Preview crashes frequently

I'm gonna be very busy for a while, might not respond until Sunday. Bump this thread if I don't respond by Sunday night.

While Király is tied up, start with this.

Since the issue is specific to your original user account, you can proceed in two ways. One is to log into your new account, make a list of the preference files (plists) located in /username/Library/Preferences/, including any in the ByHost subfolder, log back into the original account, move everything on that other account's list from the original account's Preferences folder into a newly created folder on the Desktop, log out and back in, and see if the problem goes away. If so, you can copy the ones in the Desktop folder (one at time) back into /Preferences/, restart, and see if the problem returns. If so, you've identified the corrupt/conflicting one. Continue with all of them until isolating the bad ones. That'll save you the trouble of resetting preferences.

The second way is much more detailed and I'll not burden you with the steps unless the above doesn't fix the issue.

Baltwo's suggestion is exactly what I was going to suggest. A few more suggestions:

Some items in ~/Library/Preferences ("~" is shorthand for your home folder) are hidden from Finder view. One of them was causing a problem for me for weeks before I found it. You can force Finder to show them by entering this command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES;killall Finder

To return to the normal Finder view, use this:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO;killall Finder

If you don't find the offending file in ~/Library/Preferences, sift through ~/Library/Caches and do the same thing.

I have somehow the same issue here, but with the console app. ( and also Handbrake). It would crash 4 times in a row or not crash for a whole day. I've ran the Apple hardware test overnight and rember, nothing wrong. I will try the steps mentioned here.



Process: Console [372]
Path: /Applications/Utilities/Console.app/Contents/MacOS/Console
Identifier: com.apple.Console
Version: 10.6.3 (224)
Build Info: ConsoleX-2240000~9
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [111]

Date/Time: 2011-02-17 02:53:37.248 +0100
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.6 (10J567)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC BADACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN INVALIDADDRESS at 0x000000000000001a
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Application Specific Information:
objc_msgSend() selector name: outlineView:objectValueForTableColumn:byItem:


Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff886cf11c objc_msgSend + 40
1 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff83396a00 -[NSTableView preparedCellAtColumn:row:] + 323
2 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833af8e7 -[NSTableView _drawContentsAtRow:column:withCellFrame:] + 47
3 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833af85d -[NSOutlineView _drawContentsAtRow:column:withCellFrame:] + 95
4 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833ae980 -[NSTableView drawRow:clipRect:] + 1242
5 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833ae273 -[NSTableView drawRowIndexes:clipRect:] + 369
6 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833ae0f4 -[NSOutlineView drawRowIndexes:clipRect:] + 131
7 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833acc20 -[NSTableView drawRect:] + 1302
8 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a2cf9 -[NSView _drawRect:clip:] + 3566
9 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a04cf -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 2112
10 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a0e5a -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 4555
11 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a0e5a -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 4555
12 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a0e5a -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 4555
13 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a0e5a -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 4555
14 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff833a0e5a -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 4555
15 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8339fab0 -[NSThemeFrame _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectFor View:topView:] + 254
16 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8339c362 -[NSView _displayRectIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:] + 2683
17 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff83315b9a -[NSView displayIfNeeded] + 969
18 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff87f791dd __NSFirePerformWithOrder + 384
19 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8903cb37 __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 519
20 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff89018464 __CFRunLoopRun + 468
21 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff89017dbf CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 575
22 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff86d8c93a RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 333
23 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff86d8c69d ReceiveNextEventCommon + 148
24 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff86d8c5f8 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 59
25 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff832e5e64 _DPSNextEvent + 718
26 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff832e57a9 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 155
27 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff832ab48b -[NSApplication run] + 395
28 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff832a41a8 NSApplicationMain + 364
29 com.apple.Console 0x00000001000017a0 0x100000000 + 6048

Thread 1: Dispatch queue: com.apple.libdispatch-manager
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd616a kevent + 10
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd803d dispatch_mgrinvoke + 154
2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd7d14 dispatch_queueinvoke + 185
3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd783e dispatch_workerthread2 + 252
4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd7168 pthreadwqthread + 353
5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd7005 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 2:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd6f8a _workqkernreturn + 10
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd739c pthreadwqthread + 917
2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff88bd7005 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (64-bit):
rax: 0x0000000100125890 rbx: 0x00000001001297f0 rcx: 0x000000010012a530 rdx: 0x00000001001297f0
rdi: 0x0000000102119790 rsi: 0x00007fff839f7c70 rbp: 0x00007fff5fbfc1c0 rsp: 0x00007fff5fbfc168
r8: 0x0000000100125890 r9: 0x0000000000000002 r10: 0x00007fff87f43cfa r11: 0x000000000000000a
r12: 0x00000001001297f0 r13: 0x0000000000000013 r14: 0x0000000000000000 r15: 0x0000000000000000
rip: 0x00007fff886cf11c rfl: 0x0000000000010206 cr2: 0x000000000000001a

Binary Images:
0x100000000 - 0x100028ff7 com.apple.Console 10.6.3 (224) <177CB315-6C11-99F9-7B34-9DF8C892C818> /Applications/Utilities/Console.app/Contents/MacOS/Console
0x1003b3000 - 0x1003d9fff GLRendererFloat ??? (???) <8256EA93-A236-8B55-F214-65896DDB7A0E> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Resources/GLRendererFloat.bundle/GL RendererFloat
0x100683000 - 0x100689fff libgermantok.dylib ??? (???) <A87630B4-D01C-8724-54D2-5E8CC85FC07B> /usr/lib/libgermantok.dylib
0x1144d5000 - 0x114666fef GLEngine ??? (???) <AE898A2A-1C12-9FDB-455F-32601F030904> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Resources/GLEngine.bundle/GLEngine
0x114697000 - 0x114abafef libclh.dylib 3.1.1 C (3.1.1) <66455CD1-8C09-4A8F-EDA1-D4F2F30663F1> /System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS/libclh.dylib
0x114b3e000 - 0x1159f7fe7 com.apple.driver.AppleIntelHDGraphicsGLDriver 1.6.26 (6.2.6) <27B7C1AF-1188-249F-840D-D32CF71F9E4B> /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelHDGraphicsGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS/A ppleIntelHDGraphicsGLDriver
0x200000000 - 0x200787fef com.apple.GeForceGLDriver 1.6.26 (6.2.6) <BAAEDD99-82FA-2C7F-CD66-E0977C670CC5> /System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS/GeForceGLDrive r
0x7fff5fc00000 - 0x7fff5fc3bdef dyld 132.1 (???) <486E6C61-1197-CC7C-2197-82CE505102D7> /usr/lib/dyld
0x7fff80003000 - 0x7fff80008fff libGFXShared.dylib ??? (???) <991F8197-FD06-2AF1-F99B-E448ED4FB2AC> /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libGFXShared.d ylib
0x7fff80009000 - 0x7fff8000aff7 com.apple.audio.units.AudioUnit 1.6.5 (1.6.5) <14F14B5E-9287-BC36-0C3F-6592E6696CD4>