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Kel Solaar Author

Level 1

5 points

The application Finder.app can't be opened.

I upgraded to Snow Leopard yesterday, and I'm having a lot of troubles, Finde, Time Machine and Disk Utility being the most annoying of them. I don't really know which one of them is making the others unstable / crash but well that's starting to be very irritating, now when I try to start the Finder I get this :

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

Restarting the Computer ( Mac Book Pro Uni ) usually fix that, but it's the second time that it's crashing a 220 go files package copy. I ended up doing it with rsync, the copy is still going on ( it will take a long time ) but I'm left with a Zombie Computer where I can't open a finder, and every Application that use it to open some file is crashing itself.

Is there a way to manually relaunch it ( I don't want to reboot, my computer is stuck backing up a lot of files ) ? I tried Sudo Launch the Finder from /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS with no luck, any help would be appreciated.

KS

Message was edited by: Kel Solaar

Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Aug 30, 2009 12:35 PM

696 replies

jevlewt

Level 1

0 points

Mar 25, 2010 7:27 PM in response to jevlewt

Minor edit: Under my list of fix attempts, I wrote "enabling/disabling Time Machine" twice. One of those should read "enabling/disabling Spotlight".

jevlewt

Level 1

0 points

Mar 25, 2010 7:37 PM in response to jitterysquid

I suspected the same – though I think some people have suggested that the problem appears for them when the external drive is connected, even when Spotlight is instructed to ignore the external drive.

Out of curiosity, has anyone confirmed occurrence of the problem after making sure Spotlight indexing is turned off for ALL drives, internal and external? (As jitterysquid said, Spotlight may need to be disabled while all drives are present.)

For me, any disabling of Spotlight – whether via Terminal, or simply via the "Private" feature in the Spotlight Preference pane – gives me a nice peaceful Mac; presence or absence of external drives isn't itself the issue in my case.

Is there anyone out there for whom the problem is the opposite - i.e., definitely related only to external drives and not at all to Spotlight?

Mar 26, 2010 12:34 AM in response to jevlewt

I am sure you are right and it is mainly Spotlight related. I think for most people it only surfaces when Spotlight tries to index an external device. However there are other programs which I think use similar routines to Spotlight or access the same part of Finder Coreservices which is the root cause e.g. Time Machine, iPhoto Library Manager, Chronosync and other programs which have to list and index files and folders. I have the same issue with iPhoto Library Manager even with Spotlight turned off on the external drive in question. Another problem is the persistence of Spotlight. Given the tiniest opportunity, it sneakily turns itself on again. After a restart, you will find Spotlight has sprung to life again. I am hoping (against hope) that the endless delays in 10.6.3 mean that Apple are actually getting to the root of this problem but I am not optimistic.

Wilson

jevlewt

Level 1

0 points

Mar 26, 2010 1:26 AM in response to WilsonLaidlaw

Right. The core problem for me won't be Spotlight indexing per se, but some crash or similar malfunction that Spotlight indexing is triggering. On other people's computers (or even mine), it's possible that some other process might trigger the same crash.

Anyway, like you, I certainly hope that the long wait for 10.6.3 is due to hard work on fixing this bug!

Mar 26, 2010 8:38 AM in response to Kel Solaar

Just throwing in my two bits -- I also have this problem with a computer that has no external drives, but does have Parallels 5 running Win 7 off a Boot Camp partition. I'm pretty sure it's related to network shares in my case -- connecting to Windows 2000 Server and 2003 Server.

So it's definitely a bug in the OS relating to connecting to a broad array of things -- be it external drives, network drives, or disc drives (DVD etc.). Some people are even reporting it in relation to internal hard drives.

So... this is a pretty low-level OS bug. I hope Apple fixes it soon!

(Incidentally, I've also seen it suggested that reinstalling the latest Combo Update to the Os can fix this. Worth a try before doing an erase/install.)

Mar 26, 2010 9:11 AM in response to Stee-rider

(Incidentally, I've also seen it suggested that reinstalling the latest Combo Update to the Os can fix this. Worth a try before doing an erase/install.)

......if only! I have not only done this but also a full erase/re-install and the same problem appears. Until recently only my iMac was suffering but for the last month, my July 09 MacBook Pro also.

Wilson

Mar 27, 2010 12:28 PM in response to Kel Solaar

Just another data point. Had my first Finder crash (-10810) today. It happened while opening a text file on a cruzer 4 gb usb drive. The killall in terminal did nothing and when I tried to shut down, it lagged so I forced a shut down on it. Restart was quick and Finder works now but it's something to add to the list. I'm a little weary now but this is the first time I've had the problem since I upgraded in September. All in well now but I'd like to see a fix soon 🙂

fitzyjoe

Level 1

20 points

Mar 27, 2010 9:08 PM in response to TigerFever

I too am a little "weary" from waiting so long for a fix, and I am "wary" of Snow Leopard's ability to save my data to a network drive.

Mar 28, 2010 4:08 AM in response to Kel Solaar

With me the keyboard is not responsive but I can click things.

This may help:

I actually SSH in with my iPhone, and type

sudo shutdown -h now

The computer shuts down, but things aren't saved. But at least it's not a reset.

jevlewt

Level 1

0 points

Mar 28, 2010 6:20 AM in response to Macgruder

I think I forgot to mention it as one of my symptoms, but the "dead" keyboard has happened to me too when the -10810 (etc.) problems appear.

How to you SSH in via iPhone? A terminal app for iPhone? Sounds like a necessary ability to have on standby, for anyone dealing with this issue.

Mar 28, 2010 6:42 AM in response to jevlewt

I use this:
http://jbrink.net/touchterm/
which is free.

You'll probably need to know the ip of your computer too.

Mar 28, 2010 7:28 AM in response to Macgruder

Can you address the remote Mac from the iPhone App via a MAC address rather than IP? We have various Mac's and iPhones around operating on three separate wireless networks, using DHCP assigned IP addresses, so unless you go to the routers via a different Mac and check the access control, you would not know the IP address of a locked up Mac. The MAC address does not change. I use it to remotely wake up other machines.

Wilson

pighair

Level 1

4 points

Mar 29, 2010 1:56 AM in response to Kel Solaar

I experienced this problem at early March, so I reinstalled SL after formatting drive.
And I experienced it again today.
-_- ***

Majost

Level 1

0 points

Mar 29, 2010 1:37 PM in response to Kel Solaar

Could it be? Does 10.6.3 really fix this? I haven't managed to trigger the bug yet...

Mar 29, 2010 3:34 PM in response to Majost

I sure hope so. What I find so annoying is that Apple do not list these fixes. All these comments in this thread -- you would think that there would be some acknowledgement of whether a fix has been implemented or not 😟

The application Finder.app can't be opened.