Uninstall Messages When it Crashes on Start???

Try this:

Quit and navigate to ~/Library/ and hunt down and delete any plugins in the iChat folder as well as any iChat related items in the ~/Library/Caches and /Preferences folders.

Then install iChat (download from Apple servers) over it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL290

That might not be the link... BUT BEFORE YOU DELETE ANYTHING, first find iChat on Apple's site, please post it here if you find the setup for the latest iChat.

Remember, Messages is in BETA!

See updated answer below.

Actually I just found this on the internet, credit is due where due.

"In Messages, go to the Messages menu at the top, and then Uninstall Messages Beta"

If you read his post a little more carefully you would see that he can't hit the uninstall button because it crashes before you have the ability to click on it. 😟

I'm having the same problem, so I'm interested in a solution as well.

Try this:

Quit and navigate to ~/Library/ and hunt down and delete any plugins in the iChat folder as well as any iChat related items in the ~/Library/Caches and /Preferences folders.

Then install iChat (download from Apple servers) over it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL290

That might not be the link... BUT BEFORE YOU DELETE ANYTHING, first find iChat on Apple's site, please post it here if you find the setup for the latest iChat.

Remember, Messages is in BETA!

That is initially what I said.

Yeah that's a super old version of iChat that won't allow you to install over Messages. I searched through Apple's downloads and there doesn't seem to be a new version of the install. Looks like that's just a dead end.

Anyone know if there would there be a way to uninstall it through Terminal?

Ok so I messed around with Terminal with no luck but this is what I've found out. So maybe it'll help pinpoint the issue.

1. In Terminal I tried to delete Messages.app using "rm --f" to no avail.

2. I discovered that Messages.app and iChat.app (though hidden) are linked.

3. In Terminal I used "rm Rf" to try to delete iChat.app and Messages.app. I was successful in deleting them.

4. Then I tried reinstalling Messages through the Messages.dmg. Restarted. When I opened it up, it still recognized that it had crashed previously and asked me if I wanted to restore the window. It opened up and crashed again. I ended up redeleting Messages.app and iChat.app through the Terminal.

5. Instead of reinstalling Messages, I plugged in my TimeMachine backup and tried restoring my iChat from my last back up which was from Tuesday. When it moved over, I tried to open up iChat, but I received an error. It said that this application was not the correct version and would not be able to be used on this system.

6. Through Terminal I deleted iChat again and since my TimeMachine backup had also backed up the Messages app, I went ahead and restored it.

So I'm sitting at square one. Messages still recognizes that the app has crashed previously and still crashes after supposedly restoring the window. This leads me to believe that the issue then is not with the .app files but maybe a preference/system file elsewhere. Maybe in Library?

Anyone got any ideas?

Anyway to access the Uninstall Messages option without opening up Messages.app? That's got to be a .pkg or dmg stored somewhere, right?

Found a simple enough answer.

Go to /Applications/Messages.app.

Right click on Messages.app > Get info

Uncheck open in 32-bit mode.

That solved it for me. Hope this helps!

You're a godsend.

This is just another suggestion if you're still stuck. I tried all of these suggestions with no success. It still crashed immediately. I used an app call appdelete to uninstall, then I reinstalled the beta. It's working now without issue. Appdelete has a trial mode which is all you'll need for this.