The application Finder.app can't be opened.

I got this error today for the first time. In searching on it, it looks like it has been around for a while.

For me, the Finder crashed when trying to access a USB disk connected to Time Capsule. After a hard restart and the USB disk turned off, the Finder is running normally now. I'm a bit terrified to turn the disk back on though.

This problem has been happening to me almost daily, for 2 months now.



Using a wireless connection to *Apple TV*, +(Either old or new model.)+ my movies etc. are played from external disks connected to my MBP by USB/Firewire, have tried both.



It started originally after we had finished watching something. Now though, it can happen midway through watching. After contacting Applecare +(and running their tests)+, I am no further forward, despite performing their recommendation of an '*Archive & Install'*.



Repairing permission didn't help either.

Oddly enough, on the occasions I have used 'Disk Utility' it is always the same Permissions to repair (20/30 of them), all associated with Systems/LibraryJava/JavaVirtualMachines, anyway - I was told to stop *Repairing Permissions*.



Anyway, those are my experiences and remain the 'State of Play' today, but of little assistance I'm afraid.

I now also got this error with a FireWire hard disk I attached for backup purposes. I had activity monitor open, and I didn't see any new processes. Kernel Task (or whatever it is actually called) had 63 threads. I'm not sure whether that's normal or not.

I just turned off the hard disk (power button on the external case), and then I was able to launch the Finder without issues.

I subsequently turned on the disk, and it showed up on the desktop.

I did have trouble with formatting the new disk when I got but it had appeared to be functioning correctly once I managed to format it.

I've now got 10.6.5, and the error is clearly still there. 😟

I get the same error... and it usually happens when I'm working with a USB thumb drive or SD card.

I'll try to do something on the thumb drive, for example, copying a file, and suddenly I'll get the spinning pinwheel... FOREVER.

The only option is to force quit Finder. Though Force Quit says "Relaunch" but Finder never relaunches. Instead all the icons on my desktop (files, folders, etc.) vanish. And when I try to restart Finder, I get the error.

I've called Apple about this 3 times and it clear they have no clue what the situation is.

I'm getting very frustrated with this too. It's constantly happening on my 2010 Mac Mini. And generally even a straight restart from the apple menu will hang. Have to go over and hold down power button to restart.

I don't do much in Terminal, but I did try copy/pasting in several of the suggestions and nothing worked:

These are the ones I tried:

launchctl submit -l Finder -p /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder

screen /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder

launchctl submit -l Finder -p /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/./Finder

I'd really like a fix or work-around. When this happens, I have to "attempt" to restart the computer and I generally have to do a hard power button reboot. This definitely can't be good on the mac.

I have had the same exact thing happen all of a sudden - no apparent reason. I forced Finder to quit, it never relaunched, and all of my desktop icons are gone. Very frustrating!

InvisibleShoes wrote:
I get the same error... and it usually happens when I'm working with a USB thumb drive or SD card.

I'll try to do something on the thumb drive, for example, copying a file, and suddenly I'll get the spinning pinwheel... FOREVER.

The only option is to force quit Finder. Though Force Quit says "Relaunch" but Finder never relaunches. Instead all the icons on my desktop (files, folders, etc.) vanish. And when I try to restart Finder, I get the error.

I have the exact same problem on my brand new MBP, bought just 10 days ago. I'm using Mac for the first time, and must say that I'm shocked to see that the very same problems that made me switch from Windows to Mac, exist in Mac too. Sorry to say that I'm very disappointed with Apple.

I am shocked to see this still hasn't been fixed. I have to hard reboot at least 2-3 times a week.

This has been an issue since the release of Snow Leopard. I need to upgrade several machines, but will have to wait.

FIX THIS APPLE!!!

I'm afraid this was an ongoing problem for me, even prior to my Snow Leopard upgrade.

With so many people reporting the same problem - Apple's silence is golden.
(More than what can be said for their OS) 😉

I had this problem the other day, i wasn't surprised as since running SL i have had all sorts of issues to deal with.

What i have done is this:

Quit all programs (i was running FCP so i saved all then quit it) and then attempted a shutdown. After 10 mins of the beachball i did a hard shut down. Turned off my external project drives and disconnected them from the machine.
I did and SMUU reset by pulling the power cable out, i purely did this as it hasnt been done for a while.

Then on boot up, booted into UNIX by holding down command 'S' until the screen goes black and white text appears.

