PI 1.8.8-9 MacOS - Crash after closing PI

[alanrock]

I have also had all the problems discussed above. I just upgraded my Mac (Powerbook) to Mac OS 12.0.1 and it crashes on DrizzeIntegration every time. What information can I provide to help you diagnose this?

 

[flamidey]

Hi,

I have this issue as well, although it really does not bother me. It doesn't seem to have any impact except fo the crash report window showing up.
If it helps, I attached my own crash report...

Mac OS 12.0.1, M1 Mac mini

 

[astrokari]

Hello,

I'm sorry to say that this issue is ongoing on my system (2020 M1 Mac mini, MacOS 12.1) and it's now preventing me from using PixInsight altogether. I updated / installed to 1.8.8-12 yesterday and it gave the same crash error on exit that others report here (and previous versions did on my Mac).

Upon attempting to relaunch it, though, PixInsight immediately crashes with the same message (see attachment). I've tried all the troubleshooting steps outlined earlier in this thread (like deleting PI's library folders and .plist files), including rebooting my system in between uninstalls and reinstalls and running First Aid on my internal SSD.

I even completely removed PI 1.8.8-12 and reverted to 1.8.8-11 with no luck. The only file I kept using is my license file. If I launch PI without it in the ~/Library/PixInsight folder, I'm prompted for license information instead of an application crash. As such, I requested a license reactivation to see if a clean install + filling out the license prompt would work. Sadly not. I activated my license and then PI summarily crashed yet again.

Upon launch, PI shows its splash screen and then crashes right after the "Restoring main window geometry" message briefly appears.

One last troubleshooting step was to reset system and application caches using the OnyX system utility. This had no effect.

Where should I go from here? I’d like to avoid resetting my MacOS installation, but is it possible that another program or library could conflict with the Qt framework? I should note that I have Xcode Command Line Tools and Homebrew installed, since those are rarer to encounter in support situations like this. But the consistent crash behavior just started spontaneously — I’ve been running PI along side these all along.

Alternately, I wonder if there's some kind of binary translation issue through Rosetta 2? From my understanding, Rosetta will translate a new app upon first launch (or install?) so that it doesn’t incur as much translation overhead at runtime. Does anyone know if there's a translation cache somewhere in MacOS that could be contributing to this issue? (That said, none of the other caches I cleared helped).

Are there any other troubleshooting steps I should take, or is there other information I can provide? Thanks.


Attachments: my most recent crash report along with a full system report from the MacOS System Information utility.

 

[pfile]

ordinarily this happens because the StarNet module, for one reason or another, was not properly deleted by the postflight script in the installer. but that crash should show up as an illegal instruction trap and here this is just a segfault.

i am running -11 on an M1 macbook pro also at 12.1 with no problems. i haven't had a chance to upgrade to -12 but it sounds like even -11 is dying on you.

i think your guess about rosetta2 is very likely related to the problem.

according to a stack exchange post, the rosetta2 caches are here:

/var/db/oah/
/System/Library/dyld/aot_shared_cache

but read the last answer as it points to a python script that can analyze the cache files (and one of those caches is for dylibs, the other for programs.)

How does Rosetta 2 work?

I'd love to understand more about how Rosetta 2 works. The Apple Developer article is brief. Has anyone done a deep analysis on how Rosetta 2 works, how it is invoked and whether it's possible to u...

apple.stackexchange.com

looks like SIP prevents modifying the caches, or even stat()ing them so you'll have to boot with SIP disabled to do any surgery on the caches.

rob

 

[Juan Conejero]

This cannot be reproduced on any of our Mac machines. From the report you've attached, the crash is happening in the following routine:

15 QtWidgets 0x113017d73 QDialog::~QDialog() + 35

which belongs to the Qt library. The probability of a bug in this routine (a C++ destructor) is virtually zero. If there was a bug in this destructor Qt would be a total disaster as well as any Qt-based application, which obviously doesn't happen. This is probably a problem with Rosetta translation or a device driver issue, but I cannot know. Our code is not causing this problem. Unfortunately, we cannot solve a complex issue that cannot be reproduced.

 

[WillB]

Hello,

I'm sorry to say that this issue is ongoing on my system (2020 M1 Mac mini, MacOS 12.1) and it's now preventing me from using PixInsight altogether. I updated / installed to 1.8.8-12 yesterday and it gave the same crash error on exit that others report here (and previous versions did on my Mac).

Are there any other troubleshooting steps I should take, or is there other information I can provide? Thanks.

Have you tried booting the Mac in Safe Mode and starting PixInsight?

You won't be able to work with PixInsight in Safe Mode, it does launch but is much too slow and unresponsive, at least on an Intel based iMac, but it might at least start without crashing.

In Safe Mode the Mac is running with minimum default drivers loaded so if PixInsight starts without crashing in Safe Mode but crashes in Normal Mode that points the finger back to a possible third-party driver or application conflict.

