Preview: freezes every time I save and close a window

Question

Level 1

87 points

Preview: freezes every time I save and close a window

I updated to El Capitan the night of the public (non-beta) release. Since that day Preview has been doing strange things. The most frustrating thing is that Preview freezes and stops responding every time I do the following

(I have a PDF open in Preview)

- Save and close (in immediate succession): command S, command W

(pinwheel, unresponsive)

I have to force quit, submit a crash report and then restart.

I work with PDFs all day long, so this has destroyed by productivity. I really don't want to have to restore the OS and pull everything over, one-by-one again only to find that the problem isn't fixed (a la "Finder tags disappear while typing them in (in Preview)"). So before we go nuclear, does anyone have any tips? Would deleting a plist be a sensible idea?

Thanks in advance. (And thanks for past help!)

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Oct 24, 2015 7:59 PM

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Answer 1

kadewe

Level 1

4 points

Oct 26, 2015 12:55 PM in response to xser

Since upgrading to El Capitan (and even after doing the new .0.1 upgrade, every time I start Preview, it freezes with some documents still open from the first crash. I cannot close the documents but I have to force quit Preview. I am using Adobe Acrobat Reader right now, but this *****.

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Answer 2

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 4, 2015 11:29 AM in response to xser

Anyone? Hello?

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Answer 3

Nov 4, 2015 11:38 AM in response to xser

Quit Preview.

In the Finder menu, select GO, the GO To Folder and paste this:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview

A Finder window will open to your user folder to that path. Move com.apple.Preview folder to the trash. Open Preview and see if things are better.

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Answer 4

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 4, 2015 11:39 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

This seems to have stopped the freezing. If it seems to have been a robust solution (after a couple days of use), then I'll come back and mark it solved.

THANK YOU!

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Answer 5

Nov 4, 2015 12:05 PM in response to xser

If you made any customized settings, you may need to recreate them. Doing the above should have put Preview back to it's default settings.

You're Welcome

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Answer 6

Nov 5, 2015 2:24 AM in response to xser

I've got the same problem...

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Answer 7

Nov 5, 2015 6:27 AM in response to croquetas

Excelente, la recomendación de Glenn me ha funcionado de maravilla. Gracias!!!🙂

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Answer 8

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 5, 2015 6:43 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Sadly, it's doing it again. Whenever I save (or save and then immediately close [command + S, command + w]), Preview pinwheels and stops responding.

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Answer 9

Nov 5, 2015 8:29 AM in response to xser

Unfortunately I don't know what to tell you from here. I don't use Preview enough to test for long periods. Wait to see if someone else can do more extensive troubleshooting with you.

You might also check Activity Monitor to see if anything else is consuming the computer's resources when Preview stops responding.

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Answer 10

Nov 5, 2015 9:38 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

There have been several bugs with Preview since El Capitan. Not all of them are solvable right now. However, this particular one is new to me, personally. You can try and do the following:

make sure you have a back-up before continuing,
restore your user account's permissions as described on this website: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os-x-repair-home-folder-permissions (not an official Apple guide, but I can vouch that it is correct),
If that didn't solve it, remove the containers/com.apple.preview folder once more, like Glenn Leblanc described above.

Edit: Where are the pdfs that you use stored? If they are on an external drive, for example, that might play into it. This is important

Did this help?

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Answer 11

Nov 5, 2015 9:51 AM in response to xser

In addition to CellarDwellr's post, there may be other files to delete for testing.

If you do test removing the com.apple.preview folder again, do all files listed below:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview.Markup

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview (This file may or may not exist)

If the above processes don't work and Activity Monitor doesn't show any other processes failing, it may be a problem with the application itself. If you log into a different user on your computer (create a user for testing in need be) to test and the problem is the same in another user account, then it's either a bug in Preview or you may need to reinstall the OS.

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Answer 12

Nov 5, 2015 12:36 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

meconlasoluciónqueles traigoelsocioGlennLemanesmidisposición

Graciasalasolución

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Answer 13

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 9, 2015 12:52 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Thanks Glenn. I tried this and the problem persists. I'll try CellarDwellr's suggestion next chance I get.

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Answer 14

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 9, 2015 5:35 PM in response to CellarDwellr

Re: Edit: Where are the PDFs?

It doesn't seem to matter where the PDFs are. I can reproduce the issue (i..e, save and quit a PDF and get Preview to freeze) for PDFs on the desktop, in Documents, in Dropbox, etc.

Re: Restore your account's permissions

After I open Terminal in recovery mode, type "resetpassword", the dialog box does not show any disks/volumes, so I cannot select a disk in which to reset a user. So I cannot proceed. Does this mean I installed my OS incorrectly? Shouldn't there be a disk/volume there?!

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Answer 15

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 12, 2015 8:13 PM in response to CellarDwellr

Ok, so I had trouble restoring permissions because no volume was showing up after typing "resetpassword" in terminal in recovery mode (see my last comment). So I did the following:

- Checked to see if I needed to repair permissions in Disk Utility in Recovery Mode

- (Backed up to a couple drives)

- Erased my drive

- Reinstalled OS (Wouldn't work from Recovery Mode, AppleCare had me reinstall Mountain Lion from Internet Recovery and then update to El Capitan)

- Restored from backup

- (Per your instructions): restored by user's permissions

The problem remains. Saving (or saving and closing a window) in Preview immediately causes pinwheeling which leads to Preview not responding.

Nest step: see if I can reproduce the issue on a new user.

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