Mail crash / Mountain Lion: "AddressBook datafile is a directory"

Question

Mail crash / Mountain Lion: "AddressBook datafile is a directory"

My Mail app began crashing yesterday -- a few days after upgrading to Mountain Lion. I posted the crash dump, but no resolution yet.

It crashes right away on starting up the app.

Today, I noticed the following Console message -- it appears every time I click on the Mail app:

7/31/12 10:34:12.815 AM Mail[4427]: -[ABAddressBook sharedAddressBook] Error: The AddressBook datafile is a directory!

I'm hoping someone on these forums can figure out the issue/resolution from this clue.

Thanks!

Posted on Jul 31, 2012 10:40 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 31, 2012 3:05 PM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

Here's some more data. The first page of the crash dump. The corroborating evidence is the fact that there is addressbook related stuff on the top of the stack:

Process: Mail [4357]

Path: /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail

Identifier: com.apple.mail

Version: 6.0 (1485)

Build Info: Mail-1485000000000000~3

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [333]

User ID: 509

Date/Time: 2012-07-31 10:32:23.189 -0700

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.8 (12A269)

Report Version: 10

Sleep/Wake UUID: 92628109-2395-4759-921D-5FF92910E305

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

VM Regions Near 0:

-->

__TEXT 0000000104197000-0000000104534000 [ 3700K] r-x/rwx SM=COW /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

0 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff8f449690 strlen + 16

1 com.apple.AddressBook.framework 0x00007fff91767f58 ABInitFileLock + 34

2 com.apple.AddressBook.framework 0x00007fff9176474c -[ABAddressBook nts_InitDefaultContactManager] + 250

3 com.apple.AddressBook.framework 0x00007fff9176452c +[ABAddressBook nts_SharedAddressBook] + 82

4 com.apple.AddressBook.framework 0x00007fff9176443b +[ABAddressBook nts_CreateSharedAddressBook] + 49

5 com.apple.AddressBook.framework 0x00007fff91763788 +[ABAddressBook sharedAddressBook] + 69

6 com.apple.AddressBook.framework 0x00007fff91785a01 +[ABAddressBook addressBookWithDatabaseDirectory:options:] + 60

7 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x00007fff8b9cdd5a +[MailAccount _setMailAccounts:calledFromSync:reloadingFromPreferences:] + 2595

8 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x00007fff8b9c9184 +[MailAccount reloadMailAccounts] + 61

9 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x00007fff8b9c9132 +[MailAccount _mailAccountsIncludingUnknownTypes] + 29

10 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x00007fff8b9c9056 +[MailAccount mailAccounts] + 61

11 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x00007fff8b9d014f +[MailAccount haveAccountsBeenConfigured] + 47

12 com.apple.mail 0x000000010419ae58 0x104197000 + 15960

13 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff85971b8a _CFXNotificationPost + 2554

14 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff8a781a76 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 64

15 com.apple.mail 0x00000001041997d5 0x104197000 + 10197

16 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e933f5d -[NSApplication _postDidFinishNotification] + 292

17 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e933c96 -[NSApplication _sendFinishLaunchingNotification] + 216

18 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e930ec2 -[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleAEOpenEvent:] + 566

19 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e930abc -[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleCoreEvent:withReplyEvent:] + 351

20 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff8a79b35b -[NSAppleEventManager dispatchRawAppleEvent:withRawReply:handlerRefCon:] + 308

21 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff8a79b1bd _NSAppleEventManagerGenericHandler + 106

22 com.apple.AE 0x00007fff887f8f68 aeDispatchAppleEvent(AEDesc const*, AEDesc*, unsigned int, unsigned char*) + 307

23 com.apple.AE 0x00007fff887f8dc9 dispatchEventAndSendReply(AEDesc const*, AEDesc*) + 37

24 com.apple.AE 0x00007fff887f8c89 aeProcessAppleEvent + 318

25 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff8ae69e29 AEProcessAppleEvent + 100

26 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e92d2a6 _DPSNextEvent + 1456

27 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e92c862 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 128

28 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e923c03 -[NSApplication run] + 517

29 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8e8c8656 NSApplicationMain + 869

30 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fff91cb27e1 start + 1

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Answer 2

Aug 1, 2012 2:20 PM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

Hi

My mail started crashing after 2 days of running fine as well. One one of my users, the program won't open at all and on the other, it will open but then crash in about a minute or two. I think it all started happening right after I started messing with messages.

I'm wondering if your app stays open long enough for you to open window/previous recipients to see if it is empty like mine. I also notice that there is no auto suggestion on addresses in mail.

I do have addresses in my address book but mail just isn't seeing them or storing new recipients.

I have tried all fixes mentioned for mail, messages, address book, and previous contacts. Nothing worked. I even reinstalled ML and that didn't help. I also spent about 2 hours on the phone with Apple. The guy who was helping me said it was the first issue with mail he knew about. Nothing that we tried helped.

