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Whoops - Disabled Finder
#31458 10/07/14 10:47 PM
Joined: Oct 2014
JCLover Offline OP
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Joined: Oct 2014
Hello out there. Finder problem. Finder was acting strangely. I searched for files by name, then sorted by name header column. I found most of the files I was expecting, but not all. Noticing that one of the files wasn't correctly named, I changed the name. Finder showed the correct name after I clicked off that row. Then I went to the folder that contained the file. There, it had the same wrong name from which it had just been changed. I thought I goofed somehow, so did a repeat, changed the file name again. Finder showed the correct name after I clicked off that row, but then again had the wrong file name in the folder. So I tried closing the finder window and repeated the rename process. Same result. So I tried shutting off the computer and repeated rename. Same result. So I thought I'd be clever and trash the com.apple.finder.plist or something close to that name, and let Finder regenerate the file. There's the whoops. Well, Finder wouldn't open and the system spit back this message: The application Finder.app can't be opened. -10810. The trash won't open, so I can't recover the file. Help! What do I do now?
JCLover


MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31460 10/07/14 10:56 PM
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Did you log out/in or restart after trashing the file? Normally, that would regenerate a new, pristine plist.

It would help if you told us which OS you are using, plus information about which Mac you have.

Welcome to FTM and let us know what happens! Good luck to you. Someone here ought to be able to help.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31461 10/07/14 11:30 PM
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I'll go Jon one better and suggest shutting down and restarting your Mac, and if that doesn't resolve your issue, resetting your LaunchServices Database may be your answer. (You can find additional info, including "how to", here.)

If you're uncomfortable using Terminal, there are any number of 3rd party apps that can do the job for you; OnyX (freeware) is one.

Welcome to FTM, and good luck. smile


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31462 10/07/14 11:52 PM
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Even if you can't launch Finder, your Dock should still work. You have a Trash icon in the Dock, but you're right that you can't open it, because Dock wants to use Finder to open it. So instead, look to the Spotlight field in the menubar (which is another of the things Dock provides). In the search field, start typing "terminal". After only a few letters, Terminal.app should show up as the top choice. When it does, press return to launch Terminal.

Terminal can do anything Finder can do. It may not look as pretty, and it's a whole lot less intuitive, but if Finder can do it, so can Terminal.

Once you're in Terminal, enter the command:

ls ~/.Trash

to get a list of the files in your Trash. (Usual caveats apply. Enter the command exactly as shown. Spelling and punctuation matter. Especially, spaces matter. Do not insert or delete any spaces in the command. In this particular command, there's only one space character, after the ls and before the ~. It's probably best to use copy/paste to get the command out of your browser and into Terminal without error. If your browser of choice is not already running, you can launch it either from its Dock icon or from Spotlight in the same way you launched Terminal.) If you neglected to type or copy/paste the return at the end of the command line, press the return key now.)

From the list of files in your Trash you can see exactly which file you put there. (I cannot believe it was com.apple.Finder.plist. Trashing that file should not make Finder un-runnable. You are correct to think that it should have been re-created. After all, that's how it got there in the first place.)

Once you see the file, move it back into place. If it really is com.apple.Finder.plist, you'd put it back using the command:

mv ~/.Trash/com.apple.Finder.plist ~/Library/Preferences/

Adjust the name accordingly if it was some other .plist file. To put all your trashed .plist files back, use the command:

mv ~/.Trash/*.plist ~/Library/Preferences/

Moving .plist files around behind the system's back is probably getting the defaults system very confused. You should log out and log back in again immediately.

In future, try not to move .plist files around. The user defaults system is a lot smarter (and therefore easier to confuse) than it used to be. The proper way to delete an application's defaults is from Terminal, using the defaults command. (Terminal may be able to do anything Finder can, but the converse is not true. There are things like this that Finder cannot do safely, but Terminal can.)

To trash Finder's preferences (for example), use the Terminal command

defaults delete com.apple.Finder

That is, tell the user defaults system what you want done, and let it worry about deleting any files that need to be deleted.

