Finder doesn't open certain files

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Level 1

5 points

Finder doesn't open certain files

Hey everyone,

I have bought recently a MacBook Pro 14'' with the M2 Pro chipset. It's running on the latest Ventura 13.3.1, no other updates are available.

Finder sometimes doesn't open certain files. For instance I have 2 pdfs in a location, one it does open, the other it doesn't. The opening file animation takes place, but the file is not opened.

The machine is amazing, but coming after many years of Windows usage, this is becoming increasingly annoying.

If this can't be fixed, is there another good "finder"/"explorer" app that I can use instead of Finder?

Any answers are very much appreciated.

Cheers!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 13.3

Posted on Apr 18, 2023 1:29 AM

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Answer 1

May 11, 2023 12:27 AM in response to xulescu

Hi! I'm interested, having the same issue on two different brand new Macbook M2. I first realised the issue on pdf files (double click, little animation but no opening), but it's also the case on some other files, rather randomly.

When a file doesn't open via double click, if I duplicate it (⌘-C ⌘-V), the copy can be opened via double-click.

@xulescu, using another file manager was a working solution?

Edit : solution seems to be explained here (some Unicode file naming).

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Answer 2

Apr 18, 2023 6:35 AM in response to xulescu

xulescu wrote:

Hey everyone,

I have bought recently a MacBook Pro 14'' with the M2 Pro chipset. It's running on the latest Ventura 13.3.1, no other updates are available.

Finder sometimes doesn't open certain files. For instance I have 2 pdfs in a location, one it does open, the other it doesn't. The opening file animation takes place, but the file is not opened.

I would try a true PDF editor, there are many, here are a few examples:

Acrobat Reader / Adobe Acrobat DC

https://get.adobe.com/reader/

PDFpen / Nitro

https://pdfpen.com/pdfpen/

pdfExpert

https://pdfexpert.com/

Master PDF Editor

https://code-industry.net/masterpdfeditor/?-about&ver=5832

Foxit Reader / Editor

https://www.foxit.com/

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Answer 3

xulescu Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 18, 2023 6:55 AM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks for the reply. I'm using Adobe Reader, not the default file viewer. The problem only occurs while trying to double click the file, no matter the file extension (the PDF was just an example), in Finder. It doesn't open the file with the default app (Adobe Reader in this case). If I open the file from Adobe Reader (Top Bar -> File -> Open -> Select file) it works perfectly. This is how I determined that the problem is with Finder and not the actual file or app that actually open the file. Basically, Finder doesn't perform the "open" command in some cases.

I was thinking of switching to Commander One or Nimble Commander in order to avoid Finder at least until this bug is fixed.

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Answer 4

May 11, 2023 1:15 AM in response to xulescu

This is a well known problem with files that have non-ASCII characters in their name, and is related to how Unicode characters are encoded.

For the moment, renaming the files or opening them from within the application are the common workarounds.

This appears to have been fixed in the coming 13.4.

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Answer 5

xulescu Author

Level 1

5 points

May 11, 2023 10:01 AM in response to LaurentGh

My workaround end up being to drag-and-drop the files in Chrome which opened the files just fine. It does indeed have to do with non-ASCII characters in the path name. I renamed a root folder and now it works just fine.

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Finder doesn't open certain files

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