Reading -pcd files

Hi Bill.

Sorry to hear that you are still struggling, please read the following notes and follow my suggestions exactly in the order written.

I haven’t tested GC on my office iMac, for some reason that website is blocked by our universities web server and it can take weeks for me to get these blocks lifted, not having any .pcd source disks at home I can’t test either program on my personal iMac Pro at home either.

I can verify though that both XnViewMP and Graphic Converter are known to work with macOS, particularly XnViewMP , which is working here in my office today on a 2017 iMac Pro running macOS Monterey, and I can read an old Kodak .pcd disk I found in the Geology dept’s archive.

So the problem must be with your Mac, or possibly the installation process.

I see that you are using macOS Catalina?

Try these steps exactly as described.

Drag the XnViewMP application out of the Application folder and into the Bin.

Find the XnViewMP installer in your Downloads folder and delete it.

Empty the Bin.

Reboot the Mac.

Download a fresh copy of the XnViewMP application from the XnViewMP website.

Disable your AV software.

Run the installer for XnViewMP.

Answer the pop-up security question from the Mac Gatekeeper when it warns you the that the App was downloaded from the internet and do you want to open it with “Yes”, or “ok”.

After XnViewMP is installed, exit the installer and launch the program.

At first launch you should see three pop-up questions asking you to allow XnViewMP to access your desktop, downloads and documents folders, answer each pop-up with Yes.

Is the XnViewMP app running now or is its icon still bouncing on the Dock?

If XnViewMP still will not open did you try booting your Mac into Safe-Mode as I suggested earlier?

If you did not try that step please do that next, follow this link for guidance:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201262

Safe-Mode is a necessary standard fault-finding stage in problem diagnosis and is completely benign.

Safe-Mode is slow to launch, it can take up to ten minutes to reach your user desktop so please be patient.

When Safe-Mode has booted to your desktop can you now launch XnViewMP?

While in Safe-Mode your inputs via mouse and keyboard may appear slow and “laggy”, this is normal, just take your time and see if XnViewMP will start.

If XnViewMP opens in Safe-Mode you have two options.

While still in Safe-Mode you can open your .pcd disks and use XnViewMP to batch convert the contents to .jpg or .tiff format and store that content in your document folder for access later after you reboot the Mac, or, close XnViewMp and reboot the Mac then see if XnViewMP will run properly after the reboot.

If XnViewMP will not run in Safe-Mode either, and the icon continues to bounce on the Dock, then the suspicion must be that your macOS is damaged and the recommended next step would be to boot the Mac into Recovery-Mode and reinstall the macOS.

Reinstalling the macOS in Recovery-Mode keeps all your data and apps intact and requires no complex knowledge, the steps are clearly explained here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201314

The only proviso is that reinstalling the macOS in Recovery-Mode may sometimes reveal previously hidden and unknown disk errors that result in the disk requiring a full wipe and clean install of the macOS, in these cases you will need a Time Machine backup to recover your important documents and applications from, after the clean install.

The steps for re-installing the macOS are clearly described in the document I linked to above, and require no special “computer” skills however if you feel this is going to be too demanding then the only remaining options are to book a visit to the technicians at your local Apple Store, where they will be able to resolve this problem for you, or, find a local independent Apple technician (or experienced Apple user) to help you in person.

I don’t think there is much else we, as a remote community, can offer by way of direct help since we can not see what is happening with your machine.

Anyway, try the above steps, at least as far as Safe-Mode, and let us know if that changes the outcome.

Will.

Hi Bill.

Try XNView MP, it has been around for many years and certainly used to convert those Kodak Photo-Cd’s to .jpg, and other formats, and is available for both Mac and Windows.

XNView MP is freeware for home users.

I’m not entirely sure of the rules surrounding posting links to other software providers on this forum so if this reply is moderated and the link removed just Google XNView MP and that should get you there:

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/#features

Let us know if this works for you, the question of how to read/convert Kodak .pcd files does crop up quite regularly.

Will.

Hi Bill.

It sounds as though you have a problem with your macOS rather than the XNView app.

I downloaded XNView onto one of my office iMac Pro's running macOS Monterey 12.2 this morning and it installs and opens, I even managed to track down an old .pcd CDR disk in our library and it read that too.

