Mac OS X: Crash on Save and other file dialog operations

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Mac OS X – Crash Issue

We have seen a few instances of a crash when attempting to save a file for the first time on OS X when the save file dialog tries to open, and may occur in other situations where a file dialog is trying to open.


In many cases this crash appears to be caused by a bad file in the system. This file is called ‘SCFinderPlugin’ and is located in the Library folder. The crash is actually happening outside ArtRage in an OS system so we don’t know exactly why that file is causing it but it has been known to cause crashes in multiple different applications.

Checking the Crash Log to confirm the problem:

Note: This is optional, you can skip straight to the solution if you like.

You can do a quick check yourself in the crash log to see if this specific crash is the problem you are experiencing. To do this:

  1. When the application crashes, select the Report button. A window with a crash log appears.
  2. Near the top of the crash log text, look for a line that starts with: ‘Crashed Thread:’.
  3. This line tells you which system thread crashed (a number) but also indicates the function the crash occurred in. You can ignore the number.
  4. If the line contains this text, the crash is probably the one described in this FAQ answer: Dispatch queue: TFSVolumeInfo::GetSyncGCDQueue


Removing the file should resolve the crash. You need to locate it and move it out of the library. It may be installed in more than one library location so follow the steps below to locate and remove it.

  1. In the Finder, open the Go menu. If you see a ‘Library’ entry, click it. If you don’t see a Library entry, hold down Option on your keyboard and it should appear, then click it.
  2. In the Library folder, open the ‘Contextual Menu Items’ folder.
  3. If you see it, drag the SCFinderPlugin.plugin file out of that folder to your desktop.
  4. Now open the Macintosh HD, the place you see your Applications folder. There should be a ‘Library’ folder in there too. Open that.
  5. Repeat step 2 and 3 (you may want to put folders on the desktop to contain the duplicate files).
  6. Reboot and try the operation that crashed again.

You should be able to delete the files at this point. As noted above, the file and the crash it causes aren’t part of ArtRage so we don’t know exactly why this is happening, but you may find other applications also becoming more stable after its removal.

If you still have problems: Please send an email to [email protected] letting us know, and include a copy of the Crash Log generated when the application crashed. To include that, click the Report button when the crash occurs, copy the crash log text from the crash log window and paste that text in to the email you send us. We will need the crash log before we can help resolve the problem.

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