[THE MAC GOD]

Alright, I've searched the forum and found that people have similar problems... but let me describe this one...

Thursday night, I shut down my computer after a productive day with Quark. Friday morning, I come in and start up my computer, start Quark, and it crashes before it can even finish loading. Now, I'm one of two tech guys here where I work; he didn't touch it and no one else has touched this machine. Why would it suddenly not work?

Here's (simply written) the steps I then went through...
We are running Tiger X.4.2 on Dual 2.5ghz G5s with 1.5gigs or RAM.

- Tried just starting it over and over (sometimes it works, even on the other designers machines when Quark crashes for no apparent reason, like it's a bad motor trying to turn over).

- Deleted all the Quark preferences, and used the emergency installer (the 'For System' folder in Quark) for problems like this. No luck. When I started it again, it re-activated then continued loading, then crashed.

- Reinstalled Quark after totally removing everything having to do with Quark from the machine. It then worked as 6.0. I quit so I could install the updates. I get to 6.5 and then try to start it and it crashes. Repeatedly.

- Tried reinstalling it again (after deleting everything yadda yadda) and it didn't work this time at just 6.0.

- I've heard mixed reports about Quark having troubles with fonts... So, I deleted every font on the system... I then reinstalled the font's that come with the system from the root>system>library>fonts folder. Then I installed our collection of Type 1 fonts. I don't like T1 fonts as they seem to be nothing but trouble, but we've been using them for some time with hardly (however, some) any problems. Still no luck... I tried only running with the system fonts active, but that didn't work. I then tried running with all the fonts active, no luck there either.

- Then, I tried opening it again after trying several times with no luck and BAM... For some reason it started. So, I do what I can in the last 15 minutes of work then go home. Come back today, and the same problem I had on Friday exists... I can't get it to start and I've run through all those steps except reinstalling, which I know will result in nothing.

- Also, I've run Xupport several times to see if it was a permissions error, I've cleaned the cache files, rotated logs, etc... I even tried fsck -fy (if found a couple errors), but to no avail.

- I've tried safe booting to see if it was some random framework or something we installed... I then tried to desable any user installed items by holding down shift after logging in...
but nothing changed between Quark behaving and then misbehaving. Although, after several years dealing with Quark, I've come to find it's more the latter than former.

PLEASE, any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[THE MAC GOD]

One thing I JUST tried doing (mind you, on a fresh install) is going through the old OS9 way of doing things. As in, Extensions!
I threw them all into the disabled folder and, one-at-a-time, put them into the non-disabled folder and started quark. I found that I can cause it to crash or not to, depending on whether or not "Script.xnt" is in there. Why is that the offender and why would it be bad at the get go?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by THE MAC GOD

One thing I JUST tried doing (mind you, on a fresh install) is going through the old OS9 way of doing things. As in, Extensions!
I threw them all into the disabled folder and, one-at-a-time, put them into the non-disabled folder and started quark. I found that I can cause it to crash or not to, depending on whether or not "Script.xnt" is in there. Why is that the offender and why would it be bad at the get go?

Dunno, dude. I've been doing this a long time and you have one weird scenario: machine goes from working to non-working overnight for no reason. Usually when that happens it's a sign that something much deeper is happening, like system-level corruption or a dying hard drive.

I'd say 1) run disk utility to verify the directory structure and SMART status of the drive. If that's okay, then run the machine without the offending extension and see what happens.

[larkost]

1) You are halucinating... there is no such thing as a productive day with Quark... get InDesign... *chuckle*

2) Fonts are the best bet for this one, remember, there are many places you have to look:
/Library/Fonts
/System/Library/Fonts
/System Folder/Fonts
~/Library/Fonts

and there can be fonts in the Application folder, but I don't think Quark does that.

[blikum]

Have you cleaned the Font Cache? Try Font Finnagler. http://homepage.mac.com/mdouma46/fontfinagler/

When you "uninstalled" did you get rid of the Xerces-c-cw8.framework? It's located in /Library/Frameworks.

Good Luck.

[headbirth]

Something like this JUST happened to me. I had just run Onyx ... cleared some caches and run some maintenance items and after restarting Quark would get as far as the splash screen and crash.

I did a reinstall after trying numerous times to get it to open and found even after the reinstall it was doing this. I then realized I hadn't bother trashing the preferences and whalla! it worked!

I also noticed that there is a new folder in the Library under Tiger called Safe Preferences containing Quark prefs and some internetconfig prefs for Apple.

Anyone know what these safe Preferences are?

[JKT]

When an app crashes multiple times in a row you will get asked if you want to reopen the app by Crash Catcher. The second time around it'll ask if you want to open it with the settings reverted to the defaults. If it runs OK, then you'll be asked if you want to keep the new prefs or whether to revert to the old ones (I think). I would assume that this new Safe Preferences folder is to do with that process.

[Don Pickett]

Had something similar happen yesterday with Photoshop CS. For some reason the preferences file went south. Trashed it and all it well.