Clicking on the Startup Drive, a folder, or trying to empty the trash brings up a Connect to Server... dialog, sometimes with nothing but a gray background. The Spinning Rainbow Ball spins and spins, but whatever you clicked on does not open up (or in the case of the Trash, does not empty).
Interestingly, I found that I could run any program that was in the Dock, including making email connections and internet connections. I believe this is because the three actions that it would not do involve accessing the LAN due to the sidebar at the left of the window (in the case of folders), and checking network trashes (in the case of emptying the trash).
Solution:
- Disconnect your network cable & reboot.
- Throw out aliases in the Recent Servers folder.
- Go to your Keychain Access (in the Utilities folder) and toss out all references to the phantom server.
- Go to Connect to Server... (Command+K) and remove any references to the phantom server there.
- Plug your network cable back in and reboot your computer.
- Go to Connect to Server... (Command+K).
- Now connect to a server that you know is there.
- When that server comes up, click on your own drive in the Task Bar at left. It should open now. All other folder functions should now be restored as well.
- Rebooting
- Zapping the PRAM
- Booting into single user mode (Command+S at startup) and running a file system check (/sbin/fsck -fy)
- Running Norton (although it did "fix major errors")
- Booting off installer CD and fixing permissions (using Disk Utility)

