i can not open numbers.

Please launch the Console application in any one 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 and start typing the name.

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 take an action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any lines 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.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.

A

Please back up all data.

Quit the application, if it's running.

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

~/Library/Containers/

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a folder selected. If it does, move the selected folder—not just its contents—to the Desktop.

The folder you're moving has a name that begins with "com." It is not the subfolder named "Data" or anything else.

Launch the problem application and test. If it works now, delete the folder you moved. Otherwise, quit again, and put the folder back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place.

Caution: If you delete some or all of the contents of the selected folder, but leave the folder itself in place, the application may not launch. Deleting the folder will cause it to be rebuilt automatically.

B

There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory (that is, the memory chips on the logic board) and virtual memory (one or more files on the startup volume.) That activity is relatively slow and causes the whole system to be less responsive. It can happen for two reasons:

A long-running process with a memory leak (a kind of bug)

Not enough memory for your usage pattern

Please note that if the cause is a memory leak, installing more memory will not help. That's likely if you already have more than 4 GB of memory. Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.

These instructions are for OS X 10.9 and later. Some details may be slightly different for earlier versions of OS X.

When you notice the slowdown, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the View menu, if it's not already selected. Select the Memory tab. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select

View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory

from the menu bar.

If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.

"Wired" memory should be less than half of the total. That memory is not swapped, but it makes less physical memory available which may then result in swapping. If most of the memory is wired, that may be an indication of a memory leak in a third-party program that modifies the operating system at a low level. Ask for guidance in that case.

If you don't have an obvious memory leak, the options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.

I just noticed that there is a mistake in my last comment. You don't need to delete the whole Containers folder. Put it back where it was, or restore it from the backup you made, then move just this subfolder to the Desktop as before:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Numbers

Quit Numbers and test again. If it still works, you can delete the folder named "com.apple.iWork.Numbers".

Did the same thing happen when you moved the whole Containers folder?

Hello doniponi,

For a change of pace, let's try some diagnostics that won't delete all of your preferences and settings for all of your purchased apps.

First of all, create a new user account on your machine. Log out of your current account and into that new account. Try to run Numbers there. Does it work?

Log out of the new account and back to your regular account and try to run Numbers again until it locks up.

Next, try little diagnostic program to help show what might be causing these problems. Download EtreCheck from http://www.etrecheck.com, run it, and paste the results here. EtreCheck is perfectly safe to run, does not ask for your password to install, and is signed with my Apple Developer ID.

Also, can you provide a little more background on the problem? When did numbers stop working for you? Did you make any software or hardware changes at about the same time? Even a system update?

Disclaimer: Although EtreCheck is free, there are other links on my site that could give me some form of compensation, financial or otherwise.

First, in case it's not obvious, you haven't deleted anything.

If you haven't already done so, please restart the computer and try again. If an application won't quit and prevents restarting, force quit. As a last resort, force a shutdown by holding down the power button for a few seconds. Then press it again briefly to start up.

Hello again doniponi,

But what isn't obvious is that you may have scrambled the preferences and settings for all of your Apple apps and anything purchased from the Mac App Store. Those hidden directories are hidden for a reason. There are no files there that are meant to be accessed by end users. Furthermore, there are literally hundreds of background tasks running on your machine that are potentially reading from and writing to that directory. Even if you haven't deleted it, just moving it aside, even for a moment, could scramble anything.

In the Apple developer forums, Apple engineers sometimes have to warn novice developers of the dangers of manually accessing these directories. There are some specific, safe ways that developers can use to access those directories, but none of those procedures have been mentioned in this thread. Even then, those methods only apply to one specific application that a developer is building. I have no idea what will happen if you move aside the entire directory containing sandboxes for all of your apps.

Hopefully, you haven't done any further damage and you should definitely restart. But first, I would like you to run and post and EtreCheck report. Do that even before testing with a new user account. The report will be more effective if you don't restart first. Restarting erases some of the data that EtreCheck uses to diagnose your machine. But afterwards, yes, you should most definitely restart.

You've been that you "scrambled the preferences and settings for all of your Apple apps and anything purchased from the Mac App Store." I don't need to tell you that that statement is completely false, because you already know it.

You've also been told that there are no files in the hidden Library folder that are "meant to be accessed by end users." That's equally false, as you can see from the Apple Support articles linked below:

Apple Configurator: Backing up and restoring data - Apple Support

Apple Configurator: Managing iOS device software - Apple Support

Uninstall or disable Apple Remote Desktop - Apple Support

Logic Remote doesn't connect to your Mac after update to iOS 8 - Apple Support

If Preview unexpectedly quits when opening documents - Apple Support

Every one of those articles was written by Apple, and every one of them directs end users to make changes inside the Library folder as part of a problem-solving procedure.

You've been told by the person who gave you all that false information that he doesn't know what will happen if you move the Containers folder. That statement may actually be true: he doesn't know—yet, oddly, he does claim to know that you've caused damage. I, however, do know what will happen, because I've done it myself.

Finally, there's something else you should know. On the Internet, the reddest of all red flags of danger is the stranger on a website who is eager to do something for you, but only if you download and run an unknown application of his making or his choosing. Before you even consider following such advice, you must do careful research to determine whether this stranger is to be trusted. Does he, for example, provide false and misleading information?

Hello again doniponi,

First of all, let me apologize for the members of Apple Support Communities. The aggression, hostility, and personal attacks you are seeing in this thread is becoming all too common. But since there is an attempt to sow confusion and misleading information in this thread, I will take this opportunity to correct some of that.

Regarding those support links...

Apple Configurator: Backing up and restoring data - Apple Support

Yes, Apple does consider the "Containers" folder to be important enough to backup if you are using a third-party backup program instead of Apple's Time Machine. That is why it should not be casually discarded.

Apple Configurator: Managing iOS device software - Apple Support

Yes, if you are a network administrator managing iOS devices, you might have to manually add files to some hidden directories.

Uninstall or disable Apple Remote Desktop - Apple Support

Yes, if you want to completely uninstall Apple Remote Desktop, another tool for network administrators, then you might have to delete these files.

Logic Remote doesn't connect to your Mac after update to iOS 8 - Apple Support

Yes, Apple does recommend deleting one specific file for one specific app in one specific case. But if I understand your question correctly, you are having problems with Numbers, not Logic Remote.

If Preview unexpectedly quits when opening documents - Apple Support

Yes, there are ways to safely manage preferences in sandboxed apps. This support document gives an example of how to correctly use the "defaults" command instead of deleting files and directories. This is one of those "specific, safe ways" to manage preferences. It is unfortunate that this command was not mentioned before in this thread. Hopefully when people see this reply, they will think twice before manually deleting such directories.

If I wanted to, I'm sure I could dig up a hundred Apple Support documents that are meant for network administrators or describe low-level hacks to fix specific problems. But those documents apply only to those specific administration task or those specific problems. They aren't meant to be applied to just any old problem one comes across. There are no Apple Support documents that instruct the user to delete the entire "Containers" directory.

Yes, I do claim to know that there is some damage to the data on your machine. If there wasn't, you obviously wouldn't be here asking for help to correct it, and people trying to help you wouldn't have to respond to these personal attacks.

No, I do not know what additional damage has been caused by following the instructions in this thread. That is what we software engineers call "undefined behaviour" and is actually worse than a known problem. With a known problem, you know what the problem is and can correct it. With "undefined behaviour", you don't know what damage has been caused or how to fix it. I do know is that any sandboxed app, or portion thereof, may have become corrupt by moving that folder. I don't know about you, but I have 124 subdirectories inside "Containers" for at least 124 different apps, including most Apple apps. I strongly suggest running all of your Apple software to make sure everything is working properly. Hopefully, no permanent damage was done and you won't have to erase your account and restore from backup.

And yes, by all means, do careful research to determine whether applications, scripts, or "strangers on the internet" are trustworthy. You may, indeed, find "false and misleading information" in a web forum just like this one.

Here are some more support articles with directions to open the user Library folder:

If custom alert sounds don't appear after upgrading to El Capitan - Apple Support

Mail (Yosemite): If messages aren’t displayed or appear incorrect

Mail (El Capitan): Use scripts as rule actions

Compressor 4.1: Opens to a gray window - Apple Support

Mail (Yosemite): Create or delete mailboxes

OS X El Capitan: Use a PPP connection terminal script

Stop pop-up ads and adware in Safari - Apple Support

If Safari is slow, stops responding, quits unexpectedly, or has other issues - Apple Support