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screen shot .png couldn’t be opened in Catalina

Ever since I upgraded to Catalina on my MacBook air, I have trouble with opening Pages. After opening a few, I receive a popup saying the file cannot be opened. NOW I am getting the same response with trying open a screen shot "The file xxxxxx.png couldn’t be opened". What is goin on? I need these tools on a daily basis (and there is no point attaching the sheet shot here, since it can't be opened)

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 14, 2019 1:13 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 14, 2019 7:50 PM

I've never changed permissions. Something happened to my files and ability to open many after upgrading to Catalina. I wish I could go back to the previous OS ... do you know if I can and which it was?

14 replies

Dec 4, 2019 4:34 AM in response to mikeinnorfolk

I've just tried out the earlier 'solution' (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203538) which includes typing code using the Terminal App.

Using Apple was an escape from such dated (MS-DOS) procedures for those who used Apple kit simply to 'do' things.

Have I missed something, I can't believe that Apple would not fix this.

Someone please tell me: itsa me, not Apple !

(or should I reverse into Win10 ?)


Nov 21, 2019 10:00 PM in response to oldstudent1

Someone posted in another forum this solution, which has worked for me. I can now open numbers files, pages, .png sheet shots. 'course, it's only day one :)


  1. Open 'Activity Monitor', and type 'filecoordinationd' in the top right search bar (this should filter only that process)
  2. Then, double click on it, and on the details window, click 'Quit'.
  3. It will give you an alert that this process is owned by 'root'. Select 'Force Quit' just to make sure it will :)


This should do the trick.

Nov 14, 2019 10:55 PM in response to marcelavig

OH MY GOODNESS - your solution worked (so far). I am able to open files I was unable to open before ... and while I sometimes could open files for a period of time (hours, not days), I would often have to reboot when I started getting the pop-up. I am encouraged that I am able now (after rebooking, however) to open the screenshot .png that i was unable to open earlier.


Thank you for the link and for explaining to me that you hadn't changed any Permissions either!

screen shot .png couldn’t be opened in Catalina

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