Finder launches

Then launch the Login Items individually and check if they’re interfering with DN/DT.

Another trouble isolation method I use on Leopard is to temporarily run apps under the generic Guest account. That often helps determine is it’s a general problem or something specific to my account.

This applies to any app, not just DT/DN.

Good tips in general but for me at least, this problem is intermittent which makes it difficult to use any kind of systematic approach to finding the source.

Yeah, I’m currently chasing some intermittent problems with Leopard that evade systematic isolation attempts (at least with my limited time and resources). Thanks for the feedback.