Archive Utility has stopped working

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 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 ...

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

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.

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 ....

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.

There's an issue with the latest OS X update that has caused other apps to crash. The workaround has been to go to Activity Monitor and find "appleeventsd" and force quit the process. Everything should work after that point without having to do the whole reboot thing.

In Activity Monitor 'appleeventsd is 'hidden' under 'Other User Processes' or 'All Processes'. I did force quit it and whoala unzip worked like a charm. True, appleeventsd reappeared in Activity Monitor and my thought that I'll have to kill it again, however I've tried without force quiting. Again, it worked like a charm. Further I've rebooted and tried again. And yes it stopped working (or taking enormous time to complete it). During that time I simply force quit appleeventsd, and UnZip finished in no time. This definetly solved my problem. However, I don't know how important that process is and what initiated that process and will it help to kill it at login time, because I've seen that was recreated once I envoked Archive utility again. Someone might write short script to accomplish that?

How to put This solved my question? Upenn777 deserves 10 points!

Message was edited by: Savaot

Glad it helped. appleeventsd should automatially restart after force quitting, and that's fine. it's just like if you force quit finder, it restarts.

Here is the website that suggested this strategy and linking it to a OS X bug. I first encountered issues with EndNote X6 (Academic citation software) and Word.

https://softwarestore.vanderbilt.edu/2012/10/endnote-x6-for-mac-and-mac-os-x-10- 8-2-issue/.

Thanks! It worked.

To people that said sth about repairing permissions and rebooting - IMHO no repairing is needed, just a reboot is enough. Though, as we see now, even rebooting is not necessary, just killing this one process.

Thanks a ton. Had same problem with Archive Utility. Killed appleeventsd, no luck, killed with -9, BANG everything was fine.

If it happens to you, and you have time, run sysdiagnose on it and report it to Apple.

Deleting the Preferences file for Archive Utility had no effect. I have been unable to use Archive Utility for quite a while and have found an alternative program. Has a formal bug report been filed by anyone?

This indeed solved the problem. Permission things and reboot is not solving the problem.

Reboot force appleeventsd to restart ...

This is definitively a bug that should be reported / addressed by Apple

THANKS.

My Archive Utility was hanging every time I clicked on a zipped file. What fixed it was...

1. restoring Archive Utility from Time Machine using a date prior to when the problem occured.

2. Using Disk Utility to Repair Permissions

3. Restaring.

All fixed now.