MacOS – Scrivener app crashing on macOS Sierra because of growl.framework

growlmacos

I recently upgraded to macOS Sierra and moved over my El Capitan stuff over via a Time Machine backup. Everything works fine on Sierra except for Scrivener, a writing app. The app constantly crashes, and here is the beginning of the crash log:

Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal:    Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process:   exc handler [0]

VM Regions Near 0:
-->
    __TEXT                 0000000000001000-0000000000370000 [ 3516K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /Applications/Scrivener.app/Contents/MacOS/Scrivener

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x945d6172 CFDictionaryGetValue + 34
1   com.growl.growlframework          0xc0001e67 +[GrowlApplicationBridge isGrowlRunning] + 81
2   com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2    0x002d7a67 0x1000 + 2976359
3   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee491b2 CALLING_SOME_+initialize_METHOD + 31
4   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c927 _class_initialize + 479
5   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c587 lookUpImpOrForward + 117
6   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c50d _class_lookupMethodAndLoadCache3 + 30
7   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c074 objc_msgSend + 116
8   com.apple.Foundation              0x95d42ad8 __57-[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:]_block_invoke_2 + 32
9   com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94665844 __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 20
10  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94665734 _CFXRegistrationPost + 452
11  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94665486 ___CFXNotificationPost_block_invoke + 54
12  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94623753 -[_CFXNotificationRegistrar find:object:observer:enumerator:] + 1699
13  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x9462258d _CFXNotificationPost + 637
14  com.apple.Foundation              0x95cfd8e4 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 71
15  com.literatureandlatte.ScrAppKit    0x00525028 -[KBTextStorage replaceCharactersInRange:withString:] + 556
16  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92702f9b -[NSTextView insertText:replacementRange:] + 1744
17  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92702748 -[NSTextView insertText:] + 272
18  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92919c9a -[NSTextView(NSKeyBindingCommands) insertNewline:] + 473
19  libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee40d1e -[NSObject performSelector:withObject:] + 59
20  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9281e435 -[NSResponder doCommandBySelector:] + 71
21  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9272009d -[NSTextView doCommandBySelector:] + 181
22  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9271ffc6 -[NSTextInputContext(NSInputContext_WithCompletion) doCommandBySelector:completionHandler:] + 107
23  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9271ff51 -[NSTextInputContext doCommandBySelector:] + 46
24  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9271fe7f -[NSTextInputContext _handleCommand:] + 83
25  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92700a45 -[NSKeyBindingManager(NSKeyBindingManager_MultiClients) interpretEventAsCommand:forClient:] + 1490
26  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92f324d2 __84-[NSTextInputContext _handleEvent:options:allowingSyntheticEvent:

I contacted Scrivener's tech support, and they said it's crashing because Growl is installed.

I checked on my computer, and I don't see Growl running. I don't remember having installed it or ever having used it; I just use the default notification system on macOS.

I checked my ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Application Support, and there is nothing named Growl or growl in there.

I checked via an app remover, and it didn't find anything named growl/Growl on my system either. Neither could I find growl as a running process in the Activity Monitor.

Anybody have a clue what might be happening over here? Thanks!

Best Answer

I had the same issue with NetNewsWire (yea, yea, I know). Download Growl Version Detective (http://growl.info/downloads) and it allows you to update the version of the Grown framework within the app to a Sierra compatible version. Boom, it should start working again (hopefully). Give it a try :)