Now on reading the text, UNIX was picking up missing files and and incorrect number in certain directories. After waiting a good while for it to finish, at the bottom appears 'root:'
Next to which i types the following:

fsck -fy

this is for a file system check, there is a space before the dash by the way!

This then initiates a system check outside the OS (so i am told) and it picked up on a few errors and looked for missing files in the lost and found directory, then fixed them and arrived at 'Volume Mac HD appears ok' and some text detailing what had been fixed.

After this was done, i typed reboot for it to then boot back into SL.

So far all seems ok.

Next week after my deadline has gone its a system wipe and updating day on the cards!

worked like a charm. Thanks!

This isn't working for me. Still get the same Finder error when trying to open finder after the Terminal command.

Wish I wouldn't have to keep doing a hard shut-down when this stall out the shut down process.

Temporary workaround for me. I also posted this in another thread about the finder not responding. Here's the text of the posts from the other thread that lead me to try this solution. Sorry if the quotes make it hard to follow. I couldn't figure out how to link to a specific post within a thread.

These are both from the following thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12749687#12749687

<<<Getting a lot of the "fseventsd" SLOWDOWN errors.

May be related to backing up to a Network drive attached to my Time Capsule as often (although not always), I can tell that the crash occurred during a TM backup because the TM icon just spins without making any progress beyond what was done at the point of the Finder crash.

This is happening every few days (sometimes daily) and I'm having to do a hard restart every time. Getting REALLY tired of it. Not sure if it's an issue with this particular mac (my Mac Mini) because I rarely ever see the issue on my Macbook (which backs up directly to the TC) or if it's an issue with the Time Capsule itself.

I have noticed that my Time Capsule sometimes loses access to the air disks and printer attached to it and the only solution is a restart.>>>

---
Here's the one that describes my temporary workaround (it worked just now, I'll continue trying this each time the error occurs.

<<<Just tried something to see if it would be a work-around to the hard restart. Since I'm also having the TC issues, I tried restarting the TC first. After restarting the TC, the Mac Mini Finder/System Preferences were no longer "hung" and everything was accessible!

So for now, whenever I have the "Finder not responding" or Finder error 10810, I'm going to just try using Airport Utility to restart the Time Capsule. Not the perfect "solution", but if it saves me having to do a Hard Restart and reboot to open all of my apps, it's definitely preferrable.

I'd be interested to know if this work-around works for anyone else. >>>

Trying this again testing some Text Expander BBCode snippets. Hopefully it works.

Temporary workaround for me. I also posted this in another thread about the finder not responding. Here's the text of the posts from the other thread that lead me to try this solution. Sorry if the quotes make it hard to follow. I couldn't figure out how to link to a specific post within a thread.

These are both from the following thread:
Topic: Finder Not Responding


[quote]Getting a lot of the "fseventsd" SLOWDOWN errors. May be related to backing up to a Network drive attached to my Time Capsule as often (although not always), I can tell that the crash occurred during a TM backup because the TM icon just spins without making any progress beyond what was done at the point of the Finder crash. This is happening every few days (sometimes daily) and I'm having to do a hard restart every time. Getting REALLY tired of it. Not sure if it's an issue with this particular mac (my Mac Mini) because I rarely ever see the issue on my Macbook (which backs up directly to the TC) or if it's an issue with the Time Capsule itself. I have noticed that my Time Capsule sometimes loses access to the air disks and printer attached to it and the only solution is a restart.[/quote]

---
Here's the one that describes my temporary workaround (it worked just now, I'll continue trying this each time the error occurs.

[quote]Just tried something to see if it would be a work-around to the hard restart. Since I'm also having the TC issues, I tried restarting the TC first. After restarting the TC, the Mac Mini Finder/System Preferences were no longer "hung" and everything was accessible! So for now, whenever I have the "Finder not responding" or Finder error 10810, I'm going to just try using Airport Utility to restart the Time Capsule. Not the perfect "solution", but if it saves me having to do a Hard Restart and reboot to open all of my apps, it's definitely preferrable. I'd be interested to know if this work-around works for anyone else.[/quote]

Message was edited by: teacher24_70

Thanks, teacher24_70.

I don't have a time capsule, but I do my backups using time machine to a disk connected to another mac, so it may be related.

When the problem happened I wasn't doing a backup, however.