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Apps crashing when opening documents?
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Oisín
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Jul 6, 2005, 03:08 PM
 
The past two or three days, random apps seem to crash whenever I try to open a document or, well, do anything.

So far the apps I've confirmed to do this are Photoshop, Illustrator, Wen Lin [Chinese dictionary program], and Excel.

Apps that seem to be unaffected are Safari, Word, VLC, and QuickTime (haven't tested any others yet).

In Wen Lin, I can open a new document, but as soon as I start to type, from the very first letter, it starts beach-balling into eternity, and I have to force-shut the program.

In Photoshop, Illustrator, and Excel, the beach-balling happens as soon as I try to open a new document (in Photoshop and Illustrator as soon as I click ⌘-N, in Excel as soon as I choose which type of document I want to open). Oddly enough, I think, it opens a new document just fine in Word, and I can even type in it.

I tried searching, both here and on Google, and came up with absolutely nothing (I knew I had bad Google-fu, but I didn't realise it was that bad).

What the hell is going with my apps?!?
     
Old Toad
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Jul 6, 2005, 05:19 PM
 
Can you give us some info about your setup: model, RAM, HD size and free space, system version? Did you run any software updates just before this began happening? What fix/maintenance procedures have you tried?
     
Oisín  (op)
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Jul 7, 2005, 06:44 AM
 
Oh yeah, sorry, forgot about that...

PB 17" 1.67 MHz, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB HD (split up into two partitions; there's 36.7 GB free on my system partition). No system updates, I think, except for updating to iTunes 4.9, and that was some time before; I'm almost sure I've used Wen Lin successfully after that.

I'm pretty lost as to what to do about this, so the only 'fix' I've tried is fixing permissions, and that obviously didn't work (I didn't really expect it to, but it can't hurt)...

Thanks for replying
     
Krusty
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Jul 7, 2005, 11:08 AM
 
Perhaps you are having a font problem. A corrupt font or two has been known to be the source of such things.

Also, if possible, check your app crash logs in console.app and see if you can discern exactly what is happening before the crashes.

Finally, you might want to create a dummy user account (you can delete and remove it later) and see if the problem exists for that user as well ... if not, then its probably a corruption in your particular user account. If its just as bad, then its probably a system-wide issue.
     
JKT
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Jul 7, 2005, 11:58 AM
 
If you have Tiger, hold down the shift key as you log into your account. This will disable all non-system fonts and move various cache files to the trash, as well as disabling third party startup items. Try your apps after that and if they work, then the issue was likely a corrupted font or font cache. Log back out and then back in to re-enable your fonts and try again. If the crashes re-occur then one or more of your non-system fonts is probably buggered. If you can launch Font book you can validate your fonts (Select them all and go to the File menu and select Validate Fonts...). This may identify which one(s) are the problem.
     
Oisín  (op)
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Jul 7, 2005, 01:48 PM
 
Okay, using a different account doesn't help, same issue.

Validating fonts in Font Book tells me that “problems may have been with some fonts found during validation”, but all the fonts show up with a nice √ sign next to them, indicating that they're all right. (This “problems may have been found” line seems to be there no matter what, though, when you validate even a single font).

I can't see any information about app crashes in console.log (shouldn't there be something? I tried 'provoking' an app to quit, and there was no entry whatsoever for anything happening at that time afterwards), but I did find this from the time when I validated the fonts: “/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Versions/A/Support/FontValidator: "/Users/Janus/Library/Fonts/Gulim.ttf" contains localized PostScript name.” Not sure what it means, though...

I'll try the shift + log in approach now.
     
Oisín  (op)
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Jul 7, 2005, 02:00 PM
 
Okay, logging in while holding down shift didn't do the trick, either.

I just noticed something slightly odd, though: in my trash, there is a folder called 501.142451578, containing two files, named annex_aux and FondResourceCache, respectively.

I don't know what they are, or why they're in my trash (I didn't put them there), but by their names, they sound like they possibly don't belong in the trash. A quick Google search also seems to suggest that they are both related to font caching somehow.

This doesn't really bring me any closer to what's going on, but that might be just because I'm dumb; it might bring some of you a great deal closer
     
Krusty
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Jul 8, 2005, 02:46 AM
 
I just googled the file names you listed and those files appear to be some sort of Font support files that can be trashed to help reset the system fonts. In other words, I guessing the font validator probably trashed those files for you when you ran it. The notation on gulim.ttf might be an indication the font that is corrupt and its location in /Users/Yourname/Library/Fonts/ indicates something that was added by a program you installed (i.e. NOT part of the default system fonts). Go in to Font Book, find that font (gulim) and disable it. If that works, then you've found your problem. After that, you'd need to figure out where that font came from and reinstall that app to restore gulim.ttf if its a font you need.

To check in console.app for crash logs, you need to open console.app, hit the "logs" button on the left, go into /Library/Logs (system) and ~/Library/Logs (user) and there will be a "CrashReporter" subsection. Usually application crashes will fall under the User section (since they are run as user processes) and you'll have an entry for each app that has ever crashed. My advice, look at a couple of the apps that have crashed and see if the last few lines of the crash report are the same in both apps ... the log will usually show what was being accessed directly before the crash. Just browsing my own crash log shows me that several of my apps crashed back in the 10.3.4/10.3.5 due to the APE handler (which is something installed with audio hijack that a lot of 3 party plug-ins work with). If its all greek to you, then just post the entries in this thread and we'll see if we can help BUT usually you will see a file path or something in semi-plain English that will give you an indication. I usually take the pathname of the last line on a crash log and google that to find other cases of people who've crashed for the same reason.

Also, on a side note, the main (original) admin user in OS X is usually assigned a user ID number of 501 by the system (and new users count up from there). If you ever see a folder named 501 or predicated by 501 (like the one in your trash) that usually indicates a cache or temp file for that specific user. These folders are typically hidden but of course will show up if they've been trashed.
     
JKT
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Jul 8, 2005, 09:27 AM
 
Originally Posted by Krusty
I just googled the file names you listed and those files appear to be some sort of Font support files that can be trashed to help reset the system fonts. In other words, I guessing the font validator probably trashed those files for you when you ran it.
Nope - holding shift while logging in is what puts that folder in the trash. It wasn't immediately apparent from my original message, but I did say "will disable all non-system fonts and move various cache files to the trash." However, you are right to say that this is what resets the font system.

To the OP, next thing to try is holding the shift key while booting the system. This disables all third party extensions to the system. Alternatively, try deleting the contents of the ~/Library/Cache folder.
     
Oisín  (op)
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Jul 9, 2005, 06:06 AM
 
Very odd, but a restart suddenly fixed it. I'd restarted before, to no avail, but apparently restarting the machine after having logged in holding down shift made the difference... anyway, it seems to be working again—thanks for all your help
     
JKT
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Jul 11, 2005, 08:57 AM
 
NP, but don't you just hate mysterious problems that fix themselves in mysterious ways!
     
Oisín  (op)
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Jul 11, 2005, 12:00 PM
 
Yeah, it feels like such an anti-climax, almost like sex... errr, I mean, uhh... I, err... oh, look, is that a pig flying by outside the window?
     
   
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