yosemite no finder preferences

Apparently it has something to do with the user account because I just created another user account and logged in with it and the finder preferences worked just fine. What is strange though is that simply deleting the finder.plist file doesn't fix this issue.

So after some more playing around with this, I finally figured out what my problem was at least. As I mentioned, I created another user account and things were fine. So to further test my original account, I booted into safe mode and things were fine there too. So I deleted some older preference panes and things have been fine since. To make a long story short, you might have a conflicting pref pane or extension somewhere causing this weirdness with the Finder. I can't claim to understand how this kind of conflict arises, but removing some offending pref pane or extension fixed my issues.

Hope this helps.

Jason,

Could you please explain how to delete old preference panes. I have the same situation but I don't know how to delete the older panes or where to find them.

Thanks

While I'm sure that this isn't the case for everyone, the conflict that caused this for me was with Box Cloud Sync version 3.x (sorry I don't know the exact version number). Downloading and installing the latest version of Box Sync (4.0) solved this for me without making a new user account.

Thank you Wilson! Box Sync was also my problem. I just removed it and everything is working wonderful. I am using the web version of Box so I am not really using the Mac box sync app since I store my files in my network drive and not in my hard disk. So, thanks, thanks, I needed it to change few preferences in Finder and I was not able to do it until you and Jason put this solution available. Thank you both.🙂

Box Sync was my problem too. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks a 100 times over this was my issue

Uninstalling Box fixed my blank Finder prefs immediately. Good riddance- it was a pain to uninstall.

Key takeaway: avoid Box.

Box Sync was the problem on my machine, as well. Note that I did not have to Uninstall or stop using Box completely.

But I did have to quite the client, restart my Finder, make the changes I needed in the finder preferences, then re-start Box.

Luckily, editing finder preferences is a rare thing. But it is a dumb work around and Box should fix their app.