App crashes when opened
Despite updating my copy of Nikon ViewNX-i, it crashes when I try to run it on my iMac with OS X 10.11.6. I’ve tried a ‘safe’ startup, but that makes no difference. How can I get it to work?
MARK DURK
The most important step is to contact Nikon’s software product support. This may be a known issue, and it might know of a simple solution to it. You’ve already tried the next generic step in trying to troubleshoot an app which ‘unexpectedly quits’ when you open it: safe mode blocks third-party extensions and potentially problematic components from loading, ruling them out as a cause. When an app constantly crashes like this, another valuable test is to open it from a different user account. If you don’t already have one, they’re easily created in System Preferences’ Users & Groups pane. Click on the padlock and authenticate, then click on the + button at the lower left to add a new account.
Make sure you set the new account to be an Administrator, not just Standard, and give it appropriate names and a robust password. Don’t use a weak and easily guessable password for ease of use. Some apps require you to re-enter the serial number, and a few only run for a single user, making this technique difficult. However, if the app then opens properly without crashing, you know that the problem rests somewhere in your main user’s Home folder, almost certainly in the Library folder within it. Tracking down what’s clashing is time-consuming, although browsing the log using Console to see what happened immediately before a crash can be revelatory. HOWARD OAKLEY