(The Safe Mode start-up procedure is different for M1 Macs with the security chip and Intel Macs, check the Apple help docs if you can't boot into safe mode)

To aid problem finding I usually boot a Mac to an external SSD with just the basic macOS and problem application or driver loaded and leave the internal SSD and regular software environment alone, it's much less disruptive and saves time rather than continually wiping and reinstalling the OS on an internal drive. I have several small capacity external SSD's with Monterey, Big Sur and Catalina loaded, has saved me hours of problem solving time over the years.

William.

 

[astrokari]

How does Rosetta 2 work?

I'd love to understand more about how Rosetta 2 works. The Apple Developer article is brief. Has anyone done a deep analysis on how Rosetta 2 works, how it is invoked and whether it's possible to u...

apple.stackexchange.com

looks like SIP prevents modifying the caches, or even stat()ing them so you'll have to boot with SIP disabled to do any surgery on the caches.

rob

Thank you, this is the information I was searching for but had difficulty finding. I'll see what I can do with those caches!

 

[astrokari]

This cannot be reproduced on any of our Mac machines. From the report you've attached, the crash is happening in the following routine:

15 QtWidgets 0x113017d73 QDialog::~QDialog() + 35

which belongs to the Qt library. The probability of a bug in this routine (a C++ destructor) is virtually zero. If there was a bug in this destructor Qt would be a total disaster as well as any Qt-based application, which obviously doesn't happen. This is probably a problem with Rosetta translation or a device driver issue, but I cannot know. Our code is not causing this problem. Unfortunately, we cannot solve a complex issue that cannot be reproduced.

Thank you for looking into this — even being able to confirm it's not your code is very helpful because now I know how to focus my troubleshooting. If nothing else works, I'll just do a fresh wipe of my data partition and reconfigure MacOS and PixInsight (which will almost certainly be successful).

 

[astrokari]

Just a quick follow-up to say that safe mode did not change my issues, and disabling SIP & clearing out the user file Rosetta cache in /var/db/oah/ did not resolve the issue either. I eventually wiped my MacOS Data partition by using the new "Erase All Content and Settings" function in MacOS Monterey. Restoring from a backup using the Data Migration Tool just replicated the crash, so I reconfigured my Mac from scratch and that naturally solved the issue!

I should also mention that I have PixInsight's font resolution set to 130 dpi and that it was trying to restore to a fullscreen window. In case that's useful for future troubleshooting. Thanks again everyone!

 

[pfile]

Data Migration Tool just replicated the crash, so I reconfigured my Mac from scratch and that naturally solved the issue!

argh that is too bad.

i guess it is too late but one thing to try would have been to make a new user and see if PI launched OK under that user. that would have narrowed it down to something in your user environment, but might not have gotten you any closer to a solution. i think what you ended up doing points to some user-specific issue, but what it is/was is hard to know.

rob

 

[lgibbons]

With PixInsight closed drag the PixInsight folder from the applications folder to the Bin.

Hold down and keep depressed the keyboard Option key (on most Macs that is the middle key to the left of the spacebar, between the Control and Command keys), while the Option key is pressed mouse click on the desktop menu item GO and scroll down and click on the Library shortcut, the Library shortcut is only visible while the Option key is pressed.

Once in the Library release the Option key and then scroll down the folder list to the first PixInsight folder, open that folder to find two files, PixInsight.plist and PixInsightLicense, drag the PixInsightLicense file from that folder to your desktop then delete the entire PixInsight folder (mouse-right-click and select Move to Bin).

Scroll back up the Library folder and look for the Application Support folder, enter that folder and scroll down to find another PixInsight folder.
That folder contains two sub-folders, QTWebEngine and Default (the Default folder contain another four sub-folders and a few individual files), again, delete the entire PixInsight Folder.

Exit the Library folder and run the PixInsight Installer for version 1.8.8-9.

Launch PixInsight 1.8.8-9, depending on your hardware nothing much will happen for anything up to half a minute while PixInsight initialises and builds new folders in the Library, after that completes the first-launch registration entry page will appear, do not enter anything on this page, instead skip/cancel and exit.

Go back to the Library, (hold down the Option key while clicking on the GO desktop menu shortcut), scroll down the folder list to the PixInsight folder and open it, you will be in the correct folder if it contains just the file PixInsight.plist, drag the PixinsightLicense file that you placed on the desktop back into that folder.

Exit the Library folder and launch PixInsight, this should now launch with your old license file and not ask you again for your details, now test PixInsight to see if it still crashes on exit.

I've had the problem of PI throwing a crash on exit for a long time now. Currently running on a loaded iMac 20,2 (10-Core Intel Core i9, 3.6Ghz, 128GB memory) with macOS 12.2.1 an PI 1.8.9 ripley (x64) (build 1544 | 2022-03-13). It crashes a short while AFTER I exit PI if I've been using it for a while. If I just start PI and exit, there's no error. Is the above procedure still the recommended step, or has have there been other debugging ideas since this was first posted back in Nov 2021?