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

111,242 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

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Finder - Cannot double click items to open