Character Animator Won't Open

Report · Feb 06, 2017

So.

I finally Upgraded Video apps to 2017.

Everything works but Character Animator.

AE is fine.

But CA ICON bounces in dock a couple times then vanishes when trying to open.

No other versions of CA or AE on computer.

1. Tried rebooting computer (multiple times)

2. Tried holding shift. (mt)

3. Tried signing in/out of CC. (mt)

4. Uninstalled and installed CC.

5. Uninstalled and installed CA. (mt)

6. Tried opening from Applications (mt)

6. Tried opening from CC Window (mt)

6. Tried opening from AE (mt)

This is nuts.

Now what?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)

3.2 GHz Intel Core i5

32 GB Memory

NVDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 1024 MB

Report · Feb 13, 2017

Weird. It sounds like it's failing really early in initialization. Does it even pop up the splash screen before vanishing? I take it that it doesn't present an Apple or Adobe crash report dialog either?

I'm curious to see the output you see if you run the executable directly in Terminal.

Here's some instructions on how to do that if you aren't familiar (if you are, skip this part):

1. Switch to Finder.

2. In the Go menu, choose Utilities.

3. Double click the Terminal application.

4. Navigate to the Character Animator application.

5. Right/Ctrl click on it and choose "Show Package Contents"

6. Double click the Contents folder.

7. Double click the MacOS folder.

8. Drag and Drop the "Character Animator" icon onto your open terminal window from step 3.

9. That should result in a long path appearing there. Probably something like this:

/Applications/Adobe\ Character\ Animator\ CC\ $Beta$/Adobe\ Character\ Animator\ CC\ $Beta$.app/Contents/MacOS/Character\ Animator

10. Press enter to run it.

11. After it exits, select all the output and post it here.

Hopefully that'll provide some clues as to what is going wrong.

One other thing that might help is the process exit code. Once you get the Terminal prompt (the text at the left ending in a $) again (you may need to press enter again after it exits), type this command and press enter:

echo $?

Here's hoping with a bit of sleuthing we can get things working for you and maybe corner a bug in the app so it doesn't prevent others from using it in the future.

Thanks for reporting this issue,

Dan Tull

Report · Feb 15, 2017

Hi Dan,

Thanks so much for the help!

I've never run across anything like this.

Never had problems with Character when it was embedded into AE.

Never had problems with any updated apps although there's always a small adjustment

to new UI's or third party plug ins.

And to answer your questions, No. No Splash Screen. No Crash Reports.

Just a 3 bounce CA ICON in the dock and poof. Gone.

Below is what Terminal states based on your directions:

Last login: Wed Feb 15 09:35:26 on console

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$ /Applications/Adobe\ Character\ Animator\ CC\ $Beta$/Adobe\ Character\ Animator\ CC\ $Beta$.app/Contents/MacOS/ChHeadless.app

-bash: /Applications/Adobe Character Animator CC (Beta)/Adobe Character Animator CC (Beta).app/Contents/MacOS/ChHeadless.app: is a directory

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$ echo $?

126

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$

Thanks Again!

Dan Haberkorn

Report · Feb 15, 2017

Can you do that again, but with "Character Animator" (the main executable) instead of ChHeadless? The ChHeadless item is also a package, so it can't be directly run at the command line like that (it's just the app Character Animator launches to coordinate dynamic link communications with Ae/Pr/etc, so we don't need to worry about it right now).

Thanks -- Dan Tull

Report · Feb 15, 2017

Duh. Sorry about that.

Trying to multitask which isn't a real thing:

A much different response I see...and the Splash Page did pop up for a second.

A font issue perhaps? I have a million of them- ugh

Last login: Wed Feb 15 10:51:38 on ttys000

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$ /Applications/Adobe\ Character\ Animator\ CC\ $Beta$/Adobe\ Character\ Animator\ CC\ $Beta$.app/Contents/MacOS/Character\ Animator

2017-02-15 11:10:05.734 Character Animator[628:163162] AdobeCrashReporterInitialize: executionTime = 0.086350 seconds

2017-02-15 11:10:05.740 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] Starting CRDaemon

unreported bib error sfntread library error

Exception thrown at launch: The directory '/Users/Dan/Library/Preferences/Adobe/Character Animator/Beta/WorkspacesV5' could not be created. Please check the parent directory protection or permission rights.

