Reopening a crashed app does so in a Terminal process [bug?]

[dukee101]

I'm running into an issue where if an app crashes, and I click 'Reopen', then macOS launches Terminal, and within Terminal, reopens the app. If I quit Terminal, that will kill the app as well.

In the 15 years I've used macOS, I have never witnessed this behavior when clicking 'Reopen'. It's very bizarre.

Have I accidentally toggled some kind of debug mode? I'm not sure why this started happening all of a sudden. This happened with 11.3.1 and continues to happen with 11.4.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Your post is the first I have ever heard of such weird behavior.

 

[NoBoMac]

All programs or a specific one? And if specific, which program.

 

[dukee101]

All programs or a specific one? And if specific, which program.

This morning it was Fantastical and Things. But it was under weird circumstances where my LG 5K monitor and the WindowServer process were behaving very oddly as well.

Specifically, the action that would cause the crash was any time I tried to move/drag a UI element.

In Fantastical, dragging a calendar event from one day to the next would crash the app. In Things, dragging a task to reorder it would crash the app.

 

[casperes1996]

Never seen or heard of this behaviour, but I can give you a bit of a workaround to make it less annoying.

If you experience it again, hit ctrl+z in Terminal; Now the Terminal "suspends the process". Now run "disown" to release the app from the Terminal. It'll print you a "kill -CONT -<number>" command. Run that and you can now close the Terminal and keep the program running

 

[dukee101]

I can give you a bit of a workaround to make it less annoying

I appreciate this @casperes1996! I'm also now attaching a screenshot of the Terminal window when this occurs.

 

[blatch]

Had this happen with Activity Monitor yesterday on 11.3.1.

 

[dukee101]

Had this happen with Activity Monitor yesterday on 11.3.1.

Fascinating. I thought I was the only one. We're not alone! It's strange behavior. Was your Terminal text similar to mine?

 

[NoBoMac]

Wondering if this is an M1 thing? As I'm still on Intel and have not seen this.

Would hazard a guess of the translation step on M1s for legacy stuff is not quite right, but according to Things' website, they are claiming compatible with M1. Now, does that mean they have M1 binary or just been tested on there and "works"?

 

[dukee101]

Wondering if this is an M1 thing? As I'm still on Intel and have not seen this.

Would hazard a guess of the translation step on M1s for legacy stuff is not quite right, but according to Things' website, they are claiming compatible with M1. Now, does that mean they have M1 binary or just been tested on there and "works"?

I am not placing any blame on apps like Things or Fantastical. They are incredible apps that have worked for me for nearly 10 years.

In truth, this bug came about under particularly odd circumstances with my external display setup. The LG 5K was behaving extremely oddly -- when I went to the Display prefpane, it wouldn't even show me the "Arrange" tab and options, and every time I right-clicked on the screen, it would open the context menu ~1000 pixels down from the click-target. This was, to me, clearly a WindowServer/GPU type of issue. Those apps were merely the vehicles in which the error took place, but by no means the cause.

 

[jdecker1978]

I am having this issue and its driving me crazy. Also driving me crazy is that suddenly my applications are constantly crashing. Main ones being Adobe Photoshop 2021, Adobe Lightroom CC, and the new update of Final Cut Pro. Anyone have info yet? Intel 2019 iMac running Big Sur 11.4.

 

[weaztek]

I'm on an intel Mac and crashed apps launch Terminal for me as well.

 

[jdcole99]

Same thing with me. Using a mid-2014 MacBook Pro, Intel. Happens with Adobe applications, which crash constantly on Big Sur.

 

[pixycz]

The same here. It's the last major update of BigSur I guess, it never happened before. The applications do crash pretty often with BigUnsure, but the reopening using Terminal is something new. Very annoying, of course. Happens with any crashed application (i.e. Scrivener, TextEdit, PokerStars, Chrome, Slack and others).

 

[pixycz]

Additional observation: it resets some application setings. For example: for some reason I need to launch Scrivener in German (while the system language is set to English), so I added Scrivener to System Preferences > Langauge & Regions > Apps and set its default language to German. When Scrivener crashes and I choose "reopen", the Terminal is launched, and Scrivener is open through the shell command, and it's in English. If I go to System Preferences, it's set to English here as well.

 

[RichieB]

I see the same thing on my M1 mac mini. It's usually EasyRes that crashes, but other crashed apps also reopen in Terminal. Sounds like an macOS issue to me.

 

[panchreston]

This was happening for me on my intel iMac on Big Sur. I migrated to M1 Mac Mini and it still happens for me. I should have done a fresh install, but this Mac Mini is temporary until M2!

 

[weaztek]

I was happening with me a lot with Photoshop. When it asks if I want to send a report to Adobe, I click No and Terminal doesn't fire up. If I click Yes, it does.

 

[MoJoRo]

I get this on my wife's (Intel) iMac with Photos, in particular.
(opposite of weaztek, asks to send a report and if we click NO, terminal fires up)

 

[AdamJD]

Any resolution on this?