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Answer 3

Aug 1, 2012 2:38 PM in response to maefromnull

For me Mail crashes instantaneously -- as soon as I click the app -- so I don't have a chance to check anything. There are several threads on this issue -- some folks say that they were told by the Apple rep that they are getting "floods" of issues related to Mail on Mountain Lion.

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Answer 4

Aug 1, 2012 4:50 PM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

I'm having the exact same issue, no resolution yet.

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Answer 5

Aug 1, 2012 5:27 PM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

I was able to fix mine by using Appdelete to delete everything except the mail.app itself. So one of those preference items was the culprit. However this deletion is now causing problems with iCloud integration with mail so this scortched earth tactic isn't optimal.

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Answer 6

Aug 1, 2012 6:29 PM in response to Happy Dummy

I wasn't able to set icloud mail back up through the icloud panel BUT when starting mail I was able to add the iCloud email and it set itself up normally. Then when checking the iCloud control panel, mail sync was on and working fine. So this is a fix but one of last resort as it does delete your mail accounts.

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Answer 7

Aug 3, 2012 1:27 PM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

Having the identical problem on my Mac Pro. My other computers are fine after the upgrade. It seemed to occur around the same time MobileMe went offline and I'm wondering if email aliases could be a culpret.

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Answer 8

Aug 6, 2012 1:10 PM in response to Daniel Standage

@Sanjaya @Daniel @Happy

I had the same problem and I managed to fix my problem. I put my info here :-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4183000?answerId=19184671022#19184671022

But basically I just moved the following directory to a backup and let Mail recreate a new one. Please be aware that this fix just refeshes your Mail, i.e. you'll need to readd your accounts and if you pop your mail, then I'm not certain if you can re-import them back in :-

/Users/sean/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data

More specifically it was the following file (or some other file in the same directory?) that mattered :-

/Users/sean/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState/data.data

Maybe if you want to try to save your popped mail, you could try just moving the com.apple.mail.savedState away and leave the parent directory alone?

Anyhow, give this a shot to see if it works.

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Answer 9

Aug 6, 2012 1:47 PM in response to sean_chan

Hi Sean,

You're the man! I renamed ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail and started Mail -- no more crashes! It rebuilt everything and now my Mail app is working again! Thanks.

Some notes:

[1] I didn't even have a file ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState/data.data so I just went to the top level directory (com.apple.mail) and renamed that.

[2] I didn't lose any data -- Mail rebuilt it from my emails although I did notice that the directory ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail Downloads no longer exists. So I don't quite know where Mail relocated the attached files, but I checked and I can access them by searching.

I was reconciled to waiting for a Mountain Lion update before I could start using Mail again, but thanks to you I am now back in business.

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Answer 10

Aug 6, 2012 7:01 PM in response to sean_chan

Hey Sean,

I echo Sanjaya's remarks, notes, and applaud. You sir, are the man! I tried the saved states deletion, but found that it didn't do anything, but remove the first dialog message (before the crash log). I went back to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/ and moved the contents to the trash (but not emptied). Opened Mail and everything was there, even the last message I had left open behind the viewer. I didn't have to re-add anything, just had to reinstate my view preferences; akin to flashing the PRAM.

Thanks again Sean! Without your help, I wouldn't have ventured down that path. It's fixed!

Take care!

Dan

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Answer 11

Aug 7, 2012 7:35 PM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

Thanks all, this fixed mine also. At last I can get productive

Vince

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Answer 12

Sep 6, 2012 10:53 AM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

I read through several threads before I found this one. My machine does NOT have ~/Library/Containers/...

Here is what I have done, and so far - Mail has stabalized and is working again!

I went to ~/Library/Mail/V2/[insert name of account here]

Each of my accounts, three Gmail and one Mac account all conatined three hidden files:

.dat45ab.nnn ( the nnn were different on each account

.mboxCache.plist

.OfflineCache

I shut down Mail and made a "keep" folder and omved all three files in each of the four accounts into the "keep" folder. Re-started Mail and have been stable for over two hours now (earlier today, I lost track of how many times Mail crashed).

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Answer 13

MARONJ

Level 1

0 points

Sep 8, 2012 9:25 AM in response to Sanjaya Kumar

hi guys, I read through several threads before I found this one.
My MacPro (Retina SSD) does NOT have

~/Library/Containers/...

nur

~/Library/Mail/V2

really have no idea what to do ...

Cheers.

A

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Answer 14

Drdul

Level 1

15 points

Sep 13, 2012 7:03 AM in response to macfrompc

@macfrompc: Thanks very much for this tip! I had tried deleteing other things like the Saved Application State folder, but wasn't having any luck and was about to nuke everything and start from scratch. Before doing that I tried your tip and deleted the hidden files in each mail account folder. Now Mail is behaving itself again, and I am a happy guy!

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Answer 15

Sep 13, 2012 10:16 AM in response to Drdul

This stabalized me for about 24 hours. I also did a Permissions Repair. Mail has been totally stable now for almost a week. :-)

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