I found this useful post by “MalloryKevin” at Apple’s Support Forums:
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To all those with Quark 7.5 crashes on Snow Leopard, I think I’ve found a solution.
As the IT guy, I always experiment with new OSes and our current versions of software before I subject the rest of the company to it. So, I had Quark 7.5 running fine on my iMac with Snow Leopard 10.6.4, so I knew it would work.
But then I went to install a new Mac Mini computer for another user in our company. I used Migration Assistant to move everything across. Quark 7.5 crashed upon starting. Years ago we had been advised by Quark to make a Preference folder in the Quark folder, so I tried trashing those prefs, same problem. Then I opened Library/Preferences (not user library, the one at the Hard Drive level) and found another Quark Folder there. Trashed that, it now opens…
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He seems to have run across one of the reasons you don’t want to create a Preferences folder in the QuarkXPress application folder. For more information on that, see my previous post. You can read the complete discussion page here.
Popularity: 11% [?]
17. August 2010 at 10:58 am
That’s great. QxP now open with SL. Now the question is: it will work fine and give good results? I now try. Thank for this tip.
APe
24. August 2010 at 7:55 am
Ok. I maked visible all files and discovered a .pav2XW515415323 file in library/quark folder: if I trash this folder Quark open but say that the activation file is damaged and I should reinstall Quark. I tried to place this file in user/library/preferences/quark but nothing. I tried to create a preferences folder in application/quark…/preferences and add this file but quark open, create a preferenes file (visible) but continue to say the activation is damaged.
It is possible to activate my quark?
(I think the quark company have done this intentionnally to move to QxP 8… but I need 7 to send my work…).
Any tip appreciated.
Thanks
APe
26. August 2010 at 1:54 pm
Hey APe, it sounds like it’s time to contact Quark’s technical support. I’ve found them to be quick and easy to work with. An activation problem should be easily fixed.
17. September 2010 at 1:42 pm
The first window that popped up when I relaunched Quark after dumping the preferences was that this version was now corruped and to reinstall. I waited a minute and…ta da. It launched.
Worked beautifully for me as well. Thank you for the tip.
4. January 2011 at 1:38 pm
FABULOUS! I had just been living with crash after crash. But this has done the trick! I am stuck with this older version due to some compatibility issues with other websites needs, etc. So thought I was doomed to wander through time hampered by low efficiency. NO MORE! I am free! ha! Thanks so much for the fabulous tip! With gratitude indeed.
3. February 2011 at 6:30 am
Thats great Jay! Thank you very much, it worked very well, and I also got the reinstall box, but as Michele above says, just click the OK and it boots up anyway. I know I may have future problems running Quark 7.5 in SnowLeopard, but it’s even worse when you can’t start the software in the first place. Many thanks, Steve
6. July 2011 at 2:28 pm
Hi,
My Mac died last week. Had a new graphics card put in by the Apple people and they seem to have updated software on my system. Quark no longer opened.
I’d been speaking to the Quark people all day yesterday but they kept “loosing connection” and leaving me hanging.
I’ve followed this simple procedure and it appears to have solved it.
I’m going to re-start the machine and see if it is a permanent resolution.
Thank you for your advice.
Kate x
2. November 2011 at 9:44 am
Thanks!
That has stopped many random crashes on my Mac!
:)
2. November 2011 at 10:17 am
STOP! Don’t do it before reading this!
I tried exporting to PDF after doing the above, and now have a Quark Xpress Demo watermark on it!