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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

Feb 6, 2011 6:52 AM in response to Kel Solaar

I had this problem with my 27" imac with the 3.2 GHz processor running OS 10.6.3.

I don't know whether it was caused when starting up with a thumb-drive attached, but who cares since, based on the various posts in this discussion that is NOT a common denominator to the problem.

I waded through most of this discussion thread and trying everything that was suggested that was compatible with a non-operative finder. Starting up holding the C key to try to boot from the OS Install DVD was inoperative. Starting up with D key depressed would bet me into hardware test but it would crash after 2:15 minutes.

After messing with this for several hours on three different days, i finally decided to reinstall the OS and the second reinstall in a row solved the problem (the first just led me to doing a second reinstall).

Hope this helps others.

Feb 6, 2011 8:30 AM in response to jackoverfull

I have not encountered this problem since 10.6.6 (keep my fingers crossed).

It would be nice if Apple would every now and then step into these kind of discussion and inform us about the fact that they recognize this to be an issue or what fixes to expect, instead of all of us compile a 24+ page topic 😉

Feb 8, 2011 6:34 PM in response to julian_suppe@hotmail.com

I got this error AFTER wiping the HDD and doing a clean install of Snow Leopard.

I was using disk utility at the time to re-partition a disc. Got the spinning ball and then the "Finder.app" error.

Not very encouraging.

After 6 version updates I would have hoped they could fix it.

Feb 9, 2011 7:49 AM in response to Wan Chai Man

So, I just encounted this for the second time in two days. I was trying to access a Windows network drive and the beach ball showed up.

Then I realized I had an external windows hard drive plugged in to a firewire port. It's a lacie porshe enclosure drive, for those who are familiar with them. (I've had a few go bad.. I suspect because of excessive heat)

In any case, I reached over and shut down the drive and finder immediately launched. Don't know if this was the root cause, or if it was a coincidence. I'm not going to try and duplicate the experience.. : )

Anyways, I thought it might add some insight to the discussion.

I for one, if I experience the same thing with network drives not responding, will unplug my network cable and see what happens.

Good luck.

Tim

Feb 10, 2011 11:27 AM in response to stylinone

This works, kind of...

* Open up the Terminal application (use Spotlight if you cannot find it)
* Type: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder &

(from http://utvv.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-fix-application-finder-cant-be.html)

It did start the finder again, however there was a lot of weirdness going on and I was not able to restart via either the command line or Apple menu. I still had to hard reboot.

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Feb 14, 2011 10:11 PM in response to julian_suppe@hotmail.com

This has happened now three times for me. Once when connecting a USB thumb drive, and twice when mounting a disk image. The first time a restart fixed it.

The second and third time locked up my whole computer and then I had to force a power down. It when wouldn't boot. Plain white screen on startup. No Apple logo. No booting into Apple Hardware Test. No booting into install DVD. No booting while holding down option key. It would boot into FW target disk mode but wouldn't boot any other way. I was getting ready to take it into the repair shop...

...until...

I unplugged the FireWire drive and rebooted it again. Then it booted up normally. I also notice that this problem started occurring only after I got a new FireWire drive a few months ago.

That's why I think this is related to FireWire somehow.

Console shows a whole bunch of these messages right at the time of the lockup, which all seem to point to FireWire:

Feb 14 15:15:24 d173-183-71-156 configd[13]: InterfaceNamer: iMac10,1/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@16/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0 [1] Feb 14 15:15:24 d173-183-71-156 configd[13]: InterfaceNamer: iMac10,1/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@16/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0/IOPCI2PCIBridge [1] Feb 14 15:15:24 d173-183-71-156 configd[13]: InterfaceNamer: iMac10,1/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@16/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FRWR@0 [1] Feb 14 15:15:24 d173-183-71-156 configd[13]: InterfaceNamer: iMac10,1/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@16/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FRWR@0/AppleFWOHCI [1] Feb 14 15:15:24 d173-183-71-156 configd[13]: InterfaceNamer: iMac10,1/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@16/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FRWR@0/AppleFWOHCI/IOFireWireController [1] Feb 14 15:15:24 d173-183-71-156 configd[13]: InterfaceNamer: iMac10,1/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/RP05@16/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FW BR@0/IOPCI2PCIBridge/FRWR@0/AppleFWOHCI/IOFireWireController/IOFireWireDevice@30 ea02e004246d [1]

