Adobe Illustrator CS2 crashes on an Intel Mac Pro running Mac OS 10.4.8 when a designer tries to use a tool on the pathfinder palette. This only happens when a circular path is involved. For example you want to Unite a round/circular path and a square path. Yo highlight both paths and select Unite from the Pathfinder palette. The program will crash.
The solution was buried in the comments of this post on Real World Illustrator.
- Launch Illustrator CS2
- Close the Appearance Palette
- Quit Illustrator
- Restart Illustrator
You can then reopen the Appearance palette and use the pathfinder tool without trouble.
Mostly Copy and Paste 
Yep it works but for me I had to close all pallets not just the appearance pallet.
All this came about ‘cos i downgraded from 10.4.10 which was giving me trouble with the finder to 10.4.7 which caused pdfs to print badly through EFI Color Designer. then up to 10.4.8 which fixed the print but caused illustrator to misbehave….it still crashes if left open and unused for a while…i can live with that =|
Cheers for your help