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StuffIt network check prevents launch
Over the weekend we received a good number of reports of an issue where StuffIt, StuffIt Expander, and the StuffIt "Drop" utilities (DropStuff and DropZip) appear to "stall" at launch -- their icons bounce in the Dock for up to several minutes before the applications finish launching. Reader Daniel Maze discovered the cause of this problem: The StuffIt utilities check for new updates at launch -- over the Internet, assuming a network connection is available -- and if the Aladdin servers are unavailable, the update check will cause launch to stall until the check times out. It turns out that over the weekend, the Aladdin update server was apparently down or offline, thus resulting in these stalls. (As several readers have pointed out, Aladdin was purchased by Allume last year, and as of the past few days, the Aladdin.com domain is no longer responding. We expect Allume to fix this problem either by redirecting the Alladin.com domain to Allume's own servers or by releasing an update to StuffIt; the former would be preferable.)
It appears this problem is not limited to version 9 (the latest version) of these utilities; since our initial coverage this morning we've received reports from users of versions as far back as 8.0. You can avoid this issue in the future by disabling the "Allow Version Checking" option in each application's preferences; however, this means that you'll have to check for updates manually via the Allume website or by using our sister site, VersionTracker.
Alternatively, you can disable this feature without opening the application -- useful if the servers ever go down again -- via Terminal by using the defaults command. For example, to disable version checking for StuffIt Expander, you should make sure Expander isn't running and then open Terminal and type:
-
defaults write com.stuffit.Expander allowVersionChecking -bool NO [RETURN]
UPDATE Readers have since provided the following commands for the other StuffIt apps (again, make sure the application in question isn't running when you use the command, or it won't work):
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StuffIt Deluxe: defaults write com.stuffit.Deluxe allowVersionChecking -bool NO [RETURN]
DropStuff: defaults write com.stuffit.DropStuff allowVersionChecking -bool NO [RETURN]
DropTar: defaults write com.stuffit.DropTar allowVersionChecking -bool NO [RETURN]
DropZip: defaults write com.stuffit.DropZip allowVersionChecking -bool NO [RETURN]
While Stuffit Deluxe is bouncing, try to open Stuffit Expander! It should open
in a split of a second. There you can <b>unchek</b> "Allow version check".
After you finished it, close Expander, and - either Stuffit Deluxe will get black
arrow underneath in Dock, or you quit it, and launch it again. It will open very
quickly and there you can unchek "Allow version check" as well.
<b>Writing in Terminal didn't do anything for me!</b>
Prof. DEJA VUE <p>---<br>Prof. DEJA VUE
The advice worked perfectly
Simply copied and pasted from MacFixit site into Terminal and hit Return
Ken
---
DocOnMac
Didn't work for me. All I got after hitting return was this text in the Terminal:
tcsh: defaults: No match.
Que?!
If you have XTools installed, navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/
com.stuffit.expander.plist and double click. That will launch Property List
Editor. Then click on the reveal triangle labeled Root which will show you the
items in the dictionary. The first item on the list is AllowVersionChecking and
at the far right end of that line it will say Yes. Click on the double arrows next
to Yes and choose No. Save the file and you are in business.
---
G4/1.25 MDD, 1.5 GB, SuperDrive, OS X 10.3.3
G4/733 Quicksilver, 1.3 GB, Combo Drive, OS X 10.3.3
iBook 600, 640 MB, Combo Drive, OS X 10.3.3
You probably did an upgrade from Jaguar?
Anyway, this would be the "most correct" version:
<pre>
/usr/bin/defaults write com.stuffit.Expander allowVersionChecking -bool NO
</pre>
Hope this helps....
This problem also affects version 8.02 of Stuffit Deluxe. Disallowing version
check, fixes the issue.
I had this same problem with version 8.0.2 as well. Disabling Version Checking eliminated the problem.
What's worse, at least in 8.0.2 is that even manually checking for updates
takes you to the old Aladdin site which is no longer valid. God knows where
the automatic update takes you!
Both my son's ibook and my Mac had the same problem with these Allume
products. In our case this problem appeared to happened shortly after we
both upgraded from Mac 10.3.5 to 10.3.7. I didn't put too much credence in
my son's evaluation that the OS upgrade was the problem (maybe ...maybe
not).
BUT at the Apple Store today (Monday, Jan 10th) my son checked several of
the store's computers. The few that were still at 10.3.5 had working SIT drag/
drop apps. But the ones with 10.3.7 installed did not work, and displayed the
"prolonged bouncies". It appears you have the solution (turn off update) but I
am wondering if there is a bit more to this problem. Mmmmmm.
I get them, and I'm still on 10.3.5 (I've heard too many bad things about
FireWire on 10.3.6 and 10.3.7, especially when my drive has no firmware
updates).
Disabling the version check works for me (by launching them all, because I
didn't read fast enough to see the option to do it in terminal).
Both my son's ibook and my Mac had the same problem with these Allume
products. In our case this problem appeared to happened shortly after we
both upgraded from Mac 10.3.5 to 10.3.7. I didn't put too much credence in
my son's evaluation that the OS upgrade was the problem (maybe ...maybe
not).
BUT at the Apple Store today (Monday, Jan 10th) my son checked several of
the store's computers. The few that were still at 10.3.5 had working SIT drag/
drop apps. But the ones with 10.3.7 installed did not work, and displayed the
"prolonged bouncies". It appears you have the solution (turn off update) but I
am wondering if there is a bit more to this problem. Mmmmmm.
Thanx to all, who gave advice in resolving this anoying troubles.
Instead of using Terminal to modify any Stuffit preferences I found it more
straight forward to unplug (or disable) the internet-connection temporarily,
launch the stuffit application(s) without any delays and to disable the version
check in the program preferences.
Don't forget to replug...
Johannes.
the expander portion. Here's a few more lines to cover some of the other
functions of Stuffit like DropStuff (only use the first line to run all commands
at once as a batch):
#!/bin/bash
defaults write com.stuffit.Expander allowVersionChecking -bool NO
defaults write com.stuffit.Deluxe allowVersionChecking -bool NO
defaults write com.stuffit.DropStuff allowVersionChecking -bool NO
defaults write com.stuffit.DropTar allowVersionChecking -bool NO
defaults write com.stuffit.DropZip allowVersionChecking -bool NO
Hope this helps too
automatic check solves the problem here also. The easiest way to do this was
to simply wait, a long time, till the application actually started. I think the
core problem is that the Allume Technical Support Web Site is down. If you
try to connect to it you will get a gateway time out. This was true yesterday
(Sunday) and this morning.
especially true for Stufit Expander which enhances the downloading
experience.
conflict with another company also using the name Aladdin.
Honestly the new name is terrible.
<code>defaults write com.stuffit.ExpressPE allowVersionChecking -bool NO</code> [RETURN]
part of it
and i did check i wrote it right (for Deluxe)
peter
- by dcoudert January 12, 2005 8:21 AM PST
- Not having carefully read MacFixit, my stuffit deluxe did the spinning
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (23 Comments)beachball trick... Ran a virus check overnight which of course turned up
nothing. I even went and uninstalled, trashed any stuffit remnants and then
downloaded a new disk image and installed again. That didn't work either...
finally got smart enough to check MacFixit. Terminal stuff worked like a
charm. You'd have thought that the newest download from Allume/alladin
would not have had the problem. Glad I have MacFixit... Definitely worth the
price of admission! Wish Allume were more sensitive to its user base. I
wasted a lot of time on this one.