Not that I can see any point in deleting Finder's preferences...

Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
ganbustein #31497 10/11/14 11:48 PM
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JCLover Offline OP
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Hi ganbustein. Thank you very much. I have lot's of experience with the DOS command line, but zero experience with Terminal, which seems to be the equivalent. Your instructions were excellent. They worked as expected. Here's my situation now.

Last login: Sat Oct 11 14:37:16 on console
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$ ls ~/.Trash
com.apple.Finder.plist com.apple.finder 14-06-19.plist
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$

MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$ mv ~/.Trash/*.plist ~/Library/Preferences/
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$

I confirmed the move command worked using list: ls ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.find*

I’m wondering if something else more serious may be afoot?
ls ~/.Trash confirms nothing is in the trash, but the trash bin icon shows there is Something in the trash. After rebooting the MacBook Pro (OS X 10.6.8), Finder still won't launch, and my desktop files, although still on disc, do not show on the desktop.

I used:
defaults delete com.apple.Finder
hoping to delete both files, but this one wasn't deleted:
com.apple.finder 14-06-19.plist

Is this the right syntax to delete this file: com.apple.finder 14-06-19.plist
delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder 14-06-19.plist

Is it possible to embed some invisible control character into the file name. That happened in DOS once.

Any other ideas on what could be wrong and how to fix it?


MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
jchuzi #31498 10/11/14 11:49 PM
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JCLover Offline OP
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Thanks for your reply.


MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31513 10/14/14 12:51 AM
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The file "com.apple.Finder 14-06-19.plist" appears to be detritus left over from an earlier attempt to reset Finder's preferences. Instead of moving "com.apple.Finder.plist" to the trash, you renamed it by inserting a date in its name.

It's a totally irrelevant file. You can delete it with either

defaults delete "com.apple.Finder 14-06-19"
or
rm ~/Library/Preferences/"com.apple.Finder 14-06-19.plist"

In both cases, notice that the name contains spaces, and so must be quoted.


None of this explains why Finder won't start. I suspect you've done something to the application itself.

The Finder application lives (or is supposed to live) at /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app. As a first step, check that it's there and has reasonable permissions with:

ls -lOde /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app

What you should see on OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard is:

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel - 102 Apr 21 2011 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app


Another thing to check is that you haven't somehow put another com.apple.Finder.plist in /Library/Preferences. In response to:

ls /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist

you should get:

ls: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist: No such file or directory


As for the trash icon still showing something in it even though ls ~/.Trash says the folder is empty, there are two possible explanations:

First, there may be some invisible files in ~/.Trash. Add a -a flag to show all files, as in:

ls -a ~/.Trash

Ignore entries for ".", "..", and ".DS_Store". The first two are unixisms; they appear to appear in every directory, but do not correspond to actual items. The last one, .DS_Store, is crated as needed by Finder, and will be explicitly ignored when checking whether something is empty.

The other possibility is that you have files in the trash that are from other volumes. Since files cannot be moved from one volume to another, but files can be trashed from any volume, there must be a trash folder for each user on each volume. ~/.Trash is the trash folder for things you've deleted from the boot volume, and is the only trash folder we're interested in, but the Trash icon will show that it's full if you have a non-empty trash folder on any volume.


You should look in Console (by launching Console.app in /Applications/Utilities) to see if there are any useful error message around the one that says Finder cannot be launched. There will surely be one specifying why Finder cannot be launched.


Unless you're curious what the actual problem is, it might be time to try re-installing the OS. Get the Combo updater for OS X 10.6.8 and re-apply it. This won't disturb your user files, and may correct whatever is wrong with Finder. (It won't hurt to back up everything first. For that matter, it wouldn't hurt to have a backup, period.)

Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31514 10/14/14 08:12 AM
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You don't seem to have thought much of my suggestion that you reset your LaunchServices Database, so I'll expand on it by mentioning that I based it on this (sorry, unattributed) snippet in my "k"base

Quote:
Resetting (deleting the LaunchServices cache files) can solve issues with:
Persistent crashes that occur when accessing menu items in various applications.
Problems launching applications -- particularly when accompanied by error -10810
Duplicate items in the "Open With..." contextual menu (for more, see this article)
Launcher utilities (Quicksilver, LaunchBar, etc.) cannot properly open applications
Problems opening documents with the correct application (Emphasis added)

and posted it in response to your post #31458, in which you stated that

Quote:
Finder wouldn't open and the system spit back this message: The application Finder.app can't be opened. -10810. (Emphasis added)


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
ganbustein #31515 10/14/14 02:57 PM
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Originally Posted By: ganbustein
Unless you're curious what the actual problem is, it might be time to try re-installing the OS. Get the Combo updater for OS X 10.6.8 and re-apply it. This won't disturb your user files, and may correct whatever is wrong with Finder. (It won't hurt to back up everything first. For that matter, it wouldn't hurt to have a backup, period.)

As much as I dislike the nuclear option, I think gangbustein is right on with this suggestion. You could easily spend hours or even days working on this issue and never solve it, or you can reinstall the OS so you can go on about your business. As gangbuster said it will not change any of your data or settings.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
joemikeb #31516 10/14/14 03:20 PM
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So you think that the simple step of resetting the LaunchServices Database isn't even worth a try?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
artie505 #31517 10/14/14 10:41 PM
Joined: Oct 2014
JCLover Offline OP
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Dear Artie, so sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.

Tried GanBustein's idea, first. Didn't mean to ignore you. I live in the middle of the Cleveland National Forest, and live on a tight budget, so do not have internet connectivity. Must travel many miles to library to connect.

Did try your idea later that same night after writing back to GanBustein.

I tried resetting Launch Services (rebuilding the LS database):
find /System/Library/Frameworks -type f -name “lsregister” -exec {} -kill -seed -r \;
Then reboot. Same result: Finder doesn’t load, same Err Msg and number (10810).

Please take no offense at my delays in response.

I will be composing a response to GanBustein's latest suggestions.



MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
ganbustein #31518 10/15/14 12:18 AM
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JCLover Offline OP
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Hi ganbustein.

Correct, com.apple.Finder 14-06-19.plist was my way of making sure I had an immediately available copy of the .plist to restore and knowing when I did it. I just forgot to delete it later. Used MacKeeper to delete it, since

defaults delete com.apple.Finder

didn't.
Thank you for showing me the Terminal syntax to RM a file. I'm such a newbie, I'm having trouble comprehending the Terminal Help system.

Also, as I explained to Artie, I tried resetting Launch Services (rebuilding the LS database):
find /System/Library/Frameworks -type f -name “lsregister” -exec {} -kill -seed -r \;
Then reboot. Same result: Finder doesn’t load, same Err Msg and number (10810).

Confirmed file deleted:
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$ ls ~/Library/Preferences com.apple.find*
ls: /Users/Daddy/Library/Preferences/com.apple.find*: No such file or directory
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$

Got expected result:
ls -lOde /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app returns:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel - 102 Apr 17 2011 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app

Also correct about:
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$ ls -a ~/.Trash
. .DS_Store
.. com.apple.finder
14-06-19.plist
MacBook-Pro:~ Daddy$

Just prior to noticing Finder problem (don't use Finder every day), had Securely emptied trash. Empty Trash icon displayed on Dock. Went to full icon after putting .plists in trash. That's when I first encountered Finder error (10810). After "suffering" without Finder for a few days I wrote to FTM. So, no trash from other volumes.

BTW: Initially planned to have multiple login accts, but only have the one, Daddy. So I never Log In, just turn on the machine.

Looked at every single Console message (specifically, the ones under Console Messages) and couldn't find a "Why?" I found this under Console Messages:
10/11/14 3:27:37 PM [0x0-0xe00e].com.getdropbox.dropbox[135] LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed for the application /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app with error -10810 for the file /Users/Daddy/Dropbox.
If you're not familiar with Dropbox, it's a web app for file sharing. I know it must have hooks into Finder. Uses it's APIs?

Here are the messages I found filtered by the word Finder. I include unique messages only, no dups, or same message, different date/time stamp.

DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION
Diagnostic and Usage Messages


9/16/14 11:01:06 AM SecurityAgent[345] com.apple.desktopservices|2014-09-16 11:01:06 -0700
com.apple.message.domain: com.apple.SecurityAgent.DialogFrequency
com.apple.message.result: noop
com.apple.message.signature: Finder.app


FILES
system.log


Oct 13 20:25:56 MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock[100]: spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=2 label=com.apple.Finder flags=2
Oct 14 15:33:26 MacBook-Pro /usr/bin/osascript[166]: spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=2 label=com.apple.Finder flags=2

~/Library/Logs
CrashReporter


Process: info [264]
Path: /usr/bin/info
Identifier: info
Version: ??? (???)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: bash [257]

Date/Time: 2014-10-11 22:17:29.633 -0700
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: 0x000000000000000d, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 info 0x0000000100002550 0x100000000 + 9552
1 info 0x0000000100002845 0x100000000 + 10309
2 info 0x000000010001446a 0x100000000 + 83050
3 info 0x00000001000146d3 0x100000000 + 83667
4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff8a3461ba _sigtramp + 26
5 ??? 0x00007fff5fbffa40 0 + 140734799804992
6 info 0x00000001000105c0 0x100000000 + 67008
7 info 0x0000000100010699 0x100000000 + 67225
8 info 0x0000000100008565 0x100000000 + 34149
9 info 0x0000000100001810 0x100000000 + 6160

Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (64-bit):
rax: 0x2073692073696854 rbx: 0x0000000000000012 rcx: 0x0000000000000001 rdx: 0x0000000000000000
rdi: 0x000000000000004b rsi: 0x00007fff712221b8 rbp: 0x00007fff5fbff440 rsp: 0x00007fff5fbff3c0
r8: 0x00007fff825ff100 r9: 0x0000000000000000 r10: 0x00000001001052e2 r11: 0x0000000100105745
r12: 0x0000000100104ea0 r13: 0x0000000000000000 r14: 0x0000000100106ba0 r15: 0x0000000000000095
rip: 0x0000000100002550 rfl: 0x0000000000010206 cr2: 0x0000000051431000

Binary Images:
0x100000000 - 0x100027fef +info ??? (???) <44DFCD89-8D30-B99F-9F1E-E6C549895B39> /usr/bin/info
0x7fff5fc00000 - 0x7fff5fc3bdef dyld 132.1 (???) <B536F2F1-9DF1-3B6C-1C2C-9075EA219A06> /usr/lib/dyld
0x7fff825d3000 - 0x7fff82612fef libncurses.5.4.dylib 5.4.0 (compatibility 5.4.0) <E1F34D53-3D62-78C0-CAD8-8AD22C110A9E> /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib
0x7fff86d40000 - 0x7fff86d44ff7 libmathCommon.A.dylib 315.0.0 (compatibility 1.0.0) <95718673-FEEE-B6ED-B127-BCDBDB60D4E5> /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
0x7fff891b2000 - 0x7fff892aaff7 libiconv.2.dylib 7.0.0 (compatibility 7.0.0) <7E4ADB5A-CC77-DCFD-3E54-2F35A2C8D95A> /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
0x7fff8a2e5000 - 0x7fff8a4a6fef libSystem.B.dylib 125.2.11 (compatibility 1.0.0) <9AB4F1D1-89DC-0E8A-DC8E-A4FE4D69DB69> /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
0x7fffffe00000 - 0x7fffffe01fff libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) <9AB4F1D1-89DC-0E8A-DC8E-A4FE4D69DB69> /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

Ok, last thing. I am curious to know, but do not want to waste your time. If you are curious too, yes, let's try to find the problem. Or alternatively, is there a way to just reinstall Finder?

A big thank you to ganbustein et al. who have contributed to my education and the troubleshooting steps in order to find the solution and thus implement corrective measures. Thanks to the moderator also.

Implied, but not explicitly stated: Finder still doesn't load.

