You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple ID, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

marminio Author

Level 1

0 points

Finder - Cannot double click items to open

Since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, intermittently I have been unable to double click some items to open them in their default programs. I can go into the program and open them via File - Open.

If I double click an item with it's default program open, nothing happens. If I double click an item and the program is not open, the program bounces in the dock and does not open.

Same for .dmg files. If I download them, I can only open them using Disk Utility.

These problems are not present when I boot up. They only happen at some point later. A restart fixes the problem.

Anyone else experiencing this?

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Sep 14, 2009 4:30 PM

20 replies

Nov 8, 2009 9:19 AM in response to marminio

Me too. Ehhhhhhhh

Nov 19, 2009 9:58 AM in response to thurber27

I was able to fix this problem for one of my users but I don't think it applies to the OP since his problems are fixed with a reboot. However it may be relevant to some of the other posters with a similar problem.

A user of mine was having the same problem with being unable to open files when double clicked from the Finder. The appropriate application would open, but to a blank document, not the file selected. Using File > Open from within the application worked fine.

Originally I thought this was a symptom of the email client mishandling the file type since the first file we saw this behavior with was a downloaded email attachment (attachment issue discussed here: http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Office/1973/).

After examining the file types of several of the affected documents, it was clear that was not the issue. After some trial and error, I figured it had to be a problem with the file path. Turns out, every affected file was contained in a folder or had a file name that contained the # character. Removing the # allowed the file to be open with a double click.

This behavior only occurred after upgrading to 10.6 and it only seems to have a problem with the # character but it's conceivable this problem could occur with other non alpha-numeric characters contained in your file path. All files I had the issue with were Office 2004 documents.

Hope this helps someone.

macjack

Level 10

111,204 points

Nov 19, 2009 11:33 AM in response to marminio

Rebuilding LaunchServices may help. These are only cache files but can often get corrupted.
Launch /Utilities/Terminal and copy & paste this at the command line to rebuild LaunchServices:

Code:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

</pre>

Then press return. Wait until terminal returns to the command line. Quit Terminal. After that, log out and back in or restart. Let us know

-mj

FEM.

Level 1

0 points

Nov 28, 2009 3:52 AM in response to marminio

its because of the MAC 10.6.1 UPDATE
IM SURE YUH DOWNLOADED IT RIGHT?

I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM SO I RESTORED MY COMPUTER TO ITS ORIGINAL FACTORY SETTING 🙂
DON;T DOWNLOAD THE MAC 10.6.1 UPDATE PPL

FEM.

Level 1

0 points

Nov 28, 2009 4:06 AM in response to marminio

or its the 10.6.2 update
if its really a problem restore yur mac

Finder - Cannot double click items to open