Penny Arcade Forums› Games and Technology› Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.

Weird files popping up in Macintosh HD

Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm aRegistered User, Disagreeable regular
edited September 2009 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
For about two months or so I've had these weird blank files showing up in my Macintosh HD. Usually it's just one or two and I just delete them, but then I just looked and there were a ton:

w41zp.jpg

I can't figure out what makes them pop up. At first I thought it was when I had my external HD plugged in/turned on (because I got it around the same time they started popping up), but I haven't had it attached in a week so now I don't know what's causing it.

On the few occasions that I run Safari, it runs really slow and crashes from the simplest things (like "add attachment" to an e-mail/forum, etc). I don't know if they're related?

Garlic Bread on

Posts

  • LindenLinden Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    Whatever it is, that's not going to be desired behaviour - there are mechanisms for hiding files from the default Finder. The closest I've seen to this was some application dumping strings it was supposed to print to the screen to my desktop, which I still haven't quite wrapped my head around.
    Are the filenames actually blank? What's the result from running this command in Terminal? 
    ls -ab /

    (prints all files in your root directory (in this case, what you see as "Macintosh HD"), replacing nonprinting characters with their escape codes)

    Linden on
  • JasocoJasoco Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Have you tried opening any of them in a text editor and seeing if you can see any recognizable text? What apps do you have, and what have you installed lately? Something is creating them.

    Jasoco on
    rh1w5i.jpg
    Click here to see the ANIMATED version of this signature too big for the forums! :winky:
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Some program is making them. What have you installed? I don't mean programs you've dragged to your applications folder, I mean packages, installers, and other setups programs that ask for a password. There can't be all that many.

    I've seen scanner drivers that make similarly strangely named folders, I suppose for temporary files.

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • JasocoJasoco Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Because the morons who programmed the drivers can't be bothered to follow each OS' specified locations for such files.

    Jasoco on
    rh1w5i.jpg
    Click here to see the ANIMATED version of this signature too big for the forums! :winky:
  • Garlic BreadGarlic Bread i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a bitch i'm a Registered User, Disagreeable regular
    edited September 2009
    They stopped showing up once I installed Snow Leopard the other day. Thanks, though!

    Garlic Bread on
  • LindenLinden Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    If they do appear again, take a look at the timestamps. You might be able to track things down better that way.

    See, what struck me about that screenshot was the '%80' present in a bunch of them. It's just outside ASCII codespace if interpreted as hex.

    Linden on
Sign In or Register to comment.
Penny Arcade Forums› Games and Technology› Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern