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xser Author

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

21 replies

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 13, 2015 9:41 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I reproduced the issue in a new test user.

Many people on El Capitan do not seem to have this issue, which makes me wonder if it's something in my backup.

Next step: erase and install OS and pull over files one at a time (without pulling over any preferences, settings, etc.).

This might take awhile, so I might not be able to report back right away.

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 13, 2015 5:54 PM in response to xser

Update: it's a bug.

I erased and installed the OS per Apple's instructions (and didn't even bother to restore anything).

Then I downloaded some PDFs from academic journals.

I was immediately able to reproduce the issue (as well as a Preview/Finder issue I've had for TWO YEARS despite multiple clean installs).

If I can reproduce the issue on a clean install, then it's a bug, right?

I've submitted every crash report (easily 100 at this point). I don't know what else to do. I'm open to suggestions.

Nov 15, 2015 5:58 PM in response to xser

From everything you've done, it seems to be either a bug or something to do with your computer itself. It doesn't appear to be a problem with your user account or the OS install.

Maybe copy and post the crash report here next time. Someone good with reading them may see something to help.

Nov 24, 2015 5:55 PM in response to xser

I have similar problem. But I've never tried what you did, BUT as I use preview for a few hours, it just randomly freezes and shows beachball. Rarely, it get to normal, but most of the time, it stays frozen. So I have to force quit Preview. Especially if I have many pdf files open, it freezes much much more frequently, and it's annoying as hel*. I'm now using Adobe Reader, but I hate it because it's pretty choppy when scrolling. Preview was smoother, and it's not usable at the moment. I'm a university student, and I have to deal with PDF every day, and this hinders my productivity as well.

xser Author

Level 1

87 points

Nov 24, 2015 5:57 PM in response to Community User

On the one hand, I'm sorry that you're also having the trouble. On the other hand, I'm glad to know someone else can reproduce it.

Sep 17, 2017 3:48 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

YES!!

Preview: freezes every time I save and close a window