my apps have short term memory!

December 14, 2007 6:54 AM

my apps are acting funny when they start up

I'm on Tiger and everything works fine except these 2 apps that I installed today. Both Mailplane and DEVONthink Pro keep asking me the same sort of things when I start them up.

for eg, Mailplane shows me this dialog box that basically welcomes me to well, Mailplane...and asks if I wanna install the iPhoto plugin and iff I wanna use it as my default email client and all that. I can make my selections and click on 'Finish' a hundred times and Mailplane always starts up with that dialog box.

and DEVONthink presents me with a dialog box, asking if I wanna install a bunch of add-ons. and then, asks me to create a new database. even though, I already have one.

to cut the already long story short, the apps act like I'm starting them up for the first time each time I start them up.

and this is only with these 2 apps that I installed today. everything else is fine!

what could be wrong?? please help!

posted by mordecai to computers & internet (5 comments total)

While I hate these witch doctor solutions, it does sound like you have a permissions problem (the app can't write to its preferences file that tells it it's not the first open.) You can repair your permissions in Disk Utility, it's pretty quick. Give that a go.
posted by neustile at 7:11 AM on December 14, 2007

It does sound like a permissions problem. Make sure you're starting an installed app in your Applications folder, and not something from a mounted disk image installer (voice of experience..).
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 7:19 AM on December 14, 2007

I agree that it sounds like a permissions problem. More specifically, it sounds like neither app is writing things to ~/Library (Probably both ~/Library/Preferences and ~/L/Application Support). You may find that looking at the console log and system.log with Console.app (located in /Applications/Utilities) might give you some good clues.
posted by eafarris at 9:14 AM on December 14, 2007

I did try Disk Utility but it didn't find anything wrong with the permissions. though I do agree it sounds pretty much like it. I'm at my office right now, so I'll get back home to look at the logs afterwards and keep you updated. thanks guys!
posted by mordecai at 9:16 PM on December 14, 2007

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right but Console isn't showing anything. I'm guessing I'm supposed to start up Mailplane or DEVONthink and look at the the log on Console? but nothing happens..help!
posted by mordecai at 5:02 AM on December 15, 2007