Print dialog box disappeared (10.5.3)

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Print dialog box disappeared (10.5.3)

Hi all,

I'm using 10.5.3 with all the updates except for Quick Time 7.5 and AirPort Utility 5.3.2. I do not have any printers installed and use the print command solely to create PDF files. However, I'm no longer able to see the Print dialog box from ANY application (Word 2008 SP1, Safari 3, Firefox 3, TextEdit, Photoshop CS3, etc.). When clicking on "Print" from the app or pressing "Apple + P" some apps freeze (Safari), while other fail to respond in any way (TextEdit). I last used it from Safari on 1 June (no probs) but when tried using it a few days ago had no luck at all.

I've got a complete Time Machine backup so can easily restore any file.

Any ideas? Does anyone know where the Print Dialog files are stored on the system, please?

Many thanks,

S

MB 13", Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 22, 2008 1:35 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 6, 2008 5:42 AM in response to one more

Can you post the crash log please? It sounds like part of the install failed, but you could try repairing permissions before doing a reinstall.

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Answer 2

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Jul 6, 2008 7:20 AM in response to John Blanchard1

Many thanks, John, but I've already done a clean system re-install so it is all good.

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Answer 3

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Jul 6, 2008 7:22 AM in response to one more

Had to go through it "erase & install" way... This helps, obviously! 🙂

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Answer 4

cavenewt

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Jul 7, 2008 3:36 PM in response to one more

I ran across your post whilst googling on behalf of a client with a similar problem No crashing, but she didn't have any print dialogs in InDesign or Stickies (though they did work in Safari and TextEdit, which is all I checked.) This was in Panther. I fiddled around a bit with prefs and re-adding printers, and when that didn't work, did an archive&install up to Tiger. It worked for 1/2 day and she just called to say the print dialogs are gone again.

Someone else there had her go to Print & Fax in System Prefs and delete all the items in her print queue, then reboot the computer, and that seems to have cleared it up (for now anyway.) You might try that. In the meantime, if anyone has any other suggestions, I'm all ears.

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Answer 5

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Jul 8, 2008 10:23 AM in response to cavenewt

I've never had any printers installed on my machine and printed only to PDFs. Never touched anything in Print & Fax either (as there was no need to).

My "symptoms", which came out of the blue, were the total disappearance of print dialogue windows from ANY app system-wide, plus Safari would freeze with the Print command evoked from the File menu or "Apple+P". Other apps would just "ignore" the Print command and go on as normal. Quite bizarre...

Unfortunately I had to go with a total system flash as restoring all the printer settings I could find from the TM backup didn't help.

Good luck!

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Answer 6

ThaiGuy

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Jul 12, 2008 10:13 PM in response to one more

I'm having exactly the same problem. I've had my Macbook for 6 months, been using 2 printers (home and work) with no troubles whatsoever. Suddenly yesterday, ALL my apps stopped displaying the Print dialog box. There is no crash. When I click File - Print, nothing happens; I can continue using the app for anything except printing. I have all software updates current thru today. Any suggestions?

Note: I'm a Mac novice, so if I need to do anything extraordinary I'll need a bit of hand-holding. I'm in Thailand (this is a US machine). There are no Apple stores to visit for assistance. Thanks in advance!

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Answer 7

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Jul 13, 2008 1:18 AM in response to ThaiGuy

Sorry about this! It appears that something corrupts the OS X's system file responsible for the Print Dialog Box. I've tried restoring all the print related files I could find on my Time Machine backup (to no avail), but perhaps did miss a few, so eventually had to "Erase & Install" the entire system. So far, so good. If you rely heavily on printing, you may want to give your system a new life as well. Having spent several hours trying to figure out where the file was, it seemed like a great option. It's much more straightforward than reinstalling a WIndows/Linux machine. Alternatively, somebody with more patience may find the root of it. Good luck!

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Answer 8

ThaiGuy

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Jul 13, 2008 8:04 AM in response to one more

Thanks for the reply, One. Can you point me to where I can find "print-related files" on my system. Are they in a common place or have a common naming scheme? I've got everything backed up in Time Capsule, but don't know what to look for.

