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After updating to catalina, i noticed that all of my PDF icons changed to Affinity Photo. when I went back in to change the default to Preview, it took care of that issue, but now nothing is opening at all. Preview opens, but the PDF does not. i now cannot open PDFs at all. Is anyone else having this issue or know of a workaround?
OK. Same issue here I think... Recently I noticed all PDF file icons were defaulting to to Affinity Photo. I used "Get info" on one PDF file and used the "Open with" to reassign to Preview by default, and then hit "Change all". PDF file icons started showing up as Preview again, but trying to open any PDF resulted in Preview getting focus, then a few seconds of nothing, followed by Finder animating the file icon as if it was opening, then nothing... not even an error. Restarted. Nothing. Did some disk first aid, nothing. Hitting space for a quick preview of a PDF worked fine, reassigning PDF's to another app worked fine, reassigning back to Preview and nothing. Opening other image formats in Preview worked fine (jpg, png), opening PDF's in other apps worked fine. I did some of the suggestions listed here, deleting Preview preferences and also the Preview Container directory, logged out and back in again and still no improvement. I created a new test user and logged in – PDFs opened fine in Preview there! Hmmm... It felt like a securities/permission type bug so logged back into my own account (PDF's still failed to open in Preview) and followed https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203538 Initially after following the steps and logging out and back in, still no luck. I gave up at this point, and tried to get on with some work. About an hour later I had to restart as a couple of apps were now unexpectedly starting giving the pinwheel of death opening files. After the restart, PDF's were opening again in Preview! I'm going to assume the guidance to "Reset permissions" procedure in Finder followed by a:
diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`
...may have done the trick, and just required a full restart and not just a logout and login again, however at some point in desperation I did also try a:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
...so can't be 100% as to what the fix may have been. Good luck!
Here is something you may try:
in the Finder, press
command-shift-G;
paste the following into the text box:
~/Library/Containers
drag the com.apple.preview folder out of the Containers folder (put it in the desktop for now).
Restart your mac or just log out and back in. See if Preview starts. If all is working you can drag folder from the desktop the trash.
I've been attempting to save the documents on my devices within existing folders. I've tried different folders but none work. I've also tried to change existing pdf's I have saved and the system wouldn't let me modify them either. Very weird. Thank you for your reply, any help would be greatly appreciated.
I updated today to Catalina and all my PDFs only open with Preview..
When opening Adobe Reader, a popup window appears saying " Adobe Reader needs to be updated. The developer of this app needs to update it to work with this version of macOS. Contact the developer for more information."
No update available at App Store ...
After upgrading to Catalina, the search function for PDF files in the Preview becomes static. Previously I can search some words and go through all of them in a PDF file. NOW THIS IS DEAD. PLEASE solve this big issue.
APPLE you really let me down.
I have not been able to determine if one can add third-party plug-ins to Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (v2019.021.20047) via web searches. If it were possible, and said plug-in was 32-bit, then it would take Reader down. This has been the case with current Word 16.29.1 versions that had 32-bit, third-party plug-ins installed. Once the plug-ins were uninstalled, normal operation was restored.
Here is an October 15, 2019 article from Adobe regarding Acrobat and Acrobat Reader DC compatibility on Catalina.
Simply no mistaking that my response above was meant for another post. Perhaps dark roast intravenously will improve things here this morning among the house remodeling mayhem.
Potential Catalina bugs in Preview not withstanding, some PDF are created by Adobe LiveCycle Designer on Windows, and I have seen requests within a PDF to load Acrobat Reader, or even third-party Acrobat Pro Plug-Ins — which obviously Preview cannot accomplish, and likely crashes, or hangs it. The same PDF works fine in Acrobat Reader DC.
I am really stuck up after upgrading to Catalina. Pdfs doesn't open and my Safari browser stopped working Quick Heal Anti virus stopped working. have issue in backing up on external drive. My Mac is taking quite long time to log in. too I am trying all the optins but really Mac boor has become use less which is my only tool for work. Kindly suggest me remedy.
Since installing Catalina, I can open PDF's as normal, in Preview, but I cannot edit them, such as highlights or other effects. This was true for EVERY PDF until I then upgraded again last night, and today I cannot highlight some text and copy it. In other PDF's I can. The search function is also limited. It finds instances of a search criterion, but I cannot click "next" to move to the next instance of it. Very annoying.
What is the difference in the update the is affecting PDF use? I had no problems with this previously. It is very frustrating not being able to properly use PDF files.
Well, as I said before this is not affecting all users, so we need to try and figure out what is different.
You may want to run Etrecheck and post its report here.
Also, did you try the other suggestions like starting in Safe Mode to see if the same problem happens?
Me, too. Exactly the same problem. I can open PDFs just fine in Preview, but if I drag in a JPG or HEIC file, or even a page from another open PDF into a PDF, it saves and closes just fine, but NONE of the added content is in the PDF when I reopen it. Makes how I use PDFs in Preview completely useless. Especially annoying because the edited PDFs save just fine, but they don't actually, and don't even throw an error. Huge, glaring bug. Forces me to leave one machine on Mojave just to keep using apps as usual.
VikingOSX...what app are you referring to with that version number? I have Catalina on my MBA and my Preview is Version 11.0 (998)...and, it works with PDFs (although I've only opened PDFs and not tried to do anything else).
VikingOSX wrote:
Version 2019.021.20047 is available. 😎
friends,
Last two days Catalina started working when I disabled the Quick Heal Total Antivirus software on my MacBook Air..
However, when I scan document for PDF format, it doesn't open. Best part is it doesn't freeze. As earlier it used to freeze and no other way to shut down the MacBook.
Positive impact is now the system working quite faster than earlier version
finally! THANK YOU gary!! your description of the problem is exactly what was happening for me, and your solution fixed it. i am now able to open pdfs with preview.
interestingly, the problem was not fixed with the first part of your solution, but the final command did it!
I am having the same issue since upgrade to Catalina; very frustrating when I use Preview app several time a day!
PDF cannot be saved or when editing fields with text the app make a duplicate pdf file which is still useless.
Me, too. I can open them just fine. Just can;t make any edits, add new pages, drag in a jpg, or add text with the text tool. Seems to save, no error, when I open again NO changes have been applied. Makes PDF editing useless. Going to kill this lousy OS upgrade and revert.
PDFs won't open since Catalina
