Sudden, repeated, unavoidable crashes in certain programs...

Question

Hi everyone,
I use a certain set of chemical drawing tools for my job on a daily basis. Recently a new version of this software suite was released, and promised to fix a number of issues. I installed the new suite along side my older versions - Sometimes the new version has huge problems, and it's necessary to roll back. Anyhow, after working with the new version, I quickly realized that certain critical compatibility features were irreversibly broken. No problem, I figured. I can just roll back, which is why I had the previous versions installed still.
Wrong.
Whenever I try to launch any of the three old versions of this software, now they IMMEDIATELY crash with the following error:
Process: CS ChemBioDraw Ultra [454]
Path: /Applications/CS ChemOffice 2010/CS ChemDraw/CS ChemBioDraw Ultra.app/Contents/MacOS/CS ChemBioDraw Ultra
Identifier: com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw
Version: 12.0.767 (12.0.767)
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [70]
Date/Time: 2010-10-04 09:06:38.720 -0700
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.4
Report Version: 6
Interval Since Last Report: 2402 sec
Crashes Since Last Report: 10
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 7 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 6
Anonymous UUID: 603E13ED-B0C7-4021-9CA3-BCF8F1C462AC
Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Application Specific Information:
* Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[NSCFNumber bytes]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x1208310'
* Call stack at first throw:
0 CoreFoundation 0x980e940a __raiseError + 410
1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x946b2509 objcexceptionthrow + 56
2 CoreFoundation 0x9813590b -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 187
3 CoreFoundation 0x98090db6 __forwarding__ + 950
4 CoreFoundation 0x98090982 CF_forwarding_prep0 + 50
5 CoreFoundation 0x9803ea9c CFDataGetBytePtr + 60
6 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x0026a39c 0x0 + 2532252
7 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x0015657d 0x0 + 1402237
8 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x00156a46 0x0 + 1403462
9 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x0031a8e7 0x0 + 3254503
10 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x0031ad02 0x0 + 3255554
11 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x00375e4c 0x0 + 3628620
12 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x00049729 0x0 + 300841
13 CS ChemBioDraw Ultra 0x00049658 0x0 + 300632
Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x98133a37 __TERMINATING_DUE_TO_UNCAUGHT_EXCEPTION__ + 7
1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x946b2509 objcexceptionthrow + 56
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9813590b -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 187
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x98090db6 __forwarding__ + 950
4 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x98090982 CF_forwarding_prep0 + 50
5 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9803ea9c CFDataGetBytePtr + 60
6 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x0026a39c 0x1000 + 2528156
7 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x0015657d 0x1000 + 1398141
8 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x00156a46 0x1000 + 1399366
9 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x0031a8e7 0x1000 + 3250407
10 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x0031ad02 0x1000 + 3251458
11 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x00375e4c 0x1000 + 3624524
12 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x00049729 0x1000 + 296745
13 com.cambridgesoft.ChemDraw 0x00049658 0x1000 + 296536
It doesn't matter which of the older versions I try to launch, this is the error I receive. The newest version continues to operate normally, but as I said its use is not possible due to other issues in the software.
I've contacted the developer, but they do not respond. Is there any way to diagnose this error and fix it? I've tried running Disk Utility and rebooting, but the error continue to happen immediately. If someone might be able to shed some light onto why this would be happening so consistently and repeatedly, I'd be most appreciative.

Answer 1

Hello Carbonyl,
We would be glad to help you with issues you may have using our software. To get technical help, please email [email protected] You will receive an auto-response with your ticket number and an agent should follow up with you soon afterward.
As a side note, we’re not sure what issues you are having with version 12.0.2 that would be fixed by an older version. We encourage our users to use the latest version, and would like to help you troubleshoot any issues you have with the latest version.
-CambridgeSoft Support