My messages is not working on my desktop

fonts were the issue for me.

I'm a graphic designer and use a font management tool, must have turned off one to many.

Just make sure the following fonts are not showing as "Off" in FontBook, or even your font management tool. Keep these permanently activated.

Helvetica Neue

Lucida Grande

AppleGothic

Hi,

In any Finder window use the Go Menu and hold down the ALT key.

Select the Library that appears in the list.

Navigate to Preferences.

Find the com.apple.ichat.plist (yes messages still uses this one)

Drag it to the Trash and restart the app.

9:50 pm Friday; March 7, 2014

Hi,

The other com.apple.ichat...... .plists are normal.

The AIM one handles the server info for the AIM accounts you may have logged in.

The Jabber one does the same for Google, Facebook and other Jabber IDs.

The Subnet one is about the Bonjour Buddy list.

There is the Yahoo one as well.

The SharedFile one is about the Recents Lists in the File Menu of the app.

The Status Messages one is about the Saved Status Messages seens when you click the "Available" in a Buddy list or the Menu Bar icon drop down.

Then there is com.apple.imagent.plist

This is for a support app (Called IMAgent) that handles the actual Login (reading the other files) for both Messages and FaceTime.

It also handles making A/V connections in both apps.

There is another, com.apple.imservices.imessages.plist that is a hold over from Mountain Lion/Messages7.x.x.

The imessages.bag one holds info about the current iMessages server you are using.

In Mavericks there is one called com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.madrid.plist that handles your iMessages account details.

It is the one that have the Recerive At and Send From account and Aliases info including the iPhone number that is linked to the Apple ID and any email that are linked.

I would try deleting the com.apple.imagent.plist one next.

Normally the ichat one would give you access to the Preferences again.

If deleting just the IMAgent one does not work delete it and com.apple.ichat.plist at the same time.

8:37 pm Saturday; March 8, 2014

HI,

I have found no evidence that deleting the .lockfiles help or hinder in any way.

I always leave them. (older versions did not have them and I started testing using the .plists only as I had done before - in most cases it works.)

The keystrokes of CMD + , (as shown in the menu) will normally give you access to the Preferences.

Does this work on this app if you have it as the "Front" app and use the keystrokes ?

Also does CMD + 0 bring back the Main Messages window ?

9:59 pm Saturday; March 8, 2014

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.

Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).

When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Back up all data.

Launch the Font Book application and validate all fonts. You must select the fonts in order to validate them. See the built-in help and this support article for instructions. If Font Book finds any issues, resolve them.

From the application's menu bar, select

File ▹ Restore Standard Fonts...

You'll be prompted to confirm, and then to enter your administrator login password.

Boot in safe mode to rebuild the font caches. Boot again as usual and test.

Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. In that case, ask for instructions.

Also note that if you deactivate or remove any built-in fonts, for instance by using a third-party font manager, the system may become unstable.

Hi,

I see Linc has sorted you out.

The Errors that you posted clearly point to the UI (User Interface) and Fonts being the issue.

Most commonly this is the Helvetica Font.

It is a System font that is used as the font for the Title of each window that should open at Launch.

So the window that says "Messages" and has the tabbed chats and the interface items for starting new chats, Invoking Video chats or FaceTime and linking with Buddy List and the Contacts app will need it.

So will the Buddy Lists if you have these on display.

The Buddy List also use Lucida Grande for the titles of the Bars for the different Groups you have in your Buddy lists.

7:06 pm Sunday; March 9, 2014

Same issue here. I get a blank page when opening Messages with no access to preferences. I followed the suggestion above (fixing fonts). I run Filevault but was able to boot in Safe mode. Here is what I get from the console:

2015-03-05 9:31:26.003 AM SIMBL Agent[262]: linkItemAtPath error:Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=260 "The file “com.github.norio-nomura.EasySIMBL.plist” couldn’t be opened because there is no such file." UserInfo=0x7feb44382dc0 {NSFilePath=/Users/sylvain/Library/Preferences/com.github.norio-nomura.EasySIMB L.plist, NSUnderlyingError=0x7feb443684e0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. No such file or directory"}

2015-03-05 9:31:26.679 AM Messages[432]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFFFFFFFFFECC) from font server

2015-03-05 9:31:26.679 AM Messages[432]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFFFFFFFFFECC) from font server

2015-03-05 9:31:26.683 AM Messages[432]: *** setObjectForKey: object cannot be nil (key: NSFont)

2015-03-05 9:31:26.685 AM Messages[432]: (

0 CoreFoundation 0x000000010974b25c __exceptionPreprocess + 172

1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00000001075dee75 objc_exception_throw + 43

