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Frequently Asked Questions

This page contains a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the new IRMACS desktop computer deployment. Before sending email to help@irmacs.sfu.ca, please check to see if this page has the answer to your questions. We will update this page as the software deployment evolves. Please check back regularly for more information.

Question: How can I mount the projects folder?

Answer: You should be able to go to the Finder menu, under the "Connect to Server" item, enter: "nfs://192.168.52.192/irmacs/projects".You can add this to your favorites under that menu item so you can add it at the click of a button. If you want to mount the folder automatically at log in each time, you can use the following procedure:

  1. Open the Finder Preferences
  2. Connect to the server volume(s) you would like to automatically mount at login.
  3. Open System Preferences.
  4. Select the Accounts preference pane.
  5. Click the Login Items tab.
  6. Drag the volume(s) from the Finder into the Login Items list in the System Preferences window.

Question: My Firefox (or Thunderbird) won't start, and gives me the error message " A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time?". How can I fix this problem?

Answer: This occurs when Firefox or Thunderbird does not exit cleanly (it crashes or the computer reboots while it is running). To solve this problem, you need to remove the locking file that Firefox and Thunderbird create (".parentlock"). On Mac OS X the Firefox file can be found in the folder /home/XXX/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/YYY where XXX is replaced by your user name and YYY is replaced by a computer generated folder that looks like this ("oirl8qpj.default"). For Thunderbird, the lock file can be found in the folder /home/XXX/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/YYY. If you use the Finder to navigate to these folders and remove the ".parentlock" file the problem should be solved.