Resolved File Associations just went haywire - where's the "master list?"

[T Coma]

I haven't installed anything new, including updates, for a while. No website browsing other than my usual 10 or 15 "safe" sites either. Regardless, the other day my iMac running el Cap 10.11.6 decided to change up some file associations. A few examples: double clicking on a JPG tries to open Acrobat, PXM won't open with Pixelmator, Office files are misdirected, etc.

I know how to change individual file associations easily enough, but I don't know how many file types have been scrambled. I'd like to look at a list of file types and their associated applications, as I believe Windows allows (not sure, it's been a while.)

Is there a way to do this other than one by one? I'm not even sure how many file types there are on this ~7 year old rig, but I'm sure I don't know all of them.

 

[Weaselboy]

Run this command in Terminal to rebuild the launch services database.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

 

[T Coma]

Thanks, that seems to have corrected the first few I tried.

Still curious though if there is command to detail all of the file associations.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks, that seems to have corrected the first few I tried.

Still curious though if there is command to detail all of the file associations.

If you go to ~/Library/Preferences/ and use quicklook on the file com.apple.LaunchServices.plist it will show you extensions you have customized for your account.

 

[T Coma]

If you go to ~/Library/Preferences/ and use quicklook on the file com.apple.LaunchServices.plist it will show you extensions you have customized for your account.

That list isn't there - at least not running El Capitan. But no big deal, just curious.

More curious though is how the file association, repaired with your command line code listed above, reverts back to it's error state after a few weeks. I've found that the same thing happens occasionally with the Open with... "fetching" delay solution found here as well. That is, the problem returns eventually. I don't know if the two are related.

 

[T Coma]

UPDATE

It was Firefox.

Lots of scrounging around on other forums resulted in a list of folks having the same problems, and it turns out that we were all using Firefox. I tried going back to Safari, and while file associations were good while using Safari, it was too problematic otherwise to continue using it. I can no longer support Google via Chrome in good conscience, so I've been running Opera now for the last couple weeks and file associations have been performing as intended.

I've since removed Firefox from my Mac, and have been enjoying Opera with its fast loads, free VPN and unaffected file associations since.