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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!
Well... I can open pdf's with Catalina Preview, but not search/select OCR text, in scanned to image+OCR text with Abbyy FineReader AFTER I upgraded to Catalina (files that were scanned before can be opened well).
I tried your commands and... nothing happens... Only Adobe Acrobat reader wouldn't work anymore. Now reinstalling it...
(Apple, please!! Fix this mess!!!)
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.
This Worked for me- thanks
Luis Sequeira1 wrote:
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.
This worked for me- please note- after rebooting- it took about 30 minutes to run a setup - Thanks
I had the same thing, but I think I have found a solution. It only affects pdfs and pictures on the desktop. Move them to another file, with option+drag. They then open in preview. Looks like a bug to me
I forget which reply I used as a fix but basically followed the following advice:
Finder window - command-shift-G type: ~/Library/Containers find com.apple.preview and I dragged to the desktop.
I restarted MacBook pro. Preview now apparently works and I can open pdf's in Preview.
The advice concluded with trashing the desktop if this worked... which I will do since all went well.
Good luck!
The problem seems to be with the Desktop. If a pdf is downloaded directly to a folder (that's not on the Desktop) it opens fine in Preview. However when dragging the file out of the folder back to the Desktop the problem reoccurs. To delete error file from the Desktop: Finder>File>Hold Option key>Delete immediately...
I had the same problem after moving too Catalina. Preview would open jpg and png files, but not pdf files; those had to be opened with Adobe Acrobat. Booting in safe mode didn't help, and neither did resetting permissions or deleting the plist file. However, the "kill" code suggested above did the trick.
I’m the original poster, and while the kill code worked for a couple weeks, this weekend everything somehow reverted. all of my PDFs have reverted to the Acrobat icon, and preview once again won't open PDFs. seems like this is a serious bug in the os
Yes, I've had PDFs failing again to open in Preview a few days ago... I ran:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Rebooted, and all was well again. Something certainly seems to be occasionally causing issues with the launch services register.
My original posting about Preview app not opening PDFs appears to have gone into the ether.
However, my problem is that my PDFs (Genealogical records) amount to some many thousands of pages (eg. 170 MBs to over 156,000 pages of 374MBs) and Preview just will not open them (it goes into not responding requiring a force quit command).
If I go to Adobe Acrobat Reader DC they will open almost immediately!!
These files previously worked well with Preview in the older systems but since Mojave & Catalina I have had to resort to using Adobe Reader - much preferred the older method and look of Preview.
Much smaller PDFs that I may have, work OK with Preview (ie, jpg, png.)
I have tried all the tricks recommended above like re-setting permissions etc even spending some time with Apple techs on the phone including screen sharing but..............
Very frustrating
It worked! I opened Terminal and pasted :
diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`
then restarted. Preview is now able to open pdfs again. It also solved the issue I was having moving files around in Finder.
Thank you!
I had the same issue. Took me a while to realize it was because Dropbox wasn't opening on system startup. Apparently now when Dropbox isn't running, some files can't be opened. Must be because of Dropbox's Smart Sync... anyway a quick way to try this is to just open Dropbox and see if the files work. Good luck!
I also dared not say Yes until someone on this thread mentioned that that was a reason for not being able to open PDFs.
Problem resolved once I said Yes although I share your concern about Dropbox being able to "control" my computer. What exactly is it controlling, I wonder?
Having this issue too. continuing to read through all the comments and resolutions. PDF's will save and open in Books, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC version 2019.021.20056 but I do not want to have to pay yet another monthly subscription to Adobe when Preview provides most of the document editing I need in my work. Thanks all.
I followed the directions to correct displaying PDF messages which solved the problem
BUT
Whenever my computer logs out based on the System Security Setting to log out after X Hours of no activity, PDF files no longer open when I log back in and I need to restart computer to be able to access PDF files.
Second issue: I can no longer Print a document to a PDF file - Using Preview Application.
Terry
I am having same issue...and MANY others since updating to Catalina. I am so angry. Who want to spend hours try to troubleshoot opening documents and pdfs after an update!? I have tried the suggestions listed but nothing works.
PDFs won't open since Catalina
