Dreamweaver 2017 crashes at startup with Mac 10.11

[knharperuafs1]

Have not used DW since upgrading to 2017 a few months ago. It won't run at all and crashes on startup. Shows a crash report. Tried installing Java but that did not work. Found a tutorial on removing preferences but you have to be able to open DW to do that. Running Mac OS 10.11.6 on Macbook Pro early 2011.

[Jon Fritz]

You can manually remove the prefs folder by turning on your OS's hidden files and following the instructions here...

Restore preferences in Dreamweaver CS4, CS5, and CS5.5

Substitute CC2017 for any CS version reference and you should be fine.

Another item to check is whether you have Lavasoft's Web Companion installed. Uninstalling Web Companion will allow DW to start correctly (if it was there).

[knharperuafs1]

Thanks for the help. I renamed the Prefs file to "Old" yada but that did not work. Apparently do not have Lavasoft on this machine.

[Ben M]

I know this isn't the exact error you may be having but it's a good article with a couple of solutions.  Try the FileCache.dat and User Config Folder instructions and see if either of those help:

JavaScript errors in Dreamweaver

If they don't help, try logging in as a different user and start DW to see if we can rule out OS user corruption.

[knharperuafs1]

Thanks for the tips. The Javascript errors don't seem to apply, as I never get as far as the description on the link you sent. However, when I logged in as a different user, Dreamweaver worked perfectly. So perhaps it is OS user corruption? Not sure how to diagnose/fix that. Thanks.

[knharperuafs1]

Just tried manually repairing permissions on my user account per this link: How-To Fix Corrupt User Accounts in macOS - AppleToolBox

Restarted and relaunched Dreamweaver. Crashed again. Is there a clue to the problem/solution in the crash report?

[Nancy OShea]

Your current user account may have errors.

Try creating a new Mac user account with full admin (read & write) permissions.

Nancy

[knharperuafs1]

I did that and Dreamweaver worked just fine. The problem is that all my files that I need are on my current log in.

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

All I can say is your user account is corrupted.  That means you must contact Apple and see if it can be repaired or just bite the bullet and move everything to the new user account.  

[Garrett-1]

I am having the same problem. I was running Dreamweaver CC 2017 just fine. Then, our company software folks had to reinstall all CC 2017 for the enterprise edition serial number. Then after install, I am unable to open Dreamweaver, it crashes at launch.

So, the problem is that my user preferences are causing Dreamweaver not to launch. That could be the "Correct Answer" but it is far from a solution. To summarize, the only way to fix this is to set up a new user profile? Basically reformat my computer and reinstall everything just because Dreamweaver has a issue on start up? There have to be another way. There has to be a preference in my user profile that I can fix, so that I don't have to reformat.

All of folks at Adobe can't find a better solution then reformatting my drive?

[Nancy OShea]

Nobody here suggested reformatting your hard drive.  Not sure where you got that from. 

Did you try Restoring your DW Preferences yet?  That fixes most conflicts.

Unusual behavior in Dreamweaver? Try restoring preferences.

Nancy

[Garrett-1]

Yes I did.

We even installed the CC 2015 version of Dreamweaver, and had the same issue. To change our user profile here, because of security issues, we will have to reformat.

This is not good. I have already lost a day of work and will lose another day next week trying to resolve this.

There has to be a way to fix the user profile. Is it linked to Java version? Network preferences?

[knharperuafs1]

Nancy,

I did delete preferences; that was the first line of defense. When we figured out that DW would work with another user login, indicating that my current user file was corrupt, I had a lengthy conversation with a very helpful tech at Apple earlier this week who was trying to help me diagnose the problem(s) with my user account that might cause an issue with DW. I have not yet had a chance to try out much of what he sent me, but I did find some old HP files in my startup items that I got rid of. I have been using this account for so long there is no telling what stuff I have accumulated that is old or out of date or otherwise corrupt. Meanwhile, what I have been doing is using DW through another admin account, where it works just fine. I am putting files that I need from my usual account into the SHARED folder so I can get them from my alternative account. It's clumsy but it works. I will try the Apple fixes this weekend and report back.

[Ben M]

Garrett, I hear your pain as I've worked in similar circumstances.  Unfortunately, the issue that is happening is OS related and not DW related.  Unfortunately, most of us here who have been through the pain have found that a new profile is the easiest way because  digging into the OS to try and fix an OS issue is often difficult because there are many points at which the user profile could have been corrupted (system updates, application installs, etc.).  If you can find someone who is very familiar with your OS, you may be able to find ways to troubleshoot the OS more.  However, I fear that if you are in a restricted environment, that system level files related to the user account may not be accessible to you.