Snow Leopard - app just bounces doesn't open

[OldCorpse]

I'm on OS X 10.6.8 with all the updates. I'm trying to launch journler 2.5.4, which I've been using daily for years. I tried to click on it from the dock, it bounces maybe 50 times, then quits bouncing without launching. I tried launching it from the Applications folder, same deal. When it bounces for awhile, if I try to force quit it, it'll quit, but relaunching it simply again bounces. If I leave it to bounce, it'll bounce like 50 times, and quit bouncing, but I can no longer even try to make it launch - the icon doesn't react. I opened Activity Monitor, and found that it is still running, even though I can't launch it. I force quit it in Activity Monitor. I tried launching again - it started bouncing a bunch of times, then stopped. And again I can't even get it to bounce, have to quit it in Activity Monitor and so on. I have repaired permissions. What is going on?

 

[nwbusa]

Have you rebooted?

 

[Intell]

Have you tried restarting the Mac?

If that doesn't work, startup from the Mac DVD and repair the drive's permissions using Disk Utility on the DVD.

If that still doesn't work, your hard drive may be dying.

 

[OldCorpse]

I rebooted the iMac, then again repaired permissions. Then I tried launching journler - it's doing the same thing. FWIW, the other apps are behaving normally so far. This sucks. I had a 4 years worth of data in journler.

 

[OldCorpse]

OK, I simply re-installed journler - a newer version I downloaded. All my data is intact! That's fantastic that I didn't lose any data. I'm still a bit shellshocked that this happened though, and worried what this might mean. Just to be safe, I'm going to do a full disk backup of my HDD using SuperDuper (I already use Time Machine).

So immediate crisis averted, but does anyone want to take a guess at what's going on, and should I be panicking right now?

 

[Intell]

So immediate crisis averted, but does anyone want to take a guess at what's going on, and should I be panicking right now?

My guess is that an update (10.6.8?) caused a bug to appear and didn't allow the app to launch correctly.

 

[OldCorpse]

My guess is that an update (10.6.8?) caused a bug to appear and didn't allow the app to launch correctly.

You know, it's funny you should say that, because indeed I did an update this morning just before that, but it wasn't the 10.6.8, it was the one where they are preparing you for Lion and a bunch of other things. After I restarted, my whole iMac was way slow, even the finder is slow opening windows! I'm afraid you may be right, this update screwed something up... ugh