xser
Level 1 (49 points)
Mac OS X

Q: 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 8:02 PM

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xser

Q: Preview: freezes every time I save and close a window

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  • by kadewe,

    kadewe kadewe Oct 26, 2015 12:55 PM in response to xser
    Level 1 (0 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 *****.

  • by xser,

    xser xser Nov 4, 2015 11:29 AM in response to xser
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 4, 2015 11:29 AM in response to xser

    Anyone? Hello?

  • by Glenn Leblanc,Helpful

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Nov 4, 2015 11:38 AM in response to xser
    Level 6 (11,011 points)
    Mac OS X
    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.

  • by xser,

    xser xser Nov 4, 2015 11:39 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Mac OS X
    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!

  • by Glenn Leblanc,Helpful

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Nov 4, 2015 12:05 PM in response to xser
    Level 6 (11,011 points)
    Mac OS X
    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

  • by croquetas,

    croquetas croquetas Nov 5, 2015 2:24 AM in response to xser
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2015 2:24 AM in response to xser

    I've got the same problem...

  • by negociorentable,

    negociorentable negociorentable Nov 5, 2015 6:27 AM in response to croquetas
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2015 6:27 AM in response to croquetas

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

  • by xser,

    xser xser Nov 5, 2015 6:43 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Mac OS X
    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.

  • by Glenn Leblanc,

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Nov 5, 2015 8:29 AM in response to xser
    Level 6 (11,011 points)
    Mac OS X
    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.

  • by CellarDwellr,

    CellarDwellr CellarDwellr Nov 5, 2015 9:38 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 4 (1,212 points)
    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:

     

    1. make sure you have a back-up before continuing,
    2. 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),
    3. 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?

  • by Glenn Leblanc,

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Nov 5, 2015 9:51 AM in response to xser
    Level 6 (11,011 points)
    Mac OS X
    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.

  • by paginas-de-contactos,

    paginas-de-contactos paginas-de-contactos Nov 5, 2015 12:36 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2015 12:36 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

    me con la solución que les traigo el socio Glenn Leman es mi disposición

    Gracias a la solución

  • by xser,

    xser xser Nov 9, 2015 12:52 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Mac OS X
    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.

  • by xser,

    xser xser Nov 9, 2015 5:35 PM in response to CellarDwellr
    Level 1 (49 points)
    Mac OS X
    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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