Home Forums Mac Software Mac Applications Segmentation fault?

Timer Utility, which has been a thoroughly well-behaved app for years, has all of a sudden begun crashing at launch, accompanied by 9/15/13 6:43:20 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[215] ([0x0-0x3c53c5].us.jrproductions.timerutility[19611]) Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault messages in Console.

The crashes do not occur 100% of the time, but I've been unable to discern a pattern to when they do occur. (TU always launches eventually, but sometimes it crashes repeatedly, sometimes only once, and sometimes not at all.)

The only system related move I've made recently is install the latest Snowy Security Update.

Can anybody offer any insights, if not fixes?

Thanks.

(Under ordinary circumstances I'd contact the dev, but he has abandoned the app and doesn't respond to e-mails.)

despite what you've been told, it's not really segment's fault, and despite what anyone says, General Failure is not trying to read your disk.

But on a more serious note.... segfaults are usually software bugs. If the author cannot be contacted, about all you can do is try reinstalling. Any or none of the following may run without faulting:

- test logged in as a different user
- reinstall software
- rerun combo updater
- clean install on test system

One of those steps will probably run without faulting. but it's also possible that a recent software update of some sort (like a security update) broke it.

Thanks.

Sorry for forgetting to mention that I had trashed Timer Utility and its associated files and reinstalled before I posted, obviously with no joy.

I didn't think it would be an account related issue because of the nature of the error, but at your prompting I've logged in to my test account and, in addition, safe booted and reset my Launch Services Database, all with no joy.

As I mentioned in my OP, the only system related move I've made recently is install the latest Snowy security update, and I'm going to hang my hat on that as the cause of this problem, not in the least because your two final suggestions are more trouble than they're worth in view of the fact that TU does eventually launch successfully.

Does your knowledge of segmentation faults enable you to guess why the glitch is intermittent, rather than fatal?

Thanks again.

Same problem here after installing 10.8.5. The developer web site is gone (http://jrproductions.us/), and no answer at the email, so I assume it's just not supported any more.

The app store seems to have a ton of timers now - I'll probably just move on.

Timer Utility has, in fact, been discontinued; the dev has been out of sight for a bunch of months already.

I'm kinda stuck with TU, because I don't use the App Store. As I said earlier, though, it always runs for me, sometimes on my first launch attempt...sometimes after three or four, and the nuisance is less distasteful to me than the app store.

Does TU ever launch for you in 10.8.5, or is it a totally dead issue?

segfaults and panics typically only provide information useful to the person that wrote the offending code. Labels are sometimes included or stack traces. For the rest of us though, "it's borken" is about as much info as we're going to get out of it. Sometimes forwarding said information to the dev can get better (if not quicker) results from them

Thanks.