JCLover

Last edited by JCLover; 10/15/14 12:20 AM. Reason: Forgot to say something.

MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31519 10/15/14 02:03 AM
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Might be worth trying a Safe Boot before throwing in the towel and reinstalling the OS, especially if the problem turns out to be a third-party login item like Dropbox.



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31520 10/15/14 12:14 PM
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I am not really computer savvy but don't you have a back up to revert to?
jaybass


OS 13.6.4 iMac (Retina 5K, 27", 2017, 3.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 24 GB RAM, 2400 MHz DDR4. SuperDuper. 1 TB Lacie HD
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31521 10/15/14 06:51 PM
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Originally Posted By: JCLover
I found this under Console Messages:
10/11/14 3:27:37 PM [0x0-0xe00e].com.getdropbox.dropbox[135] LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed for the application /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app with error -10810 for the file /Users/Daddy/Dropbox.

This is just Dropbox trying to use Finder to locate the dropbox folder. Dropbox isn't having any better luck launching Finder than you are.

Originally Posted By: JCLover
Or alternatively, is there a way to just reinstall Finder?

It's easier to reinstall the whole system than it is to reinstall just one component. Especially when we don't know for certain what needs to be reinstalled. (Or deleted.)

dkmarsh's suggestion to try a safe boot is a good one, and it's easy. Try that, and if it doesn't work I think it's time to go nuclear.

Good luck!

Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
ganbustein #31526 10/16/14 08:24 PM
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Ok. Will try Safe Boot, first.

Thank you GanBustein and DKMarsh.
Thanks JayBass. I do have a Time Machine backup of the system and system discs from when I purchased.

Alright, so Safe Boot sounds like a Windows type thing I've done in the past for troubleshooting and corrective action. Problem is I don't know how to use the Mac version, yet. I'll see if I can find something about Safe Boot on FTM or the web. Failing that I'll do a system install.

Thanks again.


MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31527 10/16/14 08:53 PM
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Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
jchuzi #31528 10/16/14 09:47 PM
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Hello to all who are following this thread.

I've learned about and tried, in this order:
1. PRAM
2. SMC
3. Safe Mode

Confirmed nothing in trash, except child and parent directory markers:
.
..

and
.DS_Store

Confirmed no Finder .plist because still can't launch Finder.

If I understand Safe Mode, there is nothing for me to do, once the machine is booted, right? It does its magic automatically, right?

If I was supposed to do something while in Safe Mode, could you tell me what that would be?

So on to System re-install, right?


MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31529 10/16/14 10:04 PM
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The idea behind booting into Safe Mode in this case was to rule out user-installed fonts, font caches, startup/login items, and non-essential kernel extensions as causes of your problem. These are not loaded when you boot into Safe Mode, so if one of them had in fact been responsible for Finder failing to launch, you'd have been able to launch it.

That wouldn't necessarily have told you which of these items was responsible, but it would have suggested that you explore the possibilities, rather than jumping right into a system reinstall which might not have solved anything.



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
dkmarsh #31530 10/16/14 10:16 PM
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Hi DKMarsh.

Ok, very good, then.

Will try reinstall option and write back, either way, to let you all know the result.


MacBookPro5,4; 1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz; 4 GB Memory; 15" Monitor; OS X 10.6.8

JCLover
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31535 10/17/14 06:12 AM
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No offense taken, merely curiosity expressed.

Too bad my idea didn't help. (Actually, I'm not enough of a UNIX guy to have even the vaguest idea whether the command you ran is the correct one, so I'll bow to ganbustein's not having called you out.)

Despite your DOS command line background, your acclimation to Terminal is pretty impressive for a Mac newbie, many, if not most, of whom run from Terminal like the plague.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
artie505 #31538 10/17/14 10:26 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
Too bad my idea didn't help. (Actually, I'm not enough of a UNIX guy to have even the vaguest idea whether the command you ran is the correct one, so I'll bow to ganbustein's not having called you out.)

