Messages fails to respond when opening because of a spam message

Back up all data.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Messages

Right-click or control-click the line and select

Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item selected. Quit the application if it's running. Move the selected item to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Relaunch the application and test. If there's no change, quit again and put the item you moved back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place. Otherwise, delete the item you moved. If possible, restore it from a backup that predates the problem.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.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 by pressing command-V.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

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Hi,

If this is an iMessages message then it will be stored in the chat.db items in the folder that Linc said.

As a beginning it is best to think of there being 3 main Libraries.

On Open the Hard Drive you have Library (as well as System, Users, Applications and maybe other created by various Installs)

In the System folder there is another Library.

In Users and your account (Little House icon) is another Library - referred to as the Home Library that can be accessed using ~/Library (with the tilde symbol before the backslash)

However if the Messages being sent to you was over AIM, Jabber (Google/Facebook or others) or Yahoo you may bump in to server limits as well as the app trying to cope with the message.

AIM does have a limit to messages but you do have to work at it to find it.

It seems to ignore pictures and files sent in the chat and is purely set to the amount of text.

I have not tried with Jabber or Yahoo to see what, if any, the limit might be.

AIM seems to refuse to deliver it rather than attempting to swamp you with data.

I take it you were in the "right" Library/Messages and that it was an iMessages message ?

8:38 pm Saturday; July 12, 2014

Hi,

I notice the PID numbers are high (The 3870, 3882 and 4226)

Have you tried Restarting the Mac ?

9:25 pm Saturday; July 12, 2014

This is what I got after force quitting the program.

The question is, what is written to the log when you try to launch the program?

for the Points

9:34 pm Saturday; July 12, 2014