Nisus Always Looks for my Desktop

[Daniel Siegel]

Ever since I first opened a document from my iMac on my MacBook Pro, Nisus searches for and, if possible, makes a connection to the iMac. This is fine as long as the iMac is on, but when it's not, either NWP takes a long time to open and does so only after telling me that it can't find my iMac or, worse, it goes into a never-ending loop of searching for it, telling me it can't find it, and then searching for it again.
I'm clueless about how to tell Nisus that I don't want it to look for my iMac. I can find it myself when necessary.
Any thoughts?

[dshan]

In Nisus Preferences>General - do you have 'On application launch: Reopen previously open documents' set? If so, set it to 'do nothing' or 'show document manager' as you prefer.

[Kino]

If dshan’s suggestion does not work, try to remove “/Users/you/Library/Application Support/Nisus Writer/Document Manager Settings” while NWP is not running (and you will lose the Document Manager settings).

[Daniel Siegel]

Thanks to Kino and and dshan for their suggestions. I've tried both and neither worked for me. In fact, the situation is a little worse since I had to replace my macBook Pro with a new one this past week. In the past, NWP would take a long time loading, then tell me my desktop couldn't be found, but then launch. Now it goes into a never-ending cycle and I have to force quit and start my desktop if I want to use NWP.
Any other ideas?

[Daniel Siegel]

Oops. I was wrong, sort of. What happens now that I followed both suggestions is that I get the message that NWP can't find my desktop twice and then it launches.

[Kino]

I think you have already tried this but if you have not . . .

1. Quit NWP if it is running;

2. Move the following files and folder to somewhere else;
 • /Users/you/Library/Preferences/com.nisus.NisusWriter.plist
 • /Users/you/Library/Preferences/com.nisus.NisusThesaurus.plist
 • /Users/you/Library/Application Support/Nisus Writer/ (folder)

3. Launch NWP to see if the problem subsists.

It is not likely but perhaps something went wrong with your copy of Nisus Writer Pro.app or Nisus Thesaurus.app? In that case, replacing them with a fresh copy should fix the problem.

If nothing works for you, I tend to suspect some nasty permissions or disk problem. Is it only NWP that is affected? Does your mail client work fine? Unfortunately Disk Utility's Repair Permissions does not work for files in your home directory, but Repair Disk may work if it is an oddity caused by some inconsistency in the file system.

But why do you get a trouble so strange again? Perhaps do you have a child or a grandchild full of intellectual curiosity? ;-)

[Daniel Siegel]

Thanks Kino. I've tried the things you suggested and none of them worked. There was even a plist file which was of shared files and I trashed that thinking it could help. The problem is now manageable, since I get the message that NWP can't find my desktop, but then it finished launching. Just takes twice as long as normal. When I get a chance, I'll try to reinstall the Thesaurus and then the application itself.
And, I just repaired permissions and I'll see if that helped.
And, yes, I do have grandchildren. Unfortunately, they are too far away to have access to my computer.

[martin]

It is surprising that clearing/moving all the folders Kino mentioned above did not solve the problem. What exactly is the error message you see? Could you quote it here verbatim?

You could also take a screenshot of the error dialog and send it to us via the menu Help > Send Feedback. Sending in a feedback report would also give us a copy of your logs, which might help us guess at the cause of the problem.

[Kino]

I’m just guessing but do you happen to be running an anti-virus software? If so, perhaps it would interfere with NWP in an odd way.

If another program is involed, I think a list of running processes (launch /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app and File > Save) may help Martin & Co. in diagnosing the problem.

A bad font may cause various problems though I don’t think such a font can be the author of this kind of trouble. Anyway, try to launch Font Book.app, Select All, and File > Validate Fonts. BTW I think, generally speaking, you’d better turn off “Automatic font activation” in Font Book’s Preferences.

[martin]

Daniel sent in a screenshot of the dialog. It is indeed a failed network connection warning that reads: "The server XXXXX may not exist or it is unavailable at this time..." Thanks for the screenshot Daniel.

A bad font may cause various problems though I don’t think such a font can be the author of this kind of trouble. Anyway, try to launch Font Book.app, Select All, and File > Validate Fonts. BTW I think, generally speaking, you’d better turn off “Automatic font activation” in Font Book’s Preferences.

I would be quite surprised if font auto-activation could cause this kind of trouble. Though I agree that in general it's a feature that might better be disabled.

Unfortunately I don't have any other good ideas as to the source of the dialog. The logs collected with Daniel's feedback report don't reveal anything out of the ordinary. If Daniel moved aside all the folders Kino listed above (eg: recently opened files settings, etc), there's no reason Nisus Writer should be looking to his iMac for anything. The log shows that Nisus Writer is picking up a local copy of Nisus Thesaurus, so reinstalling that shouldn't affect the situation.

Daniel, are you running any 3rd party software that manages your computers or network settings? Any Finder or OSX haxies?

One shot in the dark: you might try rebuilding your Launch Services database (using a tool like Cocktail). Or perhaps launching Nisus Writer in a new/empty user account.

[Daniel Siegel]

Thanks again to everyone trying to help. I again removed the documents and folders Kino suggested, but no change. Then I used another, clean account on my laptop, launched NWP, and indeed it opened without looking for the desktop.
What does that mean?
I'm not running third party software like what you mentioned, since I have no idea what that is.
I don't use Cocktail on this computer, but I'm rebuilding launch services now with MainMenu, but that didn't make a difference either.
Oh well, I can live with the situation as it is now. At least NWP launches.

[martin]

Then I used another, clean account on my laptop, launched NWP, and indeed it opened without looking for the desktop.
What does that mean?

It means that there's something specific to your user account (eg: some settings, installed software, etc) that's triggering the problem. If only we could figure out what that is!

I just ran NWP with some debug tools, to see what files it accessed upon launch. There are the expected things that you've tried clearing out (per Kino's instructions), but there are also a variety of Apple specific settings, eg:

~/.cupsrc
~/.cups/client.conf
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrintingPrefs.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ATS.plist
~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
...

It's possible that there's something in one of those files that's triggering the search for your other computer. I wouldn't trash any of those files, but it does lead me to wonder how your print settings are configured. Perhaps that's the trigger? Do you have a networked printer?