Mac OS X Server 10.4.10-11 client user problems

Question

It appears that since updating to Mac OS X Server 10.4.10 (and now 10.4.11), running on an XServe G4 with 2GB of RAM, QuarkXPress Passport 6.5 (and also 6.52) crashes at the splash screen when newly created network users launch it on client computers running OS X 10.4.8, 10.4.10 and 10.4.11. QuarkXPress runs fine when logged in as the computer owner with administrator rights.
Users created under Mac OS X Server 10.4.8 do not have this problem and are able to launch QuarkXPress 6.5 or 6.52 without a problem on these same computers.
Quark license verification is supplied by a QLA 4.5 server running on a seperate computer to the OS X Server system.
Can anyone give me any pointers as to what may be causing the crash? A couple of extracts from the crash log are listed below - the full log is available if anyone can decipher it:
Date/Time: 2007-12-05 14:02:19.702 +0000
OS Version: 10.4.11 (Build 8S165)
Report Version: 4
Command: QuarkXPress
Path: /Applications/QuarkXPress 6.5/QuarkXPress Passport.app/Contents/MacOS/QuarkXPress
Parent: WindowServer [53]
Version: QuarkXPress version 6.52 (6.51)
PID: 238
Thread: 0
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000009
Thread 0 Crashed:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90003ba0 szone_malloc + 616
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90003600 malloc + 632
2 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x00670a0c operator new(unsigned long) + 64
3 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x00616c98 std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >::init(char const*, char const, std::allocator<char> const&, std::randomaccess_iteratortag) + 96
4 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x0062f7ec std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >::basicstring[in-charge](std::basicstring<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&) + 56
5 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x00645408 std::_vector_imp<std::basicstring<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, std::allocator<std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > >, (bool)0>::insert(std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >*, unsigned long, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&) + 872
6 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x0045eccc PPDPath::SetPPDPath(char**, unsigned char) + 216
7 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x0045555c PPDMergeOSXAndClassic(char**, char**) + 340
8 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x004556bc PPDUpdate(unsigned char) + 328
9 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x004557b4 PPDInit() + 56
10 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x00016214 initialize() + 19176
11 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x0048a8e4 main + 224
12 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x000038d0 _start + 380
13 com.quark.QuarkXPress 0x00003750 _code_start_ + 48
Thread 0 crashed with PPC Thread State 64:
srr0: 0x0000000090003ba0 srr1: 0x000000000200f030 vrsave: 0x0000000000000000
cr: 0x84004444 xer: 0x0000000020000004 lr: 0x0000000090003a00 ctr: 0x0000000090003938
r0: 0x0000000000000008 r1: 0x00000000bfffec70 r2: 0x00000000fffffffe r3: 0x0000000002000038
r4: 0x0000000000000000 r5: 0x0000000005f66510 r6: 0x00000000ffffffff r7: 0x0000000000000001
r8: 0x0000000000000001 r9: 0x0000000000000001 r10: 0x0000000002000054 r11: 0x00000000020000d0
r12: 0x0000000090003938 r13: 0x000000000522d97c r14: 0x0000000000011740 r15: 0x0000000000010032
r16: 0x0000000000000019 r17: 0x000000000000000a r18: 0x00000000bb1a85b2 r19: 0x00000000007cb618
r20: 0x00000000a0003948 r21: 0x00000000ffffffff r22: 0x0000000000000002 r23: 0x0000000000000024
r24: 0x00000000a0003390 r25: 0x0000000005f6653c r26: 0x0000000002000000 r27: 0x0000000005f6653c
r28: 0x0000000000000003 r29: 0x00000000a0003390 r30: 0x0000000005f76d50 r31: 0x0000000090003948

Answer 1

Hi
Have you tried repairing privileges and permissions on the affected clients?
You could also try creating a new admin account on the affected clients and logging in with that. Launch Quark and see if it behaves the same way. If it does not then its more likely some damaged/corrupted plist or preference in the primary admin account’s Home/Library/Preferences folder.
It could also be down to a damaged/corrupted font or Xpress Preferences file. Running the 10.4.10/11 update could be a red herring and its just coincidence that the issues you are seeing happened after the update. Generally an application crashes on launch or when opening a file because its had a problem building the font list or trying to access/load a font when the file has been requested. If your Font Management system is Suitcase remove the Suitcase Preferences folder from /Users/Home/Library/Preferences and restart the mac. Hopefully Quark should now launch. Redefine font sets from there. Quark keeps its Preferences file in /Users/Home/Library/Application Support/Quark.
Of course it could be none of these in which case start looking at drive/directory issues or possibly system issues. You may be looking at an Archive/Reinstall of the OS or Reinstall of the application. Don’t rule out a rebuild either.
Hope this helps, Tony