Feb 17, 2011 10:44 AM in response to Kel Solaar

I also experience this problem when plugging in my 27" Apple Display. I get a beach ball and realized today that it's because the Finder has crashed. If I try to open Finder, I get the "Application Finder.app can't be opened -10810" error. I can use Terminal to get Finder working again, but I am still unable to restart my computer. I always end up having to do a hard reboot.

If I try to unplug the external display, my MacBook Pro doesn't even recognize that the display has been disconnected and essentially freezes up, with no dock/cursor/menubar on screen. Gotta do a hard reboot to get back up and running.

What's strange is that this only happens with my 27" Apple Display at work. I have the same display at home, but have never experienced this problem with my home display.

Feb 22, 2011 8:07 AM in response to apolselli

B"H

I was deleting a document from a network server. Finder got stuck deleting it. I clicked the small x on the Trash dialog box. It then said "stopping." After it didn't stop for a long time, used Force Quit Applications to relaunch the Finder but nothing happened. When I clicked on the Finder in the Dock I received the message "The application Finder can't be opened. -10810."

I don't see that anyone has found a solution to this here. Am I correct?

Is there anyway to restart the computer without using Finder and without using the power button?

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Feb 22, 2011 9:12 AM in response to MacUser1211

Do you have any FireWire drives connected? If so, disconnect them. That has been what fixes it for me.

Feb 22, 2011 9:37 AM in response to Király

While I appreciate your suggestion, unplugging a firewire drive is a rather drastic solution. Instead I installed PathFinder (http://www.cocoatech.com/) and it is working very well and I was able to delete the folders off the network drive with no problem. So this 3rd party software has solved my issue with Finder

Nawyecky

Level 1

5 points

Feb 24, 2011 10:23 PM in response to Alan Goodall

Same issue here with NAS volumes. Topic is almost two years old. Thanks Apple.

Mar 4, 2011 7:42 PM in response to Kel Solaar

In the past few days I kept getting this same problem. Everything would be fine and then the spinning color wheel would show up. When I force quit the Finder I couldn't get the Finder to Relaunch. I got the error "The application Finder.app can't be opened." Finally I started disconnecting the external drives one at a time. When I disconnected my new Seagate GoFlex External Desk drive for PC/Mac with a USB 3.0 adapter attached to the bottom, the problem went away, and I could launch the Finder. I don't know if it's because of the USB 3.0 adapter (which is part of the drive) or something else, but it's definitely the drive. I can reconnect the drive and everything works for awhile and then that color wheel starts spinning again. Disconnecting the same drive fixes it again. This MacBook Pro had a Windows 7 partition at one time, but I removed it a couple weeks ago.

Mar 7, 2011 9:28 AM in response to Kel Solaar

Hi all,

I just had a similar problem over the weekend and managed to solve it. My problem seems to be slightly different in that it had nothing to do with an external or network drive - I just rebooted one day and couldn't open any application, including Finder which gave the -10810 error mentioned in the first post.

Turns out I had an old version of VirtualBox installed which was causing the problem. I had to delete the VitualBox related .kext files in /Library/Extensions (I believe that was it) by booting into single-user mode. I installed it a long time ago and I don't know what set it off now.

Hope this helps someone else!

All the best,

Daniel Feichtinger - http://auxilit.com/

Mar 7, 2011 9:52 AM in response to Daniel Feichtinger

This is very interesting. I do use virtualbox occasionally, and since I open it up once every several months it must be quite old now…

Mar 7, 2011 7:13 PM in response to Kel Solaar

For the first time ever since using snow leopard when it came out. I just got this error today. It is continually occuring when i'm trying to access one of my firewire drives ( one, that has seemed to have some connection issues in the first place).

The application Finder.app can't be opened.