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Quit stuck programs without a visible Force Quit box System
You know that you can force quit frozen applications or games by pressing Apple (Command) plus Option plus Escape, and the Force Quit window will show up, allowing you to force quit the frozen application. But in some frozen applications and games, the Force Quit window won't show up. It makes you think the whole system has crashed. Most of the times, though, it hasn't.

Here is what you do before you press reset button; hold down Apple (Command) and Option and Escape, then just hit Enter. You might have to hit Enter twice in some crashes.

[Editor's note: Some good, simple advice -- it seems the Force Quit dialog can't always force itself to the top layer of the screen ... and since the currently running application is usually the selected item in the Force Quit dialog, the Enter key activates the selection (ie forces it to quit). This may not work all the time, but it's definitely saved me a reset or two while playing Spiderman!]
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Quit stuck programs without a visible Force Quit box | 10 comments | Create New Account
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Alternatively just switch applications
Authored by: sjonke on Nov 20, '02 10:23:01AM

Just switch to another application (the finder or whatever) and then bring up force quit window via the apple menu or the keyboard shortcut. You'll have to select the right app to force quit, of course, but this should display the window which otherwise was invisible due to the crashed application.



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Alternatively just switch applications
Authored by: wanderer on Nov 20, '02 02:20:41PM

Actually, some game like Warcraft 3 will freeze the whole system, the dock, the keyboard, and the mouse won't response at all. So, you can't really switch to other applications. It make you think it really crashed the whole system, but most the time it isn't. Warcraft 3 crashed alot on me, that's how I found this little neat trick to get out the frozen warcraft 3 without resetting my Mac. So this might help some of you gamer from rebooting your Mac.

BTW, I'm the one that post this hint.


Eric



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dock trick
Authored by: englabenny on Nov 20, '02 11:44:09AM

or my favourite: if dock is visible, bring up the app's contextmenu, press option and force it to quit.



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Wonderful Escapepod X
Authored by: Morningstar on Nov 20, '02 02:10:37PM

I have never had to perform a force quit, or do a hard restart since I downloaded Escapepod X. All that is required using this marvellous little programis to press control+option +deleteto "clear the deck"and be ready to continue. Highly recommended and free.



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Another Free App
Authored by: jimw on Nov 20, '02 03:55:38PM

Process Wizard (a menu item) will also allow you to quit anything, including system processes as well as set process priority. This is a great tool, and it is free.



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Process Wizard won't work
Authored by: wanderer on Nov 20, '02 04:55:08PM

Process Wizard won't work nor will switch to other running apps because some apps or games crashes won't response to keystroke or mouse movement. It just lock up the apps or games solid. This hint help you get out of those situation. I haven't try Escapepod X, but from the description from versiontracker.com, it might works.



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EscapePod
Authored by: aranor on Nov 20, '02 06:22:38PM

I forget how I got it (probably by asking Andrew Welch for it), and it's still marked as in beta (dunno if they're ever going to publicly release it), but AmbrosiaSW has a little utility called EscapePod. This utility is simply for force-quitting and such when no other option is available. Option-Control-Delete force-quits the current program in the worst way (I believe the equivalent of kill -9), and, IIRC, control-option-shift-escape will force-logout. This utility has let me force quit a few programs I couldn't otherwise, as well as determine when the computer is actually totally frozen or whether the application can be exited from.



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no keyboard/mouse response?
Authored by: theegor on Nov 21, '02 09:39:31AM

ssh into the box over the network and kill the application, or reboot cleanly. you can at least run 'sync' from the command line to force the OS to write disk buffers to disk if you can't reboot cleanly.

you have access to a 2nd machine for this purpose, right?



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HOW??
Authored by: dave1212 on Feb 17, '03 04:40:03PM

how?

please describe.

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escapepod
Authored by: Fraki on Nov 22, '02 10:04:42AM