Inkscape

inkscape won't start in leopard

Asked by garryh

Inkscape icon and X11 icon are displayed in dock when inkscpe application is started from finder window but the program does not start.

we have tried several things to remedy the problem including updating relevant software. Our current environment is as follows.

OS X 10.5.8
inkscape .46 +devel
x11 xquartz 2.4.0 (xorg-server 1.5.3-apple14)

we have tried several of the suggested fixes like modifying the script file by deleting the "|| exit 12" text from the else logic
we tried starting inkscape in terminal/x11 terminal and via opendoc with the following messages

/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/MacOS/Inkscape

(process:8473): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display "/tmp/launch-mevDrG/:0".

Emergency save activated!
Emergency save completed. Inkscape will close now.
If you can reproduce this crash, please file a bug at www.inkscape.org
with a detailed description of the steps leading to the crash, so we can fix it.

via opendoc Last login: Sun Aug 23 07:32:58 on ttys000
Macintosh:~ evelyn$ /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/openDoc ; exit;

(process:8888): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
    Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display "/tmp/launch-mevDrG/:0".

Emergency save activated!
Emergency save completed. Inkscape will close now.
If you can reproduce this crash, please file a bug at www.inkscape.org
with a detailed description of the steps leading to the crash, so we can fix it.

At this point we are not sure what to do. We should say that inkscape .46 had been working and then stopped. About the same time that it stopped working we were organizing our font files and are not sure if the two are related. W we used our font book application to copy fonts from the "all fonts" collection to the "computer" collection. We did this because inkscape and another application called "sure cuts a lot' only saw the fonts in the "computer" collection which was limited in terms of the total number of fonts we own. We copied all the fonts in the "all fonts" collection to the "computer collection", however we did not immediately go and use inkscape. A while later we tried to use inkscape, which may or may not have been after an Apple software update occurred and inkscape did not start. It should be noted that the other application "sure cuts a lot" continued to work and saw all of the fonts now that we had copied them to the "computer" collection.

The error message above indicated to submit a bug report and we will happily do so if no solution is offered here at launchpad.

Thanks!

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Inkscape Edit question
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su_v
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Revision history for this message
Best su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#1

Sorry you had to go through so much trouble and yet Inkscape still isn't working! I can try to help you figure out what is blocking Inkscape from launching properly... From what you describe it seems highly likely that some of the fonts you installed to the 'computer' collection prevent Inkscape from starting. As you probably have read Inkscape has its own font management independent of OS X Font Book.

First I propose the following steps:

1) get and install the latest prerelease version 'Inkscape-0.47-pre1-2.LEOPARD.dmg' from <http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkscape/files/inkscape/0.47pre1/> (to make sure there are no unintended changes inside the application package)
2) clear Inkscape's X11 font cache: open Terminal.app and type 'rm ~/.fontconfig/*' without the quotes (and please keep all spaces and lower/upper cases as in my example). This command deletes all (*) cache files in the folder '~/.fontconfig', where '~' is an abbreviation of the path to your Home Folder.
3) prepare Console.app to capture relevant console messages: open 'Console.app' (in Applications > Utilities > Console), choose 'All messages' at the top of the log list in the left side of the window and use the brush icon to clear the display before starting X11 or Inkscape in the next steps...

let's take a break here and test if Inkscape still refuses to run...
test:
1) clear the console log window
2) start X11 by itself
3) start Inkscape by double-clicking on its icon in the finder
4) watch the console window and paste the messages here in case Inkscape fails
5) quit Inkscape, quit X11

if Inkscape fails to run, I would suggest to move all _newly_ installed fonts out of '/Library/Fonts' into a temporary folder and rerun above test steps 1-5. You need to move the files in the Finder yourself - font management via Font Book (like disabling fonts) has no influence on Inkscape, Inkscape just scans all fonts in '/Library/Fonts' and '~/Library/Fonts' (the user font folder) and tries to use them for its own font list. And be careful not to move any of the system supplied fonts out of '/Library/Fonts'.

How many fonts are we talking about - 10, 50, 500? ;-)

report back how far you got and we'll take it from there...

hth, ~suv

Revision history for this message
su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#2

Follow-up note: in case you are hesitant to move all special fonts into a temporary folder - see my comments in this question <https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/76300>, at the end I describe how you can figure out a 'broken' font that lets Inkscape crash without uninstalling all suspicious fonts. And a simple method how to figure out which fonts work or not when moving them back to the fonts folder. Even though the issue there was on OS X Tiger, the principles are the same.

Inkscape 0.47(pre) scans these font folders:
 /usr/share/fonts
 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts
 /opt/local/share/fonts
 /Network/Library/Fonts
 /Library/Fonts
 ~/Library/Fonts
 ~/.fonts

If a folder doesn't exists, that's ok. '/Library/Fonts' is most likely where you fonts were stored when you copied them to the 'All Fonts' collection (you might also check if you have them installed into two different locations now and decide to keep only one copy installed - in the 'User' collection '~/Library/Fonts'). '~/Library/Fonts' was not scanned with Inkscape 0.46 but with Inkscape 0.47(pre) it's included again - and probably the best place to put/keep your own fonts once you found the potential culprit (if that's what keeps Inkscape from running ;-)

~suv

Revision history for this message
garryh (garryh-mindspring) said : 		#3

Thank you so much for your clear and detailed directions. After reviewing both e-mail responses we were sure we would need to do every recommendation and inkscape would still not work. We were overjoyed that after installing .47-pre1-2, the first step, our problem was solved, inkscape worked! We thank you sooooooo much! Consider this issue resolve, closed, finito!