Catalina 10.15.1: problems opening files, multiple applications

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ajfisher1970 Author

Level 1

50 points

Catalina 10.15.1: problems opening files, multiple applications

Since upgrading to Catalina on my Macbook Air (2015) I have had occasional problems opening files in multiple applications, including (so far) Preview, Keynote, MS Word, Scrivener, and others. When trying to open a file, I get the simple message "The file [X] could not be opened", with no further information. There do not seem to be permissions problems with the files themselves.

Rebooting the computer seems to resolve the problem, but then within a couple of days it crops up again. Has anyone had a similar issue, and is there a solution?

Thanks.

MacBook Air 13", OS X 10.11

Posted on Nov 21, 2019 11:40 AM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

153,610 points

Nov 21, 2019 12:28 PM in response to ajfisher1970

Please determine if the same problems occur in "Safe Mode": Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac .

Needless to say, if you are using any non-Apple "anti-virus", "cleaning", or "Internet security" junk, anything at all in that broad category of useless garbage, don't. A lot of things won't work if you do.

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Answer 2

ajfisher1970 Author

Level 1

50 points

Nov 27, 2019 07:35 AM in response to ajfisher1970

Problem possibly solved after an online chat with Apple. Resetting permissions in the Home folder seems to have resolved the issue.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT203538

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Answer 3

Juroski

Level 1

8 points

Nov 21, 2019 01:07 PM in response to ajfisher1970

Same thing started happening on my iMac 2017 recently (after Catalina upgrade). I can't open ANY file, weather from inside an app or double-click/right click open with... All is fine after a reboot, then after a while it starts again.

Workaround I've discovered... I have no problems opening files in "Downloads" folder, go figure. So I copy (since I can't even move) a file to Downloads folder and then open with a double-click. This is concerning, I initially suspected my "Fusion Drive", but if it was a hardware issue, it wouldn't open fresh after a reboot either, right?

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Answer 4

ajfisher1970 Author

Level 1

50 points

Nov 21, 2019 02:25 PM in response to Juroski

This may or may not be relevant, but recently I've also noticed there are times where my Microsoft Office applications in particular (Word, Excel) simply will not open files. You double-click them from Finder, or select them from the Office menu, and literally nothing happens. Here too, a reboot solves the problem. Hard to tell if it's related.

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Answer 5

ajfisher1970 Author

Level 1

50 points

Dec 2, 2019 01:30 PM in response to Juroski

The problem recurred for me after about a week after I followed the repairing permissions procedure. I ran the procedure again today and it seems to have cleared it up. No idea why the problem keeps recurring, though.

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Answer 6

ajfisher1970 Author

Level 1

50 points

Nov 21, 2019 12:33 PM in response to John Galt

Booting into safe mode does resolve the problem (as does *any* reboot of the machine). Logging in and out my user account does not have an effect, though.

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Answer 7

Juroski

Level 1

8 points

Nov 29, 2019 04:09 PM in response to ajfisher1970

Successfully reset home folder permissions and ran terminal command.

This did NOT resolve the problem for me.

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Catalina 10.15.1: problems opening files, multiple applications

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