NWP 2.1.3 Crashes on Launch - With Solution
Posted: 2016-02-27 23:43:51
Yesterday I found NWP suddenly started crashing on launch on my iMac (but not my MacBook Pro where it continued to work fine). After trying all the usual things - restarting iMac, deleting NWP plist files, reinstalling NWP, etc. I had a look at the stack trace it was producing (and sending to Apple). It seemed to be doing some network access at startup and crashing with an unhandled exception error for some reason. I also have NWE on the iMac and that was crashing with exactly the same error on launch too!
Then I discovered I couldn't login to the Mac App Store app, it came back with an error saying it'd encountered an "unexpected error" and couldn't verify my device or computer, please contact support. I suspected a connection between these two problems except that my NWP was not purchased from the Mac App Store, it was from the Nisus web store. Then I realised that even non-App Store apps have to verify their developer cert with Apple at launch, and if something is screwed up with connecting to the App Store then that check may not work either... Next I found this thread on the Apple support forums, where several others were having the same issue with logging into the Mac App Store and running some apps purchased from the store:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7476111
Deleting interfaces.plist file as described in this thread fixed both my App Store login issue and my crashing NWP issue.
But that's not the end of it - I also found this thread in reddit describing a borked "silent" software update that Apple issued yesterday and then fixed in another update the same day that affected the Mac Ethernet driver. Sure enough my iMac had applied the bad update and then the fixed update, but I suspect this two-step dance left the interfaces.plist file in an inconsistent state and that in turn caused the problems with Nisus and the App Store app:
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/ ... s_ethernet
Hope this helps anyone else who encounters this problem. Now all I have to do is remember why I wanted to use Nisus in the first place yesterday...
Then I discovered I couldn't login to the Mac App Store app, it came back with an error saying it'd encountered an "unexpected error" and couldn't verify my device or computer, please contact support. I suspected a connection between these two problems except that my NWP was not purchased from the Mac App Store, it was from the Nisus web store. Then I realised that even non-App Store apps have to verify their developer cert with Apple at launch, and if something is screwed up with connecting to the App Store then that check may not work either... Next I found this thread on the Apple support forums, where several others were having the same issue with logging into the Mac App Store and running some apps purchased from the store:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7476111
Deleting interfaces.plist file as described in this thread fixed both my App Store login issue and my crashing NWP issue.
But that's not the end of it - I also found this thread in reddit describing a borked "silent" software update that Apple issued yesterday and then fixed in another update the same day that affected the Mac Ethernet driver. Sure enough my iMac had applied the bad update and then the fixed update, but I suspect this two-step dance left the interfaces.plist file in an inconsistent state and that in turn caused the problems with Nisus and the App Store app:
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/ ... s_ethernet
Hope this helps anyone else who encounters this problem. Now all I have to do is remember why I wanted to use Nisus in the first place yesterday...