BTW, I did an OS upgrade to 10.5.4 a few days ago, so that's probably what got me into trouble. Besides restoring old print files, I'd be interested in knowing how to (1) Roll back an upgrade to go to my previous OS baseline or (2) How to submit a bug report to the good folks in Cupertino.

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Answer 9

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Jul 13, 2008 10:19 AM in response to ThaiGuy

Hi there!

a) File location:

They are pretty much scattered all over the place. Some locations are:

- Library/Printers;
- System/Library/Printers;
- System/Library/SystemProfiler/SPPrintersReporter.spreporter;
- User/Library/Printers.

I might have missed some of them, but the above are worth having a go at... The trouble is that it might be located elsewhere deeply in System files or, better still, be a part of a package, hence my initial post trying to get an "official" response from Apple folks.

b) 10.5.4 by itself is not a problem, yet its installation process might have indeed corrupted something. After flashing everything on my machine I did a mighty 500+ megs OS X combo update, which took me all the way up to 10.5.4 and now it works. Perhaps it's just us two who cracked on it, as I couldn't find anybody else bringing it up.

c) I don't know how to roll it back to 10.5.3, but you could just use the "Restore System from Time Machine" feature on Leopard install DVD (it's under Utilities menu when you boot into it). You can then ask it to put everything back to how it was prior to your upgrade. I'm not sure what's gonna happen to your data, though, but I suspect it will also be rolled back to that point, so you may want to double-check on that.

d) Bug reports - you can give it a shot here, selecting "Bug Report" in the Feedback Type field, etc:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Good luck!

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Answer 10

cavenewt

Level 2

381 points

Jul 14, 2008 8:00 AM in response to ThaiGuy

ThaiGuy wrote:
Thanks for the reply, One. Can you point me to where I can find "print-related files" on my system. Are they in a common place or have a common naming scheme? I've got everything backed up in Time Capsule, but don't know what to look for.

BTW, I did an OS upgrade to 10.5.4 a few days ago, so that's probably what got me into trouble. Besides restoring old print files, I'd be interested in knowing how to (1) Roll back an upgrade to go to my previous OS baseline

I wouldn't mess with the individual print files. There are a lot of invisible files in OSX and it could be something there, which you would never find (I wouldn't try it, and I'm a Mac consultant.)

First thing to try is the simple stuff: deleting and re-adding the printers in System Preferences/Print&Fax, repairing permissions, using Leopard Cache Cleaner (a free download from versiontracker.com) to clear out all system & user caches. Next up is re-installing the 10.5.4 update, only this time use the Combo installer, which you can get here:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1054comboupdate .html

The delta updater you get in Software Update frequently causes problems. I always use Combo updaters instead. Be warned, it's a huge download.

If that doesn't help, the way you reinstall your system is to use the install DVD that came with your Mac to Archive & Install, which will save most of your user settings (and perhaps whatever is causing the problem too, unfortunately), then upgrade to 10.5.4 using the Combo installer you downloaded earlier, then use Software Update to get everything else up to date.

Failing that you're looking at an Erase & Install.

The client of mine that had the problem: it cleared up after an archive & install, then came back, then went away for good, hopefully (going on ten days now), when she deleted all the files in her print queue and rebooted.

Good luck!

--Colleen

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Answer 11

ThaiGuy

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Jul 22, 2008 7:28 AM in response to cavenewt

Ok, my problem has been completely solved. Here's what I did: (1) Called a friend who knows something about Mac OS (I don't.) Here's what he did (1) Created a new user account with admin privileges. (2) Booted into the new account in Safe mode. This took maybe 15 minutes as I guess Mac does a lot of housecleaning when you boot into Safe mode. Once in Safe mode, he was gonna check some things, but we didn't have time, so he logged out then logged back into my regular account in regular mode. And zippo, the problem was gone. All apps now give me the Print dialog box, we didn't have to mess with any files. 🙂

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