Finder windows won't open up

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Level 1

8 points

Finder windows won't open up

Yesterday, without me doing anything discernible, Finder stopped being able to open up new windows when clicking on it in the Dock. Right clicking and selecting "New Finder Window" doesn't work, and neither does command+N from the desktop. This behavior is also happening under Guest account as well as safe mode. Entering rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist in Terminal didn't work either. Other Finder functions, such as creating a new Folder on the desktop, seem to be working fine. I'm not experiencing any other unusual behavior in any other applications.

iMac 21.5″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jul 11, 2022 6:22 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

abargar Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2022 8:48 AM in response to Owl-53

I was looking at the Console while trying to launch a Finder window and this message appeared:

default 11:46:58.240130-0400 Finder -[TBrowserWindowController loadWindow]: failed to load window nib file '/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/BrowserWindow.nib'.

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Answer 2

Owl-53

Level 10

102,361 points

Jul 11, 2022 7:52 AM in response to abargar

1 - There could be something in the main User Account playing up. To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac. Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

2 - If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

Understand, we are all working Remotely from all around the world.

Therefore, we do not have the On-Hands experience the User ( you ) has with this computer.

The next best thing for us to having an actual On-Hand experience on this computer is to follow the steps below

Download the Application Etrecheck directly from a well Respected ASC Contributor. And Safe to use.

The application is free or paid from added features.

Run the application with Full Disc Access ( Security & Privacy - Full Disc Access ).

It will take a Snap Shot - both the hardware and software.

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information.

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last )

We can have a look at the report for possible issues and may have possible suggestions to resolve the issues.

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

135,611 points

Jul 11, 2022 6:27 AM in response to abargar

You can try booting into Safe Mode then restart normally.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Owl-53

Level 10

102,361 points

Jul 11, 2022 7:31 AM in response to abargar

Terminal Command below

killall Dock

Any Third Party Applications installed that may interfere with the Normal Operations of the computer and thereby Finder ?

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Answer 5

abargar Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2022 7:36 AM in response to Owl-53

That command didn't do the trick unfortunately.

As far as 3rd party apps, OneDrive and Dropbox came to mind, but Finder was working fine with them running, and killing them didn't fix it.

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Finder windows won't open up

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