fix for BBEdit crash/problems in High Sierra

[Donna McMaster]

Last week installed BBEdit on a new Mac running 10.13.3. A few days later it crashed, and afterwards the text on the screen was invisible. I spent almost an hour searching for answers and trying to fix it. Wrote to Tech Support and they had a simple fix. Figured I'd post the details here so that if someone else runs into it, they may get back up quicker.

Here's the response I got from Tech Support with the solution:

Thanks for writing in. The symptom you encountered is the result of a bug in the OS. To restore normal operation, please open a Terminal window and run the following command:

atsutil server -shutdown

This should restore normal operation the next time you start BBEdit; but if it does not please let us know.

And here are the details of the problem, in my message to BBEdit Support:

I’ve been using BBEdit since the 90s and just bought a new Mac running 10.13.3. I downloaded and installed BBEdit 12.1.1 a few days ago and used it while setting up my local dev environment. The only thing I customized was to set the color scheme to the light one. Everything was fine.

Today I opened BBEdit to view a text file that I had created in BBEdit on my old machine. It’s a small file with settings from a Chrome extension. See attached file “speed dial fvd export.txt.” BBEdit crashed. I’ve attached the log file.

When I reopened BBEdit, I was able to view the “speed dial fvd export.txt” file, but the text was invisible; it was evidently the same color as the background. I verified that the text was there; I was able to select it and paste it into a browser form input box.

I tried changing to a different color scheme, editing the text color, opening different files, resetting everything to factory defaults, restarting BBEdit several times, but nothing worked. The text is invisible on every background for every file.

I also tried deleting the BBEdit app and two folders in /Users/me/Library: BBEdit and Application Support/BBEdit. I couldn’t find any more preferences files but evidently there is something hidden somewhere, because a fresh install of BBEdit has the same problem.

[F. Alfredo Rego]

Nice.

For the curious:

man atsutil

Alfredo

[Donna McMaster]

Thanks, Alfredo! 

I notice it says: 

server queries the status of fontd or shutdowns the fontd.  Shutting down

     the fontd will spawn a new fontd.  Shutting down the server is NOT recom-

     mended and will likely lead to misrendered text or application crashes.

😐

[Donna McMaster]

Update: after 5+ weeks, this problem still occurs daily, and there is also an error when I try to quit BBEdit. 

I am accustomed to leaving BBEdit open, as I use it all the time. 

1. At least once a day, I go to BBEdit and find the text has disappeared. 
2. At that point I CMD-q to quit, and receive an error pop-up saying "This operation couldn't be completed, because an error occurred. Directory not found (macOS error code: -120)." It offers me two options: "Copy to Clipboard" or "OK." If I click OK, it just appears again. So I have to force-quit BBEdit. 
   
3. I go into Terminal and type the magic incantation "atsutil server -shutdown"
4. I restart BBEdit and resume work. 

BareBones tech support was adamant that this is a High Sierra problem, not a BBEdit problem. And this is not my only problem with High Sierra. But this is really annoying and breaks up what should be a productive workflow. Is there nothing that can be done to work around the problem? I have considered going back to Sierra but it would be a huge job and is probably not the best long-term solution. 

I would love to hear any suggestions from BareBones or from other users. 

Thanks,
Donna

[Rich Siegel]

On 4/1/18 at 3:07 PM, do...@donnamcmaster.com (Donna McMaster) wrote:

>*server* queries the status of fontd or shutdowns the fontd. Shutting

>down
>
>the fontd will spawn a new fontd. Shutting down the server is
>NOT recom-
>
>mended and will likely lead to misrendered text or application
>crashes.

That statement is not necessarily authoritative :-) and if
BBEdit is not running there will be no ill effects.

R.
--
Rich Siegel Bare Bones Software, Inc.
<sie...@barebones.com> <http://www.barebones.com/>

Someday I'll look back on all this and laugh... until they
sedate me.

[Rich Siegel]

On 4/1/18 at 3:01 PM, do...@donnamcmaster.com (Donna McMaster) wrote:

>1. At least once a day, I go to BBEdit and find the text has disappeared.

If this is happening that frequently, please follow up to support.

>2. At that point I CMD-q to quit, and receive an error pop-up

>saying "This operation couldn't be completed, because an error
>occurred. Directory not found (macOS error code: -120)." It offers
>me two options: "Copy to Clipboard" or "OK." If I click OK, it just
>appears again. So I have to force-quit BBEdit.

This symptom is unrelated; but likewise if you send a separate
email to support, we can investigate that.