Quark Forums

Yesterday Quark 6.5 worked fine on Mac OS 10.4.1 except if I tried to print as a PDF file more than once w/o closing Quark, when it crashed. Today every time I try to open a Quark doc I get the "Application unexpectedly quit" message before the doc comes up. I reinstalled Quark with no results. I would guess that there are some bad files somewhere that need to be deleted, but where do I find them? Any ideas on the cause of this?

Ed. I'd try deleting your preferences, although a reinstall should have done that.

Macintosh HD>Users>~username>Library>Preferences>Quark>Quark 6.0>XPress Preferences.prf

Alternatively, you might try creating a Preferences folder inside the QuarkXPress applications folder. That will have the effect of creating an application preferences file (i.e., it will apply to all users of the machine).

Also, you should know that XPress 6.x was very unstable with Tiger from 10.4 to 10.4.5. Updates from 10.4.6 fixed several things, but 10.4.10 broke them again. 10.4.11 resolved some of this, but not all. Seeing as you are on 10.4.1, I'd recommend updating to 10.4.6 and no farther. 10.4.7 introduced some printer incompatibility issues you probably want to avoid.

Lastly, avoid importing PDF files. Although XPress 6.x has the ability to do this, it does not handle them very well. Save out an EPS file of the PDF from Acrobat and import the EPS file and not the PDF. XPress handles EPS files much better.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, Erik, for the suggestion. There is no Quark folder in the preferences folder & there is none in the Quark app folder either.

I rechecked & I am already up to 10.4.11 - I misread. I have been having printing problems for some time with every app BUT Quark in that all apps crash if I try to print more than once w/o closing & reopening the app. That goes along with what you said. I gave up sending the crash reports to Apple as I never felt like they cared.

I was creating the PDF file from the Print menu, not importing one. and when I tried to print a 2nd one is when Quark crashed, the 1st time it had given me any trouble.

More thoughts? Ed

Ed, it sounds then more like an OS issue then a Quark issue. I would run either Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior if you have one of those. If you don't, then at least boot from your install disk and run Disk Utility. Repair the disk and permissions. I'd also pick up a copy of either Onyx, Cocktail, or some other maintenance app and do some maintenance house cleaning. BTW, Onyx and Coctail and most of the others are freeware.

Hope that helps.

Thanks again. I have TechTool Pro but it is the OS 9 version & no help, apparently. I ran Norton Disk Doctor a number of times and it repaired a number of "major" errors until it got to one about halfway through the HD. It gives an error 23005 & says that Node 1 record 0 has an incorrect key, whatever that means. It can't fix it, at any rate. I tried the volume recover and and after an hour of making the disk image it couldn't go any further. Sigh... I will look for Onyx & Cocktail & see if they help, as well as run Apple disk repair from the instal disk. I still don't understand why Quark is the only program affected. I am an old geezer who goes back to the Apple II+ and Mac Classic and just wants a stable platform to do my work w/o any of the bells & whistles that Apple wants to foist on me and which cause problems. Ed

Ed, if you go back that far then you are probably pretty trusting of Norton Utilitites. I'm sorry to say, but in OSX Norton Utilities is almost like feeding coolant to a dog or cat. Don't use it. It does more damage to disks than it fixes. In fact, the lates version is not even compatible with Tiger. Norton discontinued the product about 2 or 3 years ago.

I would boot from your install CD and try Disk Utility. If Disk Utility fails and you have nothing else, then you are going to need to reinstall the OS.

Do not rely on NDD to fix your drive. It will screw it up. Hoepfully Disk Utility alone can fix it.

I ran the disk utility. Permissions were all fine this time but the verify program ran about 35 minutes before I pulled the power plug and stopped it (nothing else would work). That is the 3rd time I've pulled the plug in 2 days & is getting old. If I didn't have so much invested in Mac I would go over to the Dark Side (MS). Thanks for your advice. Ed

Quark Tech support got back to me this morning even though I am using v6.5 & not the current v7. After one email he sent me the following suggestion:

For troubleshooting the problem I would like you to follow the steps given below.

