Archive Utility has stopped working

There is com.apple.archiveutility.plist in your HOME Library Preferenes folder.

~/Library/Preferences

or

Hold option key in FInder Go menu and select Library, then Preferences.

charlie

Same with me, started on this date as well. I can use Archive Utility to compress files, but when I ask it to unzip, it goes catatonic, and must be force quit to get rid of it. I'm using The Unarchiver as a work-around.

Also, I've noticed that today as well, Dashboard has gone nuts, gobbling RAM (real and virtual) until the entire system has ground to a halt. Force-quitting Dashboard only aloows a moment's respite, as it immediately resumes whatever it is trying to do. I've winnowed my selection of widgets, one at a time, but the only way the system will function is with ZERO widgets on the Dashboard.

I assume, due to the out-of-the-blue coincident arrival of these things, that they are somehow related, and haven't a clue as to what is going on.

This is on an iMac11,1 (late 2009 27" 2.8GHz i7, 8 GM RAM).

Currently repairing permissions, will reboot afterwards and see if that makes a difference.

Message was edited by: Dave Lentz

Hmmm ... appears that repairing permissions, and rebooting afterwards has cured both problems. The restart following the permissions repair IS required.

Message was edited by: Dave Lentz

Logging out from the user session and logging in again, is enough to fix the issue with Archive Utility, but only temporarily.

The hanging returns, and I have not yet discovered why or in which condition.

Any idea about the possible reason?

I am clueless as to what was broken to start this behavior, but I find it curious that all these instances (at least the ones I am aware of) begain Oct 1.

I had tried cajund's method of removing the com.apple.archiveutility.plist and the associated lockfile (com.apple.archiveutility.plist.lockfile), and restarting, but that didn't do the trick for me.

Repairing permissions and restarting did work, however. And continues to do so a day later, across multiple restarts (switching back and forth between different systems on different boot drives, for other reasons).

Perhaps it was related to my removing all the active widgets from my Dashboard (which was also going berserk, and was also cured by the permissions repair+restart), with some sort of unexpected interaction taking place.

I'm having this issue since more than a week. It's a lot before the Oct 1.

I've removed the com.apple.archiveutility.plist too (without logout or restart), but nothing happened.

Something to try, if you are still being plagued by this ... open up the Activity Monitor and check the System Memory pie chart ... if there's no free memory remaining, click on either the Real Mem or Virtual Mem column headings, to sort it by memory use, and see if there's anything gobbnling up all your free memory.

In my case, it was the Dashboard, and I had to empty it of widgets to get it to stop grabbing memory "to infinity and beyond". I have no clue as to how or if that was connected to the Archive Utility problem, but I was unable to have a single active widget (or any kind) until I repaired permissions and restarted. Then I could add widgets, and the Archive Utility coincidentally began working again.

Interestingly enough, it was only in the de-compressing of files that my Archive Utility was bonkers. It could compress files all day long without trouble.

As I said, I have no clue as to what the interaction could be -- or even if there was one -- between the Dashboard, Archive Utility and the permission repairs, that lead to all of these things bing cleared up. But looking at the Activity monitor is an easy way to begin to track it down, or at least look for other things that have run off the rails ....

I have exactly the same problem.

I repaired the permissions and rebooted, and after 1 day the issue came back.

p.s.: I have a shameful amount of free memory, so that's not the cause.

Are people sure that it's completely hanging? I thought this too but I noticed that after 10 minutes or so it finally did manage to uncompress the .zip that I was trying to expand.

This is with an early 2012 Macbook Pro with 16GB...

Not much better than completely hanging in terms of how annoying this is, mind you.

Thanks for this thread.

When trying to unzip a file the Archive Utility displayed a SPOD so I finally had to force quit it.

AU stopped working after I rebuilt LaunchServices and dyld's shared cache with Onyx... which I'd also just used to delete many logs and cache files.

This has happened to me before, but I can't recall if it was immediately after using Onyx to do the above.

So following the above advice I Repaired Permissions > trashed the Archive Utility preference file > rebooted.

And it fixed the problem.

I'd forgotten what I'd done to resolve the problem before... though I'd probably just repaired permissions and rebooted during a maintenance routine... so I don't know if I really needed to trash the preference file or not.

Following all sugestions mentioned here did NOT resolve the problem. More ivestigation is needed and the help will be appreciated.

I'm still having the same issue. Will try a repair and reboot but it would be cool if this got fixed... by Apple... or at least acknowledged.

I know this isn't the sort of fix you are looking for, but with a lot of folks who have managed to clear this up by various combinations of cleaning up permissions, preferences, etc ... I'd try booting up in safe mode, [http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212?viewlocale=en_US], wait a brief period to let things stabilize, then reboot normally.

And if that doesn't do it, make sure you have a valid backup, and reinstall Mountain Lion. If that doesn't fix it, it's a trip to the Apple Store and meet with a Genius.

May the odds be ever in your favor ...