Dictionary.app in Sierra keeps crashing

Hi,

I updated my OS from El Capitan to Sierra a few days ago and soon I found Dictionary.app doesn't work.

It always crashes by the segmentation fault (SEGV) at startup. 100% reproducible. It seems to access NULL pointer.

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

Dictionary.app version is 2.2.1 (194), and OS version is 10.12.5 (16F73).

I had installed (or enabled) non-default dictionaries several years ago. I don't remember the details but I think I had modified some configuration file (I forgot the filetype but possibly it was an XML file) manually with vim command.

I wonder if it would be the cause of the problem. But I cannot confirm.

Does somebody know the location of the configuration file of Dictionary.app?

Another thing I noticed is that /Library/Dictionaries (not ~/Library/Dictionary) directory has gone. I tried to copy the /Library/Dictionaries from my secondary Mac running El Capitan, but it didn't make any change (so I removed the copied directory).

Can somebody tell the valid location of the collection of dictionaries (for Dictionary.app) on Sierra?

Self replying. I could fix it, at least in my case.

I switched to the sub-user account, who has never used Dictionary.app, and launched Dictionary.app.

It didn't cause SEGV. It showed a dialog to confirm starting of download of some dictionaries.

I switched back to the main-user account and copied Dictionary.app configuration files from sub-user's directory.

$ sudo cp /Users/_sub_user_/Library/Caches/com.apple.DictionaryServices/DictionaryCache.p list /tmp/

$ cd ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.DictionaryServices

$ mv DictionaryCache.plist DictionaryCache.plist.backup

$ cp /tmp/DictionaryCache.plist ./

$ sudo cp /Users/_sub_user_/Library/Preferences/com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist /tmp/

$ cd ~/Library/Preferences

$ mv com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist.backup

$ cp /tmp/com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist ./

But the Dictionary.app was still crashing with same SEGV at this point.

I tried logout-and-logon of the main-user account, but this was not effective.

Next, I restarted the system, and logon with the main-user account. Then Dictionary.app started successfully!

It started to download some additional dictionaries, after a confirmation dialog. So I suppose there is another config file to store enabled dictionary list that I couldn't find.

By the way, I found the configuration file what I was looking (as above) and the way to edit it as XML was this:

$ cd ~/Library/Preferences

$ cp -p com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist.backup

$ plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist

$ vim com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist

$ plutil -convert binary1 com.apple.DictionaryServices.plist

I have the same problem.

Any solution or update coming?

I have the same problem and I need it to be fixed quick. Can anyone please find a solution to this?

Same here, any much crash reports sent to Apple but still no fix 😟

someone gets this on the beta macOS Sierra in Feb 2016,

Re: Re: Dictionary Usually Crashes When Clearing Search Field

maybe they don't care

Same here. Problem hasn't been solved in mac OS 10.12.1.

Does anybody know a fix?

Could someone post the full crash log?

I just looked up thirty words in a row with zero issues from Dictionary.

Not seeing any problems with Dictionary here.

Does the problem happen also in Safe Mode? (most likely, the answer is no)

Does the problem happen also if logged in to a different user account?

Hi William,

This is the log that etrecheck.app generates link: http://pastebin.com/bgMMPfGj

And this is the console.app log link: http://pastebin.com/y0eejHh3

Do you mind check it out? Thanks.

Hi Luis,

keep cashing in safe mode(macOS Sierra Version10.12.1), I didn't try log in to a different user account

You have "clean my mac" and it is impossible to say how much it has already damaged your system.

NEVER use programs that claim to "clean" stuff out of your mac. They delete things that should be left alone.

They interfere with how the OS manages memory, degrading performance and causing crashes.

You may try uninstalling but that may not be enough, as the damage has already been done.

You really should do a clean install of your system, test temporarily, then migrate only user accounts, but not settings or applications (lest you bring back the very stuff that hosed your system).

Hi everyone,

I don't have "Clean my Mac" here, but Simbooster that does more or less the same things (I guess). But Dictionary.app crash only on my iMac with Sierre (less since the recent update but still crashing) but never on my Macbook Pro 2008 with Capital.

So, maybe "Clean my Mac" is not the problem.

Hi Luis,

Thanks a lot, I did a clean install of system, migrate data Manually.

Before, it crashing almost every minute. Now, Dictionary.app still crash, but not very frequently.

http://pastebin.com/jESb3mYP

Which part of the problem report do you want to see? The whole thing?