Time Machine crashes Finder

[Whitehill]

Yesterday I tried to restore one file from a few days ago. After entering Time Machine, with the display coming up as usual, as soon as I clicked anything to move back in time, it disappeared completely. I tried a couple more times, same result. I restarted the machine, tried again - same thing.

The console log says the Finder crashed. The logs for all my attempts are the same. The first page or so of the last log is down below. Any ideas?


Process: Finder [2502]
Path: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder
Identifier: com.apple.finder
Version: 10.7.2 (10.7.2)
Build Info: Finder_FE-751002010000000~9
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [500]

Date/Time: 2012-03-24 05:53:32.167 -0400
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7.3 (11D50b)
Report Version: 9

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000010

External Modification Warnings:
Thread creation by external task.

VM Regions Near 0x10:
-->
__TEXT 00000001069e2000-0000000106eeb000 [ 5156K] r-x/rwx SM=COW /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder

Application Specific Information:
objc_msgSend() selector name: retainCount
objc[2502]: garbage collection is OFF

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff8d551e90 objc_msgSend + 16
1 com.apple.DesktopServices 0x00007fff90c20d40 TNode::GetFINodeRetainCount() const + 26
2 com.apple.DesktopServices 0x00007fff90be8e85 TNode::WeakValidate(TNode const*) + 23
3 com.apple.DesktopServices 0x00007fff90bc228d NodeDisposeNodeRef + 20

 

[Whitehill]

I stumbled over Pondini the Time Machine King. Self crowned, I believe. Anyhow, see section E4 for exactly my issue. I haven't done anything yet, so stay tuned.

 

[Whitehill]

The great Pondini solved it. I logged in as a different user and TM worked fine. So, back as me, I threw away ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, restarted, and TM works again.

There was a moment of panic when I couldn't find ~/Library. Then I found Pondini's tip A7 which informed me that that folder is "hidden" under Lion. Thanks, Apple.

 

[Simon Seddon]

Came here through Google with the TM crashing Finder problem. I've just solved it by deleting the .bundle file from the TM directly (via Finder). Obviously this isn't the most ideal solution as you lose all previous backups but for me that isn't a concern. My system is currently good and I don't envisage needing to go 'back in time' from this point.

I think that my particular problem was related to swapping hard-drives earlier in the year. I'm now using a thunderbolt SSD as my primary drive on my iMac, with the built-in drive acting as a data drive (photos, videos, work, etc). This swap must have confused the hell out of TM.