Terminal app crashing repeatedly on Sierra

I use Terminal heavily, usually with multiple shells open and a text editor (vi) running in at least one. Terminal crashes without warning, all windows disappearing simultaneously. This is happening to me at least once per day, and usually more often. AFAIK it happens only when I am actively typing into one window, and not while using the menubar, etc. I have my defaults set to focus-follows-mouse, not the normal click-to-type:

% defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES

Although Terminal may have very occasionally crashed on me pre-Sierra, it certainly never did it this often. (And yes, I have ALWAYS used focus-follows-mouse.)

This is hugely annoying -- any ideas?

Thanks!

Posted on Dec 15, 2016 11:32 AM

22 replies

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Dec 20, 2016 11:56 AM in response to RogerDavis

RogerDavis,

We understand your concerns. We would still advise looking into these support options in order to have this issue further investigated. For the best support, you would want to contact us with the information for the device in question.

Regarding your last question, you can find out a little more about our Community Specialist role here:

New Team: Community Specialists | Official Apple Support Communities

Cheers!

Dec 23, 2016 6:20 AM in response to john henning

I'm also having this issue. Just annotating here to raise the noise.

I'm running a 13in MacBook pro early 2015 with OS X 10.12.2.

I haven't specifically noticed if it happens with other apps, but it certainly seems to happen when interacting with vim and possibly git as well (though maybe that is git trying to launch vim for message records).

I can try additional troubleshooting efforts if some are thought of, but it seems pretty clear there is an issue associated with the latest OS X update in Terminal.app itself.

dsandber

Level 1

4 points

Dec 27, 2016 3:29 PM in response to RogerDavis

Terminal is crashing for me quite often, sometimes 10 times in 5 minutes. Sierra is otherwise working great.

I am using "screen" and "emacs" in the terminal.

MacOS Sierra 10.12.1, Late 2013 Retina 15"

I desperately need a work-around. Please escalate as "re-install Sierra" is not a promising solution.

Dec 28, 2016 7:52 AM in response to dsandber

dsandber wrote:

I desperately need a work-around.

See related thread

Re: Re: Terminal.app crashing: Can I disable callbacks?

for a candidate workaround recipe (entry from Dec 18, 2016 6:22 PM)

I have been adding a summary to the related thread every now and then; the most recent summary is, at this moment, the last reply, on page 5.

dsandber

Level 1

4 points

Jan 9, 2017 10:06 AM in response to john henning

Thanks. I ended up upgrading to 10.12.2 and so far the problem has not occurred.

Jan 10, 2017 2:10 PM in response to indiekiduk2

Having the same experience, thanks for figuring out the cause! Found any workaround yet?

smachaje

Level 1

4 points

May 11, 2017 7:43 AM in response to RogerDavis

I have a very depressing solution to my terminal crashing problem:

http://putty-for-mac.soft32.com/

putty for Mac 😟

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Terminal app crashing repeatedly on Sierra