Are you running any third-party AntiVirus software on your Mac? If so, that may be the reason that the XNView icon just bounces on the dock but won't open, your AntiVirus software may be blocking it, this may also be the reason that you can't get Graphic Converter to work properly either.

If you have any third-party AntiVirus software installed then temporarily disable it, reinstall XNView and try it again.

If the above does not help with either XNView or Graphic Convertor then restart your Mac one-time in Safe-Mode. let the Mac boot all the way to your user desktop, this takes while, please be patient, once the desktop appears just leave the Mac alone for ten minutes then restart the Mac.

Running in Safe-Mode will reset many of the macOS system caches that may be preventing XNView and Graphic Convertor from opening correctly while at the same time not changing any of your own user preferences, data or apps.

See this Apple doc for help with Safe-Mode:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201262

If, after a Safe-Mode boot you still cannot open XNView or Graphic Convertor try booting your Mac into Recovery-Mode and re-install your current macOS.

Your apps, data and personal settings are kept intact when you reinstall the macOS in Recovery-Mode, but to be safe make sure you have a valid Time-Machine backup on an external hard-drive to recover from should anything go wrong when you re-install the macOS through Recovery-Mode.

See this Apple Doc for help with Recovery-Mode and re-installing your macOS:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201314

HTH

Will.

If you're not running the latest OS on that machine then try upgrading. If you are, then try bringing the disks to another Mac - a friend's maybe.

Hi Bill.

One of my colleagues suggested this morning that sometimes when you launch a newly download app in Catalina that the first time you open it the “bouncing icon” may keep bouncing in the dock for ages.

She suggested leaving it alone to keep bouncing while you go away for a coffee, when you return after ten minutes if it is still bouncing mouse-left-click and hold down the mouse button for ten seconds on the bouncing icon and see if it suddenly opens, or a help message appears.

Will.

There are multiple apps I could find doing a Google search (searched using convert pcd to jpg mac )that claim to convert -pcd to jpg, you have tried 1. Please research the others and test until you find one that works for you.

Graphic Converter has a very generous free trial period and will open / convert just about any image:

https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter

D'oh. I see you tried GC already. It does support pad so I suspect you need to read the help on that.

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer, school or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint.  Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, Zenmate, and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites. 

Uninstall all such apps that are on your Mac according to the developer's instructions.

And I can certainly verify that Graphic Converter is running here on OS Monterey on an Intel iMac 2018 and M1 MBP 2021. It also ran on every single other OS and Mac I've ever had going back to OS 7...

Hi Bill.

Hopefully you will get there eventually, and you have not wasted our time, there’s always something new to learn and that is part of the enjoyment of contributing to this forum, and ultimately of benefit to everybody else that uses the forum.

I had a think about this overnight and was trying to recall the last time I saw these “Bouncing Icons” in the Dock when trying to launch an app and it may have been Catalina, I can’t recall when Apple increased their security to include extra checks on downloaded internet apps but it may have been around that time?

If the suggestions above get you no further forward, try this method of opening XnViewMP, used by developers, and see if that is any different.

From the desktop ribbon-menu, top of the screen, click “Go” then “Applications”.

In the Applications menu, scroll down to XnViewMP, mouse-right-click on XnViewMP and from the pop-up menu select “Show Package Contents”.

The view changes to the standard folder view, open the folder “Contents” and scroll down to the folder “MacOS” and open it.

In this final folder is an executable file simply called XnViewMP, with a square black and green icon, mouse-right-click on that file and select from the pop-up context menu “Open”.

A Terminal session will now automatically launch and a small text Window will appear, this is the Terminal Interface, there is no need for you to interface with that window at all at this stage, after a few seconds XnViewMP will open and ask your permission to access your Desktop, Documents and Download folders, click Yes / Ok in each case then use XnViewMP.

To close XnViewMP from this special Terminal mode, simply click the red “dot” at the top left of the XnViewMP window, then, click anywhere in the Terminal window to make it active and from the desktop ribbon-menu “Terminal” click “Terminal” > “Quit Terminal”.

After you do this one time you might find that XnViewMP opens normally next time.

This way of starting an application bypasses some of the protections in macOS that might be behind the “Bouncing Icon” that you are seeing, it’s worth a try anyway….

HTH.

Will.