Preview randomly quits unexpectedly

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Level 1

43 points

Preview randomly quits unexpectedly

On my MacBook Pro 15" running High Sierra 10.13.3, the Preview app is frequently crashing ("Quits unexpectedly"). I use Preview very often, and it will crash a couple of times every day. Preview continues to be fully usable. When a crash happens, choosing "Reopen" solves the problem… until the next crash. But this is getting annoying, and I'm tiring waiting for a system update to make the problem go away.

I believe this started when I upgraded to High Sierra, many months ago. It has happened for so long, it clearly is not document-specific. It is difficult to notice much of a pattern. But I think the crashes occur most often when Preview is already running with no documents open, and I open a document by double clicking in Finder.

Any suggestions? I'm hoping that it is something like a corrupted plist; something that could be solved with a well placed file regeneration. (Reinstalling just Preview isn't an option, is it?)

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Feb 22, 2018 9:00 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

James6M Author

Level 1

43 points

Mar 1, 2018 7:45 PM in response to James6M

Report one week after deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.* :

1) It appears to be true that Preview does not any longer use any preference files in ~/Library/Preferences, since the application has not regenerated those preference files.

2) I have not experienced the crashing problem in the past week. Perhaps even though Preview doesn't use those files, it was continuing to get messed up by them.

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Answer 2

Feb 22, 2018 9:14 PM in response to James6M

You can try deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.plist

See if it helps.

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Answer 3

tygb

Level 9

65,010 points

Feb 22, 2018 11:35 PM in response to James6M

Every time moving .plist of an app to the desktop may or may not work .

You can try this method -

Enter in user library ( ~/Library ) please use the path > Mac HD > users > Home folder > library > containers > com.apple.preview > data > library > preferences > right click on com.apple.preview.plist and move to desktop . Restart the machine from apple logo .

The best and easy work around is switch to the new user account How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 4

tygb

Level 9

65,010 points

Feb 23, 2018 10:26 PM in response to James6M

The advice given by country girl 56 can be tried but first .plist of preview from preferences folder is moved to the desktop , restart the machine and then open web browser , open preview for some time the .plist will be regenerated.

But the .plist must " never " be put back or overwritten as the first .plist was corrupted .

Safari has a property to regenerate .plist .

Note : If any any application is corrupted , open disk utility through spotlight and click on first aid for Macintosh HD and Apple SSD individually a green check mark must appear and exit code should come as zero and it should not be 1 .

This is to be checked , and for every time .plist removal method for applications may or may not be applied or will give fruitful result .

The , solutions are create a new user account and observe it .

And if it doesn't help if you'r data is backed up erase the HD and reinstall operating system .

Some prefere archive installation , but superior is erasing method .

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Answer 5

James6M Author

Level 1

43 points

Feb 23, 2018 9:53 PM in response to James6M

Thanks for suggestions. Since problem occurs at unpredictable times, testing in another user account is not feasible. I will try the other suggestions in turn.

Question: If Preview is now sandboxed in ~/Library/Containers/…, does that mean that Preview no longer uses the location ~/Library/Preferences/? I did have com.apple.Preview.* files in the Preferences folder, which is the first solution I am testing. After removing them, running Preview does not seem to regenerate files in that folder.

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Preview randomly quits unexpectedly

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