Terminal: Application Not Responding

crashterminal

A few days ago, Terminal.app suddenly stopped working. Whenever I open it, the little light below the icon in the dock turns on (and stays on), but no window appears. When I right-click the icon, I'm told that the application isn't responding.

What I've tried so far:

  • Restarting.
  • Trying to open Terminal from another account (same result).
  • Deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist.
  • Deleting ~/.bash_* and ~/.zsh*.
  • Deleting /var/log/asl/*.
  • Banging my head against the wall.
  • Use iTerm. A black window opens, but after that I get "Application Not Responding" as well.
  • Repairing permissions from Disk Utility.

The Console works fine, but all I get when I try to open a Terminal (or iTerm) instance is something like

login: USER_PROCESS: 5991 ttys008

I'm running OS X 10.8.3.

Update

  • It would seem that Activity Monitor isn't working either. When I open it, the windows appears, but the list is empty and the program freezes: "Application Not Responding" here as well.
  • I can log into the machine using SSH from another machine, but when I do ps it freezes.

Best Answer

Firstly, I would check to see if the issue is systemic, or related to the user account. Create a new blank user account, and then see if you can remotely log into the computer using that ID.

Then, if that works, try to su to your existing ID.

Also, try a start in single user mode. See what works there. After that, try safe mode.

Interestingly, using Terminal I get the same message in the console as you, but I don't using iTerm. Perhaps you can try iTerm and see if that works. It would narrow the issue down to the specific applications.

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