Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Strange behavior when unarchiving downloads

NeOffice has been trying to help me open downloaded files. Not text files. Zip files, I think, and other archived files.

I just downloaded an old version of Skype. The .dmg image mounted and I was able to copy Skype to my Applications folder and start it. But before that NeoOffice interrupted at the end of the download process and gave options to open and convert a document. Some references to ascii, not sure. If I don't cancel NeoOffice, it will try to open something while the pinwheel spins indefinitely. Not sure why NeoOffice, of all things, would be interrupting.

I've been having trouble with this the last couple days—the only problem so far after upgrading to the excellent Snow Leopard 10.6.3 three days ago.

I tried to uninstall stuffit expander and think I did so. I can't help thinking that was part of the problem.

I downloaded The Unarchiver and assigned Firefox's Applications preferences to use the Unarchiver for zip files.

Maybe I should uninstall that too.

You don't need Stuffit Expander or Unarchiver or any other third-party app to expand zip files. Unarchiving is built in now. Get Info on a .zip file, and verify that its Kind is "Zip archive" and that it's set to open with "Archive Utility.app". If it isn't, make it so and click on "Change All" . (If you have to search for it, Archive Utility.app can be found in /System/Library/CoreServices.)

Are you sure you didn't accidentally launch the copy of NeoOffice that was still in the disk image? Some apps behave very strangely when you do that.

No, I didn't launch NeoOffice. It launched on its own. The disk .img contained Skype.

You don't *usually* need any third party software to deal with zip files. Occasionally, I have encountered .zip files that the built-in OS X software won't unarchive (I just get an empty folder), but that Stuffit Expander unarchives fine. I don't like Expander, but I keep it around for the odd zip file that the built-in software chokes on.

I've noticed that about a lot of Apple software, in fact: it doesn't seem to do any sanity checking, so if there's something even the tiniest bit "off" with a file it chokes and dies, even if other apps handle it gracefully. Apple engineers don't seem to pay a lot of attention to sanity checking and graceful degradation.

I presume you have rebooted since this started. Otherwise it sounds like the Launch Services database has gotten scrambled. OnyX, Cocktail, MacPilot, and Tinkertool System all have a Rebuild Launch Services function. I am sure there is a Unix command(s) underlying all of these, but I don't know what it is.

Then repeat what I said to do, but do it to a .dmg file. (You said disk .img, but I assume you meant .dmg.) Somehow, your system has been told that NeoOffice is the app to use to open .dmg files. Normally, they should be opened with DiskImageMounter.app (also found in /System/Library/CoreServices).

Your system maintains, for each user, a Launch Services database that keeps track of what app should normally handle various things: files, URLs, etc. The database bases its decision for opening files on filename extension. (It used to also consider file type and creator, but that got dropped many OS releases ago.)

When you Get Info on a file, select a different app from the "Open with:" menu, and click "Change All", what you're doing is updating the launch services database. (If you don't "Change All", and you have write permission to the file, the file is modified to say that Launch Services should be ignored for this file. It should be opened with the indicated app no matter what Launch Services says.)

The same thing happens in apps that let you configure which app handles various types of files and URLs. They're actually directly manipulating Launch Services (unless the app predates Launch Services and had to implement its own equivalent). Configure it in any app, and all apps will honor it.

I sounds like you've told your browser to expand .zip files as they get downloaded (a setting I strongly discourage as unsafe), it unzipped the file to a .dmg file, and for some reason tried to open that. Launch Services told it that the app to do that is NeoOffice, so NeoOffice is what got launched.

Stuffit Expander has an option to continue expanding as many levels deep as it can. If SE was used to expand the .zip file, and you have this option set, it would have tried to open the .dmg file, using Launch Services to do so.

I would recommend:

• Browsers should not expand or open downloaded files. (In Safari, for example, turn off the "Open 'safe' files after download" option under Preferences→General.) So-called "safe" files are not always safe.
• .zip files should be set to always open with Archive Utility.app. (You can still manually use Stuffit Expander on the rare files that Archive Utility won't handle.)
• .dmg files should be set to always open with DiskImageMounter.app.

Ok, I changed the Firefox settings. I downloaded something else and so far things look fine. I know about the Launch Services database which I deleted before in Tiger with Onxy. I'll try it again to be safe.

No need to delete it if things are working well. Save extreme measures for extreme problems.