“ Go to > Main H/D > Applications > QuarkXPress 6 folder > make a new folder in there and name it “Preferences”.

“ Go to > Main H/D > Applications > QuarkXPress 6 folder > trash the JAWS folder.

“ Go to > Main H/D > Applications > QuarkXPress 6 folder > Xtension folder > move “Avenue.quark” “Font Retrieve” “FontDownloading” “OPI” “QuarkCMS” to the xtension disabled folder.

“ Go to > Main H/D > Applications > QuarkXPress 6 folder > for system > QuarkXPress components > double click on it and install and when installing locate the QuarkXPress 6 folder.

Now launch QuarkXPress and see the results.

This worked & I now have Quark back! Thank you all!

I posted the above list in case someone else comes up with the same problem. Ed

Ed, I am glad it works for you. I would caution you though that there may be some underlying issues for you with your HD. If Disk Utility is having issues, then most likely something is wrong with your HD. Things may be fine at the moment, and they may stay that way for awhile, but the possibility exists that you will have problems in the future.

I once had a bad memory stick. Since OSX used the HD to cache memory, this corrupted the HD which caused a "Keys Out of Order" error anytime I ran Disk Utility. In addition, Disk Warrior would crash everytime I tried to run it. I have DW v3 and unfortunately for me it wasn't until DW4 that that particular disk error could be repaired. I had to reformat the HD and reinstall everything.

Now, I could function - I didn't have to do that. But I was playing a game of don't do this or don't click on that kind of thing to avoid crashes and lockups.

Just some advice to you.

Thanks again for the advice. I will probably get a new external HD and shuffle things so that another drive is the boot drive & the one w/problems is a backup. Ed

Good idea. There are a number of freeware options for backing up in OSX out there that can make this simple and worry free. I'd do a fresh install on the external though as cloning your current drive to the new one would only duplicate the problem.

Good luck.

I am in dire need of some help. Yesterday I installed an upgrade to Snow Leopard thinking it would fix some of the other issues I am having and it has had disastrous consequences. I own a magazine and the larger files for the magazine that are multiple pages, do not open at all, they all quit unexpectedly. The smaller files, the covers for example that are only 4 pages, are fine. Other small layouts are fine. Any previous issues that I try to open, the larger files, also quit unexpectedly. As a result, I cannot open any of the current or previous files in Quark without them quitting unexpectedly. I am using Quark 8.12 on an iMac running Mac OS 10.6.2. Apple will not admit to the problem and Quark has been trying to help, but at this point to no avail. OMG, please help. This magazine I run has been around for 12 years and I have rebuilt most of the ads in the past two years. But cannot possibly remember all the fonts, etc. Dan Johnson danj@showjournal.com

1st thing to try if you have not already. Delete preferences.

If that does not work then determine if it is a font issue. Disable your font management. Try to open the documents. If they open then you most likely have a corrupt font somewhere. It's also possible that the font you use for the "Normal" style sheet is corrupted. Deleting your prefs should force a default. It's most likely fonts. Usually any OS upgrade ends up reinstalling the base system fonts in the default font folders. This can be a problem if you have fonts in there that you are using already.

If it still does not open it could be an XTension. Pull all of your XTs out of the XTension folder in to a safe place (usually a folder on your desktop). Try to open the documents. If they open then try this. Add back half. Try to open the documents. If they open then you know the problem XT is in the batch you did NOT add back. If it fails to open then the problem XT is in the batch you did add back. Keep experimenting with adding/removing XTs until you find the problem.

If you still can't open these documents without XPress crashing (evem with all XT's removed) then try this. Put the XT's back. Go to the For System folder inside XPress. Double click on the QuarkXPress Components.app and reinstall components. Try and open the documents again.

If none of this works then something something is seriously wrong here. At this point there is not much I can suggest. 

Eric, how do I disable font management. Thanks! Dan

What font manager are you using?