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Leopard's Preview app doesn't work. Help.

lord patton

lord patton

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 6, 2005
1,053
15
Chicago
It just doesn't work. If I double click on a PDF, Preview opens but displays nothing. If I open Preview and command-o to open a file, nothing happens. I've also tried opening jpegs with the same (non)-result.

I haven't heard anyone else have this issue. Any ideas? FWIW, quick look works fine with pdfs (and is a good work around for the time being).
 
3 hours on the phone with AppleCare and still no solution. What I know:

Preview works in a new user account.
Preview worked immediately after installation of Leopard last Friday night.
I haven't downloaded any new programs or done anything unusual since that time.

What we tried:

Repairing permissions (takes a LONGGGGGG time in Leopard)
Verifying the disk.
Trashing the Preview preferences.
Trashing all the preferences.
Removing all login and startup items.

And some other stuff, but nothing worked. The "product specialist" (who did know what he was doing, unlike the first lady I talked to) has sent it to engineering, so they might get back to me.

If it persists, I might do a clean install. For now, though, I can live with it, since QuickLook works.
 
Same issue

I have the same issue, FWIW. I did an in-place upgrade to Leopard from Tiger. I'd love to know if they help you resolve it in any way.
 
Note that these messages show up in the console log when Preview attempts to open a file:

11/1/07 9:41:20 PM Preview[340] tempFileFolderPath failed
11/1/07 9:41:20 PM Preview[340] *** -[NSPathStore2 rangeOfString:eek:ptions:range:locale:]: nil argument

Googling for tempFileFolderPath returns nothing useful.
 
mcdonc said:
Note that these messages show up in the console log when Preview attempts to open a file:

11/1/07 9:41:20 PM Preview[340] tempFileFolderPath failed
11/1/07 9:41:20 PM Preview[340] *** -[NSPathStore2 rangeOfString:eek:ptions:range:locale:]: nil argument
.
Click to expand...

My product specialist had me look at the console log, as well. Same error messages, too. He had me send him some data from system profiler, so just know that some engineer in Cupertino (or wherever) might get around to figuring out what's happening.

I think I'm going to clean install and start over.
 
Fixed it...

I fixed it, at least temporarily.

The permissions on my admin user's temporary directory were incorrect:

[chrism@vitaminf Preferences]$ ls -alR $TMPDIR
/var/folders/dB/dByJ-qkiE6igZD4Yrm+nMk+++TI/-Tmp-/:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root chrism 102 2007-11-01 03:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root chrism 136 2007-11-01 03:20 ..
prw------- 1 chrism chrism 0 2007-11-01 02:27 com.apple.notify.125.30
[chrism@vitaminf Preferences]$ touch $TMPDIR/foo
touch: cannot touch `/var/folders/dB/dByJ-qkiE6igZD4Yrm+nMk+++TI/-Tmp-//foo': Permission denied
chrism@vitaminf Preferences]$ sudo chmod 775 $TMPDIR
Password:
[chrism@vitaminf Preferences]$ ls -alR $TMPDIR
/var/folders/dB/dByJ-qkiE6igZD4Yrm+nMk+++TI/-Tmp-/:
total 0
drwxrwxr-x 3 root chrism 102 2007-11-01 03:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root chrism 136 2007-11-01 03:20 ..
prw------- 1 chrism chrism 0 2007-11-01 02:27 com.apple.notify.125.30
[chrism@vitaminf Preferences]$ touch $TMPDIR/foo

I'm not entirely sure how TMPDIR is composed, whether it changes after each logout, or what, but this fixed it for my current session.
 
Same problem with me. Thanks mcdonc, your workaround works around perfectly. Hope that Apple fixes this issue soon.
 
support...

I did call support and they verified that this fix should be "permanent" (it will persist across logouts and shutdowns).
 
I have this same problem with Preview. I tried

sudo chmod 775 $TMPDIR

I gave sudo my password, and it the permissions are 775 (rwxrwxr-x).
But Preview still doesn't work, even after a reboot.

Anyone else seeing this bug?
 
I found a fix on the Apple discussion boards. Turns out that my $TMPDIR directory permissions were ok (rwxrwxr-x), but the group ownership was wrong. Changing the group ownership worked:

chgrp -R staff $TMPDIR
 
So preview stopped working, so i deleted it and was going to reinstall it from the os x disk. however, it is not listed under the optional installs like mail.app, iCal, iChat, etc. are. How do i get preview.app back?
 
ironsidephoto said:
So preview stopped working, so i deleted it and was going to reinstall it from the os x disk. however, it is not listed under the optional installs like mail.app, iCal, iChat, etc. are. How do i get preview.app back?
Click to expand...

Mac OS X is PDF based so Preview is not just another application, it's part of the OS, you will need to reinstall OS X.
 
ironsidephoto said:
So preview stopped working, so i deleted it and was going to reinstall it from the os x disk. however, it is not listed under the optional installs like mail.app, iCal, iChat, etc. are. How do i get preview.app back?
Click to expand...

Preview is just a package with the executable inside bundled up into an application and to open jpgs, pdfs etc Preview uses the core frameworks and other thingos in the System folder, so if you didnt delete those your fine.

to reinstall Preview use Pacifist to open your 1st install disc by clicking "Open Apple Install Discs". after a while it will ask you to insert the 2nd install disc and then the first again but just press skip twice and reinsert the 1st install disc. then search for "Preview.app" and then click "Install" at the top left.
 
richthomas said:
Preview is just a package with the executable inside bundled up into an application and to open jpgs, pdfs etc Preview uses the core frameworks and other thingos in the System folder, so if you didnt delete those your fine.

to reinstall Preview use Pacifist to open your 1st install disc by clicking "Open Apple Install Discs". after a while it will ask you to insert the 2nd install disc and then the first again but just press skip twice and reinsert the 1st install disc. then search for "Preview.app" and then click "Install" at the top left.
Click to expand...



thank u very much, it really worked...thanks a lot... :)
 
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