Shall we discuss Deleting Preferences?

I'm quite happy with my preferences, thank you. No, not your preferences, we're talking about GarageBand's Preferences.

I see. And why would I want to do that? Sometimes a Preference file, like Permissions (See: Repairing Permissions) can get corrupted. Perhaps another program did something that it wasn't supposed to do, or maybe a power failure caused your computer to shut off while it was writing a file, there are any number of possible ways for a file to become corrupt.

When this happens it can cause any number of odd problems with a program. Dialogue windows might open up with no visible controls, or a program will be unable to save its files, or possibly not even be able to start up!

In the case of GarageBand (like most well behaved Mac OS X Software) if you delete its preference files, it will create brand new ones the next time you launch it.

So why create them in the first place ... if it already knows everything... The preference files can hold settings that you've changed. For instance if you change GB's preferences to play the Metronome during both Recording as well as Playback, it stores your choice in its preferences so that the next time you launch it, the program will run as you told it to run. When you delete the preferences the program runs in its "Default" setting, in this case just playing the metronome during recording. So you would have to open up GB's preferences and set them back to the way you want.

Every time? No, only if you've deleted the files. You set the preferences back to the way you want, and they'll remain that way. And corrupt files are not an every day occurrence. I've been running GarageBand for almost two and a half years, installed each version without removing anything. Even done some "Please don't try this at home" type things and I've never had to delete a preference file.

On the other hand, at least once a day I've solved someone's problem by having them delete a preference file, so it's good knowledge to have.

Okay, well I'm not having any problems right now, but I guess it couldn't hurt to get edumacated.

Educated, right.

So edumacate me. How do I delete GarageBand's preferences? It's easy. Don't say that, I know it won't be. It is, don't panic. First Quit GarageBand, saving your project first if you desire. I'll assume you don't need pictures for that. Yeah, I'm good, continue.

Mac OS X 10.5 If you're using Mac OS 10.5.x it works like this...
(Jump to instructions for Mac OS 10.4.x, jump to instructions for Mac OS 10.3.x)

Once GB has quit, make sure Finder is active by clicking on its icon in the Dock Finder Icon in the Dock

Open a New Finder Window
New Window Menu

Navigate to your Home folder and then find your Library Folder

Open the Library folder, and set up the search to look in your Library Folder for "garageband"
Search Set up

Once the two preference files have been found
Search results

Select them and move them to the trash
Move files to Trash

Jump past older OS instructions

Mac OS X 10.4 If you're using Mac OS 10.4.x it works like this...
(Jump to instructions for Mac OS 10.3.x)

Once GB has quit, make sure Finder is active by clicking on its icon in the Dock

Open a new Finder Window

Type "garageband" in the search field

Make sure the "Home" button is selected

And when Spotlight has finished its search, look through the list for the two files that end in ".plist" and ".cs" (If you hold down the CommandKey [the one with the little on it] you can click on each file to select them both)

Once they're selected you can either drag them to the Trash, or use the Action menu

Jump past older OS instructions


Mac OS X 10.3 If you're using version Mac OS 10.3.x, it works like this...

Once GB has quit, make sure Finder is active by clicking on its icon in the Dock Open a Window

Open a new Finder Window
Choose FInder

Click on the Magnifying glass PopUp menu and choose "Home"

Type in "garageband" and look for the .plist and .cs files in the results

And drag them to the trash, or use the Action menu (as shown in the instructions for 10.4.x above).

So, 10 pages later what you're trying to say is "Search for 'GarageBand', and delete the .plist, and .cs files", is that it?

Well, yeah

Why didn't you just say so to start with, geeze. I mean that's really simple and easy!

::sigh:: Yes, yes it is.


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