give me strength
Level 1 (4 points)
Mac OS X

Q: imessage wont open

when I try to open imessage it crashes. it quits and tells me to reopen but when I do this it quits again. I have tried safe reboot.

Apple support told me to create new log on and test imessages. when I created new log on it worked. when I go back to original log on it crashes again. Has anyone any ideas how to solve it crashing ?

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), null

Posted on Jun 16, 2016 1:59 AM

Close
give me strength

Q: imessage wont open

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Jun 16, 2016 9:13 AM in response to give me strength
    Level 9 (70,250 points)
    iTunes
    Jun 16, 2016 9:13 AM in response to give me strength

    Might be a corrupt .plist.

     

    Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

     

    Quit the application.

     

    Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.  Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist.  Move the .plist to your desktop.

     

    Restart the computer, open the application and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

    If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

     

    If that doesn’t work, repeat the above but delete the com.apple.imagent.plist

     

    Thanks to leonie and Ralph Johns (UK) for some information contained in this.

  • by give me strength,

    give me strength give me strength Jun 16, 2016 11:51 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 16, 2016 11:51 AM in response to Eric Root

    thankyou Eric. I will try this and let you know how I got on. thanks again for your time

  • by Ralph Johns (UK),

    Ralph Johns (UK) Ralph Johns (UK) Jun 16, 2016 1:58 PM in response to give me strength
    Level 9 (73,006 points)
    Applications
    Jun 16, 2016 1:58 PM in response to give me strength

    Hi,

     

    Two other possibles.

    Check the Contacts App > Card Menu > Show the My Card

    Is this your details ?

     

    In  Finder window hold down the ALT Key whilst selecting the Go Menu.

    Select the Library that appears  (you are in ~/Library which is normally hidden)

    Navigate to Caches/com.apple.Messages/Pictures

    This should display all the Buddy Pics for all your Buddies (mainly AIM and Jabber ones)

    If one of these is corrupt  then it can effect the app.

     

    Like this one for instance

    Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 21.53.01.png

    The pic does not display in this view and the size id Zero bytes.

    Others may look odd in other views

    Pictures.png

     

    This is less of a problem in later version of Messages compared to iChat but it is worth checking.

     

     

    3Sigcopy2.png

    9:58 pm      Thursday; June 16, 2016

     

    ​  iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (El Capitan)
     G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
     MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
     Mac OS X (10.6.8),
     iPhone and an iPad (2)