From: shurr@cbnews.cb.att.com (larry.a.shurr)
Subject: Re: CURE! for no desktop on bootup syndrome
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, OH
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 19:07:07 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.203313.1558@ms.uky.edu> sam@ms.uky.edu (Mike Mills) writes:
>schmiher@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Hermann Schmidt) writes:
>
>
>>In article <186rqvINNtb@agate.berkeley.edu>, stanton@haas.berkeley.edu (Richard Stanton) writes:
>
>>[ stuff about startup problems deleted ]
>>The problem appears to be related to the automatic startup of any
>>kind of application thru any method (startupfolder, automatic restart).
>You know, I've been fiddling with this as well.  I start two programs from
>my startup folder.  Since doing this I've had problems rebooting on occasion;
>PM freezes either with a blank screen or maybe gets a few icons/windows open
>first.

I've been following this thread with interest as I started experiencing
this problem only this past weekend.  Frequently, I too, would have the
screen come up blank except for my desktop picture or with folders and
windows open, but "hung up" in any case.  Once, to my horror, and before
I discovered the "Application not responding" dialogue, my complete
desktop came up and then all icons disappeared while I was watching.

In fact, it was right after the disappearence of the icons that I 
discovered the "not responding" dialogue.  It seems to require a few 
alt-esc's and/or a few right clicks to get it to come up, but it does.
That time, it told me that Pulse wasn't responding.  I clicked cancel
and the Pulse window closed.  Then it repeated this for DeskPic and
Clock.  After cancelling clock, the clock window closed and then the 
desktop closed.  Of course, the desktop restarted and then I was 
informed that the Desktop was not responding.  After clicking cancel, 
the desktop returned with all icons in place and working (finally!).
The problem is now recurrent.  I appreciate the information provided
in this thread and I will attempt a "cure" on my system.

I can indentify exactly when my problems began.  My autostarted desktop
worked fine until I experimented with a program I downloaded from
hobbes (ahem, ftp-os2).  I think it was called alrmclk and it supposed
to be a cron-like utility for OS/2.  It came up once, but acted
squirrely and wouldn't let me do anything.  I had to kill it by calling
up the task list and closing it from there.  After that, I tried to 
run it again.  After running it, nothing would happen -- no window,
no icon, no evidence that it was running EXCEPT that it would appear
in the task list.  I closed it from the task list.  Later, I had
occasion to reboot and I experienced my first blank desktop.  I didn't
get my desktop back until I booted from floppy and deleted the
alrmclk executable.  This probably wasn't good form and may, for I
know, be the cause of my problems.  Now I know that I probably could 
have hit alt-esc and right click until I got the "not responding"
dialogue, though I don't know if that would have been any better than
what I did.

>Hope this gets fixed in a future release.

Me, too!

Larry
-- 
Larry A. Shurr (las@cbnmva.att.com or att!cbnmva!las) speaking only for myself.
EOR (end-of-ramble)