2 CoreFoundation 0x000000010964622e -[__NSDictionaryM setObject:forKey:] + 1102

3 SocialUI 0x0000000106ff20b8 -[SOWebLinkButton setAttributedTitle:] + 298

4 SocialUI 0x0000000106ff1ee8 -[SOWebLinkButton updateAttributedTitle:] + 153

5 SocialUI 0x0000000106ff1d5b -[SOWebLinkButton setAttributes:] + 241

6 SocialUI 0x0000000106ff1b6a -[SOWebLinkButton _initializeButtonStyle] + 240

7 CoreFoundation 0x000000010966b309 -[NSSet makeObjectsPerformSelector:] + 201

8 AppKit 0x000000010830cafd -[NSIBObjectData nibInstantiateWithOwner:topLevelObjects:] + 1157

9 AppKit 0x00000001083b0e5c -[NSNib _instantiateNibWithExternalNameTable:] + 600

10 AppKit 0x00000001084e0482 -[NSNib instantiateNibWithOwner:topLevelObjects:] + 215

11 AppKit 0x00000001084e0262 -[NSViewController loadView] + 180

12 SocialUI 0x0000000106fe8091 -[SOViewController loadView] + 77

13 AppKit 0x000000010840e718 -[NSViewController view] + 41

14 Messages 0x0000000103a551d7 Messages + 1921495

15 Messages 0x0000000103a55310 Messages + 1921808

16 Messages 0x0000000103a5549a Messages + 1922202

17 Messages 0x00000001038b6eb3 Messages + 224947

18 Messages 0x00000001038d5f6f Messages + 352111

19 Foundation 0x00000001070f575e __NSThreadPerformPerform + 229

20 CoreFoundation 0x000000010967c5b1 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 17

21 CoreFoundation 0x000000010966dc62 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 242

22 CoreFoundation 0x000000010966d3ef __CFRunLoopRun + 831

23 CoreFoundation 0x000000010966ce75 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 309

24 HIToolbox 0x000000010c536a0d RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 226

25 HIToolbox 0x000000010c5367b7 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 479

26 HIToolbox 0x000000010c5365bc _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 65

27 AppKit 0x000000010831e24e _DPSNextEvent + 1434

28 AppKit 0x000000010831d89b -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 122

29 AppKit 0x000000010831199c -[NSApplication run] + 553

30 AppKit 0x00000001082fc783 NSApplicationMain + 940

31 libdyld.dylib 0x000000010aa295fd start + 1

32 ??? 0x0000000000000001 0x0 + 1

)

2015-03-05 9:31:31.388 AM soagent[234]: No active accounts, but FaceTime or Messages is running. Will check again in 30 seconds

Hi,

Did you check Helvetica Neue

Lucida Grande

and AppleGothic in the Font Book App ?

AppleGothic is well down the list almost at the bottom.

Helvetica Neue is the default Font to display text in Chats.

AppleGothic is needed to login the Apple ID to iMessages server.

Lucida Grande is used in the Display of Buddy Lists that have "Show Groups" selected as t is the titles of these bars in the list.

At some point you have had gitHub on the computer

2015-03-05 9:31:26.003 AM SIMBL Agent[262]: linkItemAtPath error:Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=260 "The file “com.github.norio-nomura.EasySIMBL.plist” couldn’t be opened because there is no such file." UserInfo=0x7feb44382dc0 {NSFilePath=/Users/sylvain/Library/Preferences/com.github.norio-nomura.EasySIMB L.plist, NSUnderlyingError=0x7feb443684e0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. No such file or directory"}

It uses the SIMBL Agent and items.

Whilst you may have moved GitHub one item is still calling for it (it looks like the relevant .plist still exists)

This is probably a different issue.

It is this line that says a Font is not set:-

2015-03-05 9:31:26.683 AM Messages[432]: *** setObjectForKey: object cannot be nil (key: NSFont)

8:42 pm Thursday; March 5, 2015

You got it Ralph! Thanks! I was missing AppleGothic. I cleaned up my fonts a while back and, I guess, deleted one too many :-). I didn't notice the issue with Messages right away because I wasn't able to login into it for a different reason. Hopefully I didn't mess up something else.

Now I wish to fix this login issue. It only happens in one user account. I can login in Messages in someone else account on the same computer. When I try to login I get this alert:

Could not sign in to iMessage.

An error occurred during activation. Try again.

Here is what I get in the console when I open Messages:

2015-03-05 6:07:57.203 PM SIMBL Agent[262]: linkItemAtPath error:Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=260 "The file “com.github.norio-nomura.EasySIMBL.plist” couldn’t be opened because there is no such file." UserInfo=0x7feb4435aff0 {NSFilePath=/Users/sylvain/Library/Preferences/com.github.norio-nomura.EasySIMB L.plist, NSUnderlyingError=0x7feb44310f10 "The operation couldn’t be completed. No such file or directory"}

2015-03-05 6:07:59.603 PM soagent[1702]: FaceTime or Messages is running. Keeping soagent alive for now.

2015-03-05 6:07:59.604 PM soagent[1702]: No active accounts, but FaceTime or Messages is running. Will check again in 30 seconds

I also get:

2015-03-05 6:50:49.614 PM Finder[1807]: [QL] file:///Library/QuickLook/GBQLGenerator.qlgenerator/ has no identifier: ignoring

2015-03-05 6:50:51.293 PM quicklookd[2269]: [QL] file:///Library/QuickLook/GBQLGenerator.qlgenerator/ has no identifier: ignoring

2015-03-05 6:50:55.855 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[191]: (com.apple.iChat.87504[2240]) Exited: Killed: 9

2015-03-05 6:50:55.860 PM soagent[2167]: No active accounts, killing soagent in 10 seconds

2015-03-05 6:51:05.861 PM soagent[2167]: FaceTime or Messages is running. Keeping soagent alive for now.

2015-03-05 6:51:05.862 PM soagent[2167]: No active accounts, but FaceTime or Messages is running. Will check again in 30 seconds

2015-03-05 6:51:20.390 PM Finder[1807]: [QL] file:///Library/QuickLook/GBQLGenerator.qlgenerator/ has no identifier: ignoring

I don't have a GitHub app but I have an app called EasySIMBL. They seem related. It may create some issues but I don't know where. I don't open it and I can't find anything in my account login items or LaunchAgents that uses these names.

There is a file called in the preferences folder. The content is:

bplist00“ _ #com.github.norio-nomura.SIMBL-Agent_ InjectedSandboxBundleIdentifiersV0.10.5£ _ "com.wunderkinder.wunderlistdesktop_ com.apple.ShareKitHelper^com.apple.mail

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