I used Xojo’s plist editor to add some new items for handling apple events.
On running in debug this crashed Xojo.
Now even trying to reopen the plist editor to delete the offending code also crashes Xojo.
How can I remove the plist settings from the project files so that xojo doesn’t crash?
Open the plist in BBEdit
No, I mean in the project folder. How do I remove the plist data before opening the project?
I can’t run or build the project as Xojo crashes immediately.
This is the stack trace…
OS: macOS 26.1.0 (25B78)
IDE Version : 2025 Release 3
Stack Trace:
RuntimeRaiseException
RaiseOutOfBoundsException
XojoFramework$13406
PlistParser.parseArrayPlistEntry$o$oA1sss
PlistParser.ParsePlist$A1o$oA1s
PlistParser.LoadPlistString$A1o$os
PropertyListEditor.LoadPlistString$$os
macPlistEditor.EditButton_Pressed$$o<macPlistEditor.macPlistEditor>o
-[NSApplication(NSResponder) sendAction:to:from:]
-[NSControl sendAction:to:]
__26-[NSCell _sendActionFrom:]_block_invoke
-[NSCell _sendActionFrom:]
-[NSButtonCell _sendActionFrom:]
NSControlTrackMouse
-[NSCell trackMouse:inRect:ofView:untilMouseUp:]
-[NSButtonCell trackMouse:inRect:ofView:untilMouseUp:]
-[NSControl(_NSTracking) _mouseDown:]
-[NSControl(_NSTracking) mouseDown:]
XojoFramework$5089
-[NSWindow(NSEventRouting) _handleMouseDownEvent:isDelayedEvent:]
-[NSWindow(NSEventRouting) _reallySendEvent:isDelayedEvent:]
-[NSWindow(NSEventRouting) sendEvent:]
XojoFramework$5404
-[NSApplication(NSEventRouting) sendEvent:]
XojoFramework$4987
Application._CallFunctionWithExceptionHandling$$op
_Z33CallFunctionWithExceptionHandlingPFvvE
XojoFramework$4987
-[NSApplication _handleEvent:]
-[NSApplication run]
RuntimeRun
REALbasic._RuntimeRun
_Main
main
Open your app.xojo_project text file, go to PlistEntries and remove what you like or set default as:
PlistEntries={"root":""}
you are using text format, right?
Yes, I am.
OK, so I’ve deleted all that was in that plist - but it seems there is still another set of plist entries somewhere because the manually entered settings were not in there. Xojo still crashes when trying to open Property List Edit inside the MacOS Build Settings.
I’m sorry it didn’t help you. As I mostly work with Web, I don’t have a project for macOS with a plist.
I only did some tests with the Property List editor and see that line that added the contents and removing that helped avoid the crash on empty project.
I updated your issue with my test/video/sample.
do you have a plist file that you dragged into the navigator as well?
Nope. I did have some supporting .plist files in the same project folder as the app, but they were not referred to within the app. I have removed those anyway, but still same issue.
appname.xojo_project file now shows PlistEntries={“root”:“”}, but same issue exists.
As a test created an empty project and used Property List Edit to add a new entry. This entry did appear in app name.xojo_project under PlistEntries.
So it is strange that it is still finding an error in plist when there should be nothing there.
The only other thing I can suggest is to zip your project, create a private Issue with it and ask Xojo to fix/remove the plist reference.
They are on vacation until January 5th (from what I read).
Alberto
Thanks again. I found the culprit plistEntries in the xojo_project file as you suggested(I was looking in the wrong folder - duh!).
Deleted the array entries entered using Property List Edit - and now back to normal. I think the final solution is to remove the Xojo Property List entries, and rely instead on App Wrapper.
It would be great if you could recreate the issue and submit a ticket so that it