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yellow no.5 · Sep 17, 2003, 09:59 PM

Hey, all. I've recently installed a new program (Digidesign's Protools, for any who need to know), and it has been consistently crashing when I try to open new sessions/files. It's the only program on my system that has ever crashed. I've done searches here, on the Apple site, and on Digidesign's site, and have tried everything shy of reinstalling my OS, which is 10.2.6.

I've fixed permissions with Disk Utility, ran Cocktail, fsck-ed, cleared preferences/caches/more, and done every other option stated on Digi's website.

The one thing that DOES work is that I made a new user admin account, and when I use the program when logged in as this other user, it's fine--not one crash. So, my question is what could be corrupt/wrong in my main user account? Like I said, shy of reinstalling the OS, I've done everything I have been able to find about this issue.

Anyone have any other info? I've probably missed something simple that I could do.

Thanks in advance. I shall continue researching and watching The Princess Bride, building up my iocane powder immunity.

"Inconceivable!" (Aside: anyone notice that when Vizzini dies, he falls uphill?)

-Seth

superlarry · Sep 17, 2003, 10:50 PM

where did you clear out preferences? make sure you get them out of here: /Users/username/Library/Preferences/
and there might be more under /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Digidesign
sorry that i don't have experience with this particular program, but good luck!

yellow no.5 · Sep 17, 2003, 11:19 PM

Hello, fellow Columbus-ite.

Yeah, I cleared out both of those preference folders already to no avail. Thanks, though!

-yno.5

yellow no.5 · Sep 18, 2003, 12:29 PM

Anyone have any other suggestions as to what I could try? I'm thinking now that I may as well just use this *new* user as my main account. I feel like I shouldn't have to do that, but, hey, do what I gotta', I suppose.

-Seth

Arkham_c · Sep 18, 2003, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by yellow no.5:
Anyone have any other suggestions as to what I could try? I'm thinking now that I may as well just use this *new* user as my main account. I feel like I shouldn't have to do that, but, hey, do what I gotta', I suppose.

-Seth

Move your Library folder aside and create a new one. Don't delete it, just move it aside. Then, launch the app. Does it still fail? If not, then you know the problem is in Library. Put the old Preferences Folder back in Library. Does it crash now? If so, you know the problem is in there. If not, keep going.

This is the same idea as OS9 debugging. Put stuff in until it breaks, and when it does, you know where to look to fix it.

SMacTech · Sep 18, 2003, 12:41 PM

You might check the fonts in your User>Preferences folder. One of them may be corrupt.
If it were me, I would want to know what is causing the crash which is obviously user specific. I would start copying things to the user's folder that does work, or create a third one and experiment with it.

yellow no.5 · Sep 18, 2003, 01:47 PM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
Move your Library folder aside and create a new one. Don't delete it, just move it aside. Then, launch the app. Does it still fail? If not, then you know the problem is in Library. Put the old Preferences Folder back in Library. Does it crash now? If so, you know the problem is in there. If not, keep going.

This is the same idea as OS9 debugging. Put stuff in until it breaks, and when it does, you know where to look to fix it.

I just did this to my *Real* user account, and after I moved each item/folder back into my Library folder, I would relaunch the app. It never crashed, and I made it all the way through and reloaded every folder I originally had. The program is working fine so far. No crashes at all.

This is odd. I didn't find anything that made it crash, but it doesn't crash anymore. Hmmm...

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone!

-Seth

Deicide · Sep 18, 2003, 02:30 PM

yellow no.5:

I have the same problem with one of my users and Adobe Acrobat 5.05. It will crash at launch under his account but works fine under my support account. I have tried removing the Library folder and deleting any hidden files with the terminal. The only thing that works is to move all his folders out of his home and delete the account. Recreate the account and move every thing back. So far this has happened twice and only to that one user. I have 50 plus MacOS X installs and this is the only one that does it.

SMacTech · Sep 18, 2003, 10:44 PM

Originally posted by Deicide:
yellow no.5:

removing the Library folder and deleting any hidden files with the terminal.

If he moved every folder back it must have had something to do with invisible files. It would be interesting to see what was left behind.

Deicide · Sep 18, 2003, 11:37 PM

SMacTech:

I used the terminal with a simple "mv *.* /users/users home" to move the folders out and back in so it should have copied everything. The .cshrc was copied back because fink still worked under the new account.

yellow no.5 · Sep 19, 2003, 01:45 AM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
If he moved every folder back it must have had something to do with invisible files. It would be interesting to see what was left behind.

I hadn't even thought about hidden files. The program works beautifully now.

Again, what I did was move my Library folder out of my Home folder, then made a new Library folder in the Home folder, then put the *old* Library folders/files into the *new* Library one at a time.

Like you said, SMacTech, I REALLY wish I would've actually found something that was corrupt so I would know what to do next time something like this happens. But if it was some hidden file, I'll never know. I already trashed the empty old Library folder. Maybe it wasn't empty afterall.

Thanks, again!

-Seth

- - e r i k - - · Sep 19, 2003, 02:43 AM

Originally posted by Deicide:
yellow no.5:

I have the same problem with one of my users and Adobe Acrobat 5.05. It will crash at launch under his account but works fine under my support account. I have tried removing the Library folder and deleting any hidden files with the terminal. The only thing that works is to move all his folders out of his home and delete the account. Recreate the account and move every thing back. So far this has happened twice and only to that one user. I have 50 plus MacOS X installs and this is the only one that does it.

There's a known fix for that, and it's really weird.

Swap the two last preferred languages in international. It worked for me.