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$ 2017-02-15 11:10:30.107 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] Found Non empty list in getCrashWindowId thus processing further

2017-02-15 11:10:30.107 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] WindowId before Returning from GetCrashWindowId : (null)

2017-02-15 11:10:33.111 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] Found Non empty list in getCrashWindowId thus processing further

2017-02-15 11:10:33.111 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] WindowId before Returning from GetCrashWindowId : (null)

2017-02-15 11:10:34.116 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] File Directory used for checking the value /Users/Dan/Library/Logs/Adobe

2017-02-15 11:10:35.133 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] File Directory used for checking the value /Users/Dan/Library/Logs/Adobe

2017-02-15 11:10:36.134 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] File Directory used for checking the value /Users/Dan/Library/Logs/Adobe

2017-02-15 11:10:37.138 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] File Directory used for checking the value /Users/Dan/Library/Logs/Adobe

2017-02-15 11:10:38.139 AdobeCRDaemon[629:163200] File Directory used for checking the value /Users/Dan/Library/Logs/Adobe

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$ echo$?

-bash: echo2: command not found

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$ echo $?

127

Dans-iMac:~ Dan$

Dan Haberkorn

Report · Feb 15, 2017

> Sorry about that.

> Trying to multitask which isn't a real thing.

No worries. Thanks for the quick retry.

> > unreported bib error sfntread library error

> A font issue perhaps? I have a million of them- ugh

Yeah, I think you're right that these are font reading errors, but I think those errors are relatively harmless.

This one, though is a strong candidate:

> Exception thrown at launch: The directory '/Users/Dan/Library/Preferences/Adobe/Character Animator/Beta/WorkspacesV5'

> could not be created. Please check the parent directory protection or permission rights.

If you hold down the option key while opening Finder's Go menu, it'll add a menu for the Library folder. I'd be curious what you see when you drill into the Preferences subfolder.

Walk as far down the path as it is complaining about above as you can and use Cmd + I to view the info panel for that folder and expand the "Sharing and Permissions" section at the bottom for it.

You mentioned not having issues with earlier previews when Character Animator was bundled with After Effects, so I'd guess you have the Character Animator level with a subfolder for any preview versions you ran and we just need to understand why it is having trouble making the rest of the path.

I'm going to try to recreate this condition and see why we don't manage to present a dialog with at least that information.

Hope that helps.

DT

Report · Feb 15, 2017

Hi Dan

I really do appreciate all your efforts.

Attached is a grab of the library reveal- there is no Beta data- as the terminal indicated.

Which is weird- i would think that that would have been included during one of the CA installations I did.

BTW -There is content in the "Preview" folder...but not the "Preview4" folder

Dan Haberkorn

Report · Feb 15, 2017

> I really do appreciate all your efforts.

Sure thing, happy to help sort this out.

I don't see an attachment on the previous post (?), but I was able to simulate the symptoms by moving my Beta folder, recreating it, and taking away Write permissions for my user account from that folder with the chmod command line tool.

I was then able to fix the problem by opening the Info (Cmd+I) panel for the folder and change the row for my user account back from Read only to Read & Write.

Hopefully some variation of that workaround will fix the problem you're encountering.

DT

Report · Feb 16, 2017

Boo Yah!

It was enough for me to move the Beta folder and trash it.

When I launched CH it was a little wobbly, and crashed when I tried importing an AI puppet.

But everything seems to be working now.

I'll give it a more rigorous test later, and I'll try the permissions trick if it acts up again.

Thanks. You are a gentleman and a scholar

Dan Haberkorn

Report · Feb 16, 2017

Excellent. Glad that worked! I filed a bug internally. The app should handle that condition more gracefully than it did.

If you run into any other issues (where I define "issue" as anything that makes Character Animator less than a joy to use), feel free to post and we'll try to help!

Dan Tull