When Filemaker 8 Goes Bad

October 29, 2006 6:56 AM

Filemaker Pro 8 refuses to launch. Why? Mac OSX 10.4 Server, Powermac G4 Quicksilver, 1GB RAM. It ran fine for months and then, with no changes to anything, just started crashing on startup, with no warning or dialogue boxes. I've deleted preferences, fixed permissions on all drives, reinstalled FM8, removed FM7 (which I also had on the machine) to no avail. Trying to avoid reinstalling OS X server. Advice?
posted by fourcheesemac to computers & internet (10 comments total)

Is there anything in your Console.app, either in the system log or the console log, that indicates what's happening?
posted by Remy at 7:14 AM on October 29, 2006

Have you applied the latest Filemaker Pro (8.0.2) updater or Filemaker Server 8 updater (8.0.4)? Before I re-installed a server operating system, I would surely look through the server logs for errors for a crashing application, and try to work through problems found, first. Perhaps you have some scripting problems on databases you try to open at startup, etc.
posted by paulsc at 7:19 AM on October 29, 2006

Does the server crash on start-up, or FMP? Your question is ambiguous.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:39 AM on October 29, 2006

Server runs fine and does not crash. FM Pro 8 crashes whether I launch a particular database or start the app cold. I get a splash screen, then it shuts down.

Thanks for the advice so far.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:16 AM on October 29, 2006

Try starting FMP from a different account. This will test whether the problem lies with FMP or your main account.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:23 AM on October 29, 2006

I second Remy's advice.

Application crashes register in the Utilities > Console application.

Look in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter for crash information from FileMaker Pro entries.

You may be able to contact FileMaker for technical support armed with these crash reports.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:46 AM on October 29, 2006

I once had a similar issue; it had to do with corrupted preferences. Something about the printer settings, I believe. Anyway, trashing the prefs fixed the problem. This was FileMaker 6.5.
posted by snickerdoodle at 11:12 AM on October 29, 2006

Also, be sure to check the console log using Console.app for clues that might not appear on screen otherwise.

But crash reports are good, too, if you know a little bit. Last week, I was in a weird situation where something like 10 of 15 login items would all crash after launch, then after relaunch, only eventually (and randomly) successfully starting. Once the started, though, they worked just fine.

I finally got fed up and started looking at some crash logs, and they were all in pretty much the same place - an address inside "ATSServer". That's "ATS" as in "Apple Type Services". I used Tinkertool System to delete the font cache and restarted, and no problems since.

Not that you're having font problems, but looking at all the info is probably preferable to reinstalling and hoping that fixes it.
posted by mdeatherage at 11:47 AM on October 29, 2006

I'm back. There is nothing in the crash log. FM8 launches fine under a different user account. Installed the updater. Nada. Any thoughts, anyone still reading?
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:43 PM on October 30, 2006

Logged into the account under which FMP crashes, delete any FileMaker items in ~/Library/Preferences. Also delete all items in ~/Library/Caches and logout/login.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:47 AM on October 31, 2006