Here are the steps to fix most Photo Mechanic problems on a Mac :
1) Start Photo Mechanic by just clicking its icon in the Dock. When the blank contact sheet opens, go to the Photo Mechanic menu and select Preferences. Click the Export button at the bottom of any page. After 5 seconds or so a list will open. Click the Export button at the bottom to save this as file on your Desktop. You can call it PM-prefs.PMX. Quit Photo Mechanic.
2) Quit all running apps on your Mac. Use the Command-Tab shortcut to see a list of all of the
running application icons. ( Hold down the Command key and hit the Tab key. Each time you hit the Tab, then next application icon to the right will be selected. Hitting the Q key will quit the selected application ) Only the Finder icon should be listed before continuing.
Now start the Disk Utility application in the Utilities folder, inside of the Applications folder. Select the Macintosh HD entry in the left sidebar. (If you have renamed your Mac boot partition, then select that name in the left sidebar). Go to the First Aid page. Now click the Repair Disk Permissions button at the bottom left of the message window. This typically takes about 10 minutes to complete even though the estimated time could go as high as 40 minutes. When it's done you will see a Repair Disk permissions complete message in bold text at the bottom of any messages in the window. Quit the Disk Utility and reboot your Mac.
3) Once your Mac is done rebooting, select the Go to Folder option from the Go menu. Enter:
~/Library
to access your Account's Library folder. You can drag the folder icon from the top center of this Finder window into the left sidebar, in the Places section, to add a shortcut to this Library folder. Now you can delete the Photo Mechanic Caches and Preferences folders. Open the Caches folder in the Library folder. Delete the Photo Mechanic folder. Click the Library folder in the left sidebar to go back to your Account's Library folder.
Now open the Preferences folder. Scroll down until you see the com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic folder. Delete this folder and the two .plist file below it. They are com.camerabits.Photomechanic.plist and com.camerabits.PMNavigationAgent.plist.
Now click the Applications folder shortcut in the left sidebar. Delete the Photo Mechanic application.
4) Use the Safari web browser to access our website's Download page. There should be a bouncing icon next to the version for your Mac OS. Install Photo Mechanic when the download has finished. Close the Install dialog and then start Photo Mechanic by clicking its icon in the Dock. When the blank contact sheet opens, go to the Preferences option in the Photo Mechanic menu. Click the Caching tab and set the Memory Cache size at the bottom to 500 MB. OK the preferences and restart Photo Mechanic.
5) Try the same workflow on the same folder as before. If Photo Mechanic is working correctly now, then go back to the Preferences from the Photo Mechanic menu. Click the Import button at the bottom of any preference page. Locate the PM-prefs.PMX file you saved to the Desktop. Select it and then click the Open button. After a few seconds the list of settings will open. Click the Import button once again. A warning dialog will open about some items already existing. Click the Yes button to continue. Go back to the Caching preference page and make sure the Memory Cache size is set to 500 MB. Restart Photo Mechanic and try the same workflow on the same folder. If PM is still running correctly, then you are all set.
6) If the problem is restored when Importing the PM-prefs.PMX preference file, then you will need to quit Photo Mechanic and delete the preference files previously deleted in step 3 above. Start Photo Mechanic and reset the Memory Cache size back to 500 MB. Send the PM-prefs.PMX file to me as an email attachment. Hopefully I can extract the info and send back a fixed preference file so you won't have to re-enter any IPTC field popup lists.
regards,
--Bob
