Unable to display open and save panels

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Level 1

8 points

Unable to display open and save panels

Sometimes my Catalina 10.15.7 install is unable to display open and save dialogues, in multiple applications. When this happens, Console logs these two messages, about 0.7ms apart:

+[NSXPCSharedListener endpointForReply:withListenerName:]: an error occurred while attempting to obtain endpoint for listener 'com.apple.view-bridge': Connection interrupted
ERROR: Unable to display save panel (unrecognized error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=<private>})

(or "open panel" instead of "save panel" in the second).

Sometimes the failure is silent and nothing happens, except for interrupting e.g. a quit command that tried to spawn the save panel. Other times the beach ball shows up for a period and the Dock menu states "application not responding".

When I first started having this problem it was rare, but it became more frequent over the course of weeks, eventually happening about 90% of the time. I tried safe mode as suggested in thread 7542298. Safe mode did not exhibit the problem, and not only that, after leaving safe mode and restarting normally the problem didn't appear for a day afterwards, and it's rare again now even after a week.

Any ideas what's going on? Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 24, 2021 7:13 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,248 points

Jan 24, 2021 7:48 AM in response to wolseley1

Are you running any anti-virus software on your Mac? Are these applications physically located on your startup drive?

Open and Save panels are created by an Apple framework (library) that is compiled into the application, and it is hard to imagine anything interfering with the application's ability to present either type of panel unless that framework is damaged.

Open Script Editor from Dock > Launchpad > Other, and copy/paste the following into it, then click run.

use scripting additions

display dialog (choose file default location (path to desktop)) as text

display dialog (choose file name default location (path to desktop)) as text
return

This will first create an Open panel where you select any file and it will then display that filename, and the next display dialog will open a Save panel, where you enter a bogus name, and it too will then be displayed.

These are the same Open and Save panels that applications built with Apple's Cocoa frameworks produce. If they worked in the Script Editor, then something that is interfering with normal application behavior is not involved here.

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Answer 2

wolseley1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 7, 2021 11:38 AM in response to VikingOSX

If there's a connection to physical hardware, or other software, it's not evident. So far I've always been able to cause the panel to appear by trying repeatedly quitting (sometimes force quitting) and reopening the app in question in between, not changing the state of any other apps or any hardware, though this can take several tries.

I guess the next thing to try is login items...

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,248 points

Jan 26, 2021 12:49 PM in response to wolseley1

Those AppleScript open and save panels appear to be subject to the same external interference that is killing off your other open/save dialogs. I cannot duplicate that problem here on Big Sur 11.1, never experienced it when I had the fully updated Catalina 10.15.7 running, and no longer have Catalina installed now. I have no idea what is causing this issue.

Do these open/save panel issues occur after you have connected physical hardware to your Mac that you do not always leave attached? That might explain how the issue goes away, and after a while, then returns. What third-party software do you have installed that might be USB or Bluetooth activated? Do the open/save panel issues occur during the time that you are running other third-party software?

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Answer 4

wolseley1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 26, 2021 11:17 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks. I'm not running anti-virus software.

Your script looks to be variably affected, just like other applications. At first it worked fine. But just now Pages was having the problem, so I ran the script and it was affected too. Script Editor generates the same pair of Console log entries. Within Script Editor, if it's of any help, the script's result is shown as

error "User cancelled." number -128

I didn't cancel. This result appeared immediately the first time with no dialogs displayed; when run twice in close succession the second time runs for five or ten seconds but then ends in the same error.

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Unable to display open and save panels

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