Sorry, artie. I should have scrutinized the command more carefully. It's an unusual variant, in that it uses the find command to locate the lsregister executable instead of typing out its path explicitly, but it should work. Except for the smart quotes. (The command line uses only dumb quotes.) I'm currently running OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks, but I can ssh into a machine running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, and when I paste in the command with smart quotes I get beeps and a garbled command. If I press return to run the command anyway, I get an error message. I assumed the quotes got smartened when you posted the command here, and were properly dumb when pasted into Terminal. Testing again, I see that it's ssh that doesn't like the smart quotes. If I walk over to my Snow Leopard machine and type them in there, with smart quotes, the command runs with no errors but does nothing.


But it doesn't matter. I found the problem, and it isn't the Launch Services database.

It turns out that ~/Library/Preferences isn't the only folder that contains a file named com.apple.Finder.plist. There is another file with that name in /System/Library/LaunchAgents.

This file is the one that tells the system to launch Finder on each login, and to restart it every time it crashes. It tells the system that it's the job whose name is "com.apple.Finder". Other things (like Dock, for example) that want to launch Finder do it using its job name, not the path to its executable.

To test what would happen if that file were trashed (and not trash my own system in the process), I simulated its effect by entering the following command on my Snow Leopard machine:

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Finder.plist

This command uses launchctl to tell the launch daemon (launchd) to temporarily forget that it ever saw the file in question. Without the -w flag, this is temporary amnesia. The file would be seen normally on the next login. (Like I said, I didn't want to hose my own system.) launchd obligingly quits Finder for me. (The first time I tried this, I first quit Finder explicitly with:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'

but it turns out that was unnecessary.)

But now the system is (temporarily) in the same state it would be in if the file had been missing at login. Finder is not running, and launchd knows nothing about any such job as "com.apple.Finder".

Dock is running, and still shows a Finder icon. When I click on that icon, I get a dialog saying:

The application Finder.app can't be opened.
-10810

Sound familiar?

I put my system back in working order with

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Finder.plist

but a simple logout/login would have sufficed, since the file itself was not touched.


To restore your system, you need to restore this file. On OS X 10.6.8, it should look like:
Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<false/>
	<key>KeepAlive</key>
	<dict>
		<key>SuccessfulExit</key>
		<false/>
		<key>AfterInitialDemand</key>
		<true/>
	</dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.apple.Finder</string>
	<key>Program</key>
	<string>/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder</string>
	<key>ThrottleInterval</key>
	<integer>0</integer>
</dict>
</plist>



At this point, you may have the correct file in ~/Library/Preferences. You can look by entering the command:

cat ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist

If it looks like the above, you can put it back in place with:

sudo mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist /System/Library/LaunchAgents

If you haven't used the sudo command before, you'll get a scary warning message. You have been warned! sudo is a powerful command. But we need its power now, so proceed by entering your login password. (Only an admin user can use sudo, but you've already told us you only have one user, so it must be an admin.) Nothing will echo back to your screen while you type, so you need to enter the password blind.

The file probably has the wrong owner by now. The following commands will make sure permissions and ownership are correct:

cd /System/Library/LaunchAgents
sudo chmod 644 com.apple.Finder.plist
sudo chown root:wheel com.apple.Finder.plist


Restart your computer, and all should be well.


That's assuming we can still find the proper plist in your preferences folder. Trouble is, you probably have deleted it by now. You say you have a Time Machine backup, and we can probably get the file from there. We're hampered by the fact that TM's normal restore process uses Finder to browse your backup, and we don't have Finder. I could give you Terminal commands to search your backup for the file, but I don't know if it's on a local disk or on a Time Capsule or somewhere else, and the commands are different.

Instead, the simplest option is probably to just paste it in. I've shown you above what the contents of the file should be. Copy that, then execute the command:

pbpaste > ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist

and now you have it in your preferences folder. Follow the previous instructions to put it where it belongs in LaunchAgents.

(As you may have guessed from that, I'm a mathematician at heart. We like to turn new problems into old already-solved problems.
  • Q: You have a pan of water on the floor, a match, and an unlit stove. How do you boil the water?
  • A: You put the pan on the stove and use the match to light the stove.
  • Q: You have a pan of water on an unlit stove, and a match. How do you boil the water?
  • A: Put the pan on the floor. You now have a previously solved problem.
  • Q: How do you kill a purple elephant?
  • A: Shoot it with a purple elephant gun.
  • Q: How do you kill a pink elephant?
  • A: Squeeze it by the trunk until it turns purple, then shoot it with a purple elephant gun.
By these questions do you recognize a mathematician.)

Originally Posted By: artie505
Despite your DOS command line background, your acclimation to Terminal is pretty impressive for a Mac newbie, many, if not most, of whom run from Terminal like the plague.

Agreed. Your quick uptake certainly made my job easier.

Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
ganbustein #31540 10/18/14 05:47 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Originally Posted By: ganbustein
Instead, the simplest option is probably to just paste it in. I've shown you above what the contents of the file should be. Copy that, then execute the command:

pbpaste > ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist

and now you have it in your preferences folder. Follow the previous instructions to put it where it belongs in LaunchAgents.


I belatedly realized there's a bit of a Catch-22 in that. If you've been following standard operating procedure, which is to copy/paste commands from your browser into Terminal to avoid transcription errors, then what you have on the clipboard, and what the pbpaste command is going to produce, is the pbpaste command itself and not the desired contents of the .plist file.

What you need to do is copy/paste the pbpaste command but leave off the trailing newline character so it doesn't execute yet, then go back to your browser and copy the data that's to go into the file, and finally return to Terminal and press the return key.

If you've accidentally executed the pbpaste command already, it's easy to recover. Go back and copy the data again, then in Terminal press the up-arrow key to get the previous command back, and press return to execute it.

Or just type the pbpaste command very carefully.

Or, use cat instead of pbpaste. Execute the command:

cat > ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist

(note the > character which is not in command you use to view the file). At this point, whatever you type will go directly into the file, replacing whatever is already there, if anything. Use copy/paste from your browser to Terminal to copy the data, then press control-D in Terminal to indicate you're done typing.

However you do it, check the contents of the file to make sure it's correct before moving it into /System/Library/LaunchAgents. As before, the command to see what's in the file is:

cat ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Finder.plist

(without the > character).

Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
JCLover #31559 10/19/14 09:46 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
While out walking, it occurred to me that we've been distracted by the interesting problem of figuring out why Finder wouldn't run anymore, and what to do about that, and have lost sight of your original problem, which will still be there once Finder is running.

Being unable to make a name change stick sounds like a catalog problem. Nowhere in this thread is there any indication that you've examined the integrity of your disk catalog.

Whether you now have Finder running or not, you should launch Disk Utility, select your boot volume, and click on "Verify Disk". (Not "Verify Disk Permissions"! That's a waste of time. "Repair Disk" will be grayed out, because you can't repair a disk you can't unmount, and the boot volume cannot be unmounted.)

Let us know if "Verify Disk" reports any errors. If it does, you can try repairing it from Single User Mode (Google will tell you how) or while booted from another disk (such as your install disc). If the volume is unrepairable, you will need to wipe it and restore from backup.

(You could try repairing it with advanced utilities, such as Disk Warrior, but my attitude is that non-trivial repairs are akin to fixing a broken window by gluing all the shards of glass back together. You're better off replacing the whole windowpane. There are regulars on this forum who work for Disk Warrior, and will naturally have a different attitude. It's your call. How recent your backup is will definitely be a factor in that decision.)

If the volume needs repair, that problem pre-empts everything else. Do not do anything that creates/renames/deletes files until that's taken care of.

Re: Whoops - Disabled Finder
ganbustein #31563 10/20/14 05:55 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
I poked around a bit and found that the command JCLover ran is the same as the one suggested by The X Lab.

(I also found Error -10810 Openng Applictions or Relaunching Finder.)

Edit: From the second linked doc:

Quote:
Some advocate resetting Launch Services as a solution, but -10810 issues are generally not a problem with the Launch Services database: the problem is usually due to a filled processs table.

Last edited by artie505; 10/20/14 07:33 AM.

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