leveleyed
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Finder won't relaunch even after force quit

On an early 2013 MacBook Pro retina, Mavericks 10.9.5, anytime I try to relaunch finder it seems to quit (icons all disappear, no more menu bar for finder, app not running in activity monitor, doesn't show in force quit menu), but will not relaunch, even via terminal command. cmd+tab and I still see the finder icon. It's as if it quits, but the system doesn't think it did, and I can't start it again, and end up needing to reboot my machine every time. I've tried running repair permissions on my disk. Not sure what else to do. Any help resolving this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), null

Posted on Feb 27, 2016 12:33 PM

by Eric Root,Apple recommended
Eric Root Eric Root
Level 9 (74,064 points)
iTunes
A:

Might be a corrupt .plist.

 

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

 

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.  Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist.  Move the .plists to your desktop.

 

Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plists from the desktop.

 

If the same, return the .plists to where you got it  from, overwriting the newer one.

 

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.F

Posted on Feb 28, 2016 8:53 AM

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leveleyed

Q: Finder won't relaunch even after force quit

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  • by Hugh Master Of Technology,

    Hugh Master Of Technology Hugh Master Of Technology Feb 27, 2016 1:00 PM in response to leveleyed
    Level 2 (181 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 27, 2016 1:00 PM in response to leveleyed

    Do you have all updates installed? (could be a fix in an update)

  • by leveleyed,

    leveleyed leveleyed Feb 27, 2016 1:08 PM in response to Hugh Master Of Technology
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2016 1:08 PM in response to Hugh Master Of Technology

    I'm not sure, but I doubt it. I had 10.9.3 installed and had a system failure several months ago, and had OS 10.9.5 installed at an Apple Store in order to fix it. I have a lot of pro audio apps I use that are finicky about updates. Some got buggy with the switch from 10.9.3 to 10.9.5, and don't perform as well as they used to (guessing the newer OS version is more CPU hungry), so I'd like to avoid updating anything unless I absolutely have to, and just get to the bottom of the issue some other way. Also, I should mention, the first time after restarting the machine, I am able to restart finder ok. But after I sleep the system, and wake it later, that's when it seems to be unable to restart finder from that point on without a reboot.

  • by Hugh Master Of Technology,

    Hugh Master Of Technology Hugh Master Of Technology Feb 27, 2016 1:13 PM in response to leveleyed
    Level 2 (181 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 27, 2016 1:13 PM in response to leveleyed

    do you know if all of you pro apps comparable with OS El Capitan?

    Because it sounds like something has broke with mavericks you can reinstall it with OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support just remember if you do that to back up all of your files.

  • by leveleyed,

    leveleyed leveleyed Feb 27, 2016 1:27 PM in response to Hugh Master Of Technology
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2016 1:27 PM in response to Hugh Master Of Technology

    No, all of my apps are most definitely not compatible with El Capitan. And I'm trying to avoid another OS reinstall, so the recovery option might not be for me as well.  Besides, it wasn't that long ago that the Apple Store installed iOS 10.9.5 on my MacBook, so I doubt going through that process again will resolve this issue. Also, it takes a very long time to install and set up all the audio software and plug-ins I use. I'd rather avoid that at all costs and just continue dealing with the need to reboot to restart finder occasionally. I'm just hoping someone here knows enough about the Mac OS and how finder works to give some insight into why it may not be properly quitting and restarting.  Maybe there is some thread that finder is hanging onto so that it won't completely quit that I am able to quit the process of manually from activity monitor or something like that.

  • by Eric Root,Apple recommended

    Eric Root Eric Root Feb 28, 2016 8:53 AM in response to leveleyed
    Level 9 (74,064 points)
    iTunes
    Feb 28, 2016 8:53 AM in response to leveleyed

    Might be a corrupt .plist.

     

    Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

     

    Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.  Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist.  Move the .plists to your desktop.

     

    Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plists from the desktop.

     

    If the same, return the .plists to where you got it  from, overwriting the newer one.

     

    Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.F

  • by notcloudy,

    notcloudy notcloudy Feb 28, 2016 3:37 PM in response to leveleyed
    Level 4 (1,200 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 28, 2016 3:37 PM in response to leveleyed

    leveleyed wrote:

     

    On an early 2013 MacBook Pro retina, Mavericks 10.9.5, anytime I try to relaunch finder it seems to quit (icons all disappear, no more menu bar for finder, app not running in activity monitor, doesn't show in force quit menu), but will not relaunch, even via terminal command. cmd+tab and I still see the finder icon. It's as if it quits, but the system doesn't think it did, and I can't start it again, and end up needing to reboot my machine every time. I've tried running repair permissions on my disk. Not sure what else to do. Any help resolving this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

    Was just going to post something on this as it just happened to me.

     

    I can tell you for sure this is a bug that goes all the way back to Snow Leopard.

     

    I had powered up my system - - start was slow for some reason - possibly unix or finder - so took about 5 minutes to get to the desktop - opened activity monitor from my desktop alias and waited for it to settle down - tried to open the GO menu only to get a freeze -- actually managed to get the option/command/escape keys to bring up force quite -- forced quit non-responding finder -- took the option to relaunch -- the desktop did not have any icons or top bar but the dock was there.   on trying to open a stack item in finder - had an error - but opening preview from the dock brought up the top menu bar so I could restart -- and everything was okay.

     

    Since a jam up caused by spotlight finder indexing - have moved my folders and Caches folder into the private section of spotlight in an effort to cut down on its activity.