Application began unexpectedly quitting

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8750.html

Try launching this stuff while logged into another account.

I'm having the same problem.

About three days ago, Word just started quitting unexpectedly.

Then Skype.

Then some smaller applications. Not everything stopped, just random apps.

I'm getting EXC_CRASH (SIGTRAP) from Word.

And EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) from Skype crashing.

I downloaded the newest version and it still crashed.

I ran a memtest so my RAM is fine, ran Disk Utility about a bazillion times and everything is just fine hardware-wise.

I'm going to try to re-install Snow Leopard and see if that works after I try launching from a different account.

I logged in to another account and all the applications launched just fine.

Looks like something is wrong in my main user account.

Any suggestions on how to proceed?

Dennis Robinson4 wrote:

This also worked for me, created another account and logged in. Everything seems to me working fine. Going to the genius bar today to see if they can help. If so, I will share what they did.

The geniuses won't help. Since everything works with the new 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.

The trouble with moving all the preferences, etc. is it can be potentially a lot of work and I would reserve it as a last attempt before trying some more obvious and easier diagnostic steps. Below is what I recommend you try first.

Look in your Account's login items and remove all of those first and logout and back in. See if that fixes the problem.

Look in your accounts ~/Library/LaunchAgents (i.e., in your home directory). Move whatever you find in there on to your desktop and again logout/in.

Try the above steps first before going to the next phase of diagnosis.

Here's the second way. While logged into the newly created admin account, backup the bad account's folder, delete the bad account, selecting the save data option (which stores the data in /Users/Deleted Users/ as a disk image), recreate the bad account using the same username/password combo, log out and back into the recreated original account. If the problem's solved, open the saved data dmg file in /Users/Deleted Users/, open the /Library/Preferences/ folder from the saved data, open the current /Users/restored account/Library/Preferences/ folder, and slowly copy plist files from the saved data folder to the current one that don't exist in it. Log out and back in to ensure there's no conflict and things still work correctly. Resolving conflicts or identifying corrupt plist files is a laborious process. Good luck.

Alternatively, Pondini has this: Transferring files from one User Account to another

There has been a sudden epidemic of "Flashback Trojan" infections, the symptoms of which include multiple PPC applications that suddenly refuse to run in one user account but run in all others, and yet the user-specific issue cannot be isolated to anything in the user Preferences folder of the affected account.

To test for this, log into the affected user account, open the Terminal (in the Utilities folder), and copy-paste the following diagnostic command into the Terminal window:

defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment

Copy the response you see, and post it back here. A response that includes something similar to this means trouble:

"DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES" = "/Users/Shared/.libgmalloc.dylib"

You are infected with one of the current strains of the Flashback trojan (google it). It looks like Flashback.I.

I suggest you read over this (ever expanding) thread:

"Rosetta" applications suddenly stopped working

Quicken 2003 is powerpc code which requires Rosetta on intel machines.

I'll give you a couple of terminal commands to get you going but if you don't want to wade through that entire thread (it sort of gets a little lost in the middle but then gets back on track) at least read starting on page 7 starting about here. That is because what I am giving you is not a complete solution even though your powerpc code will probably run without crashing.

Here's the terminal commands. Copy/paste each one and hit return.

rm -rf ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist

rm -rf /Users/Shared/.libgmalloc.dylib

Let me jump in here with what I consider to be the best advice available at the moment

Courtesy of Linc Davis:

I suggest you take the following steps immediately:

1. Back up all data to at least two different devices, if you haven't already done so.

2. Boot from your recovery partition (if running Mac OS X 10.7 or later) or your installation disc (if running an earlier version of the Mac OS), launch Disk Utility, and erase the startup drive. This action will destroy all data on the drive, so you must be sure of your backups.

3. Install the Mac OS.

4. Reboot and go through the initial setup process to create an account. Don’t import anything from your backups at this stage.

5. If running Mac OS X 10.6.x [], run Software Update.

6. Restore the contents of all the top-level subfolders of your home folder except “Library” from the most recent backup. You can also restore the files in the Library folder, but don’t restore any of its subfolders; only the files contained in those folders, and only if they’re visible in the Finder. Don’t restore any hidden files or folders, no matter where they are.

7. [] disable Java in Safari’s preferences, and leave it disabled [], including all available updates. [] Note: I’m not referring to JavaScript, which is unrelated to Java, despite the similarity in the names.

8. Change every Internet password you have, starting with banking passwords. Check all financial accounts for unauthorized transactions. Take this step only after you’ve secured your system in the preceding steps, not before.

9. Reinstall your third-party software from fresh downloads or original media, not from backups which may be contaminated. If you use any third-party web browsers, disable Java in their preferences, as you did with Safari in step 7.

More information about Flashback can be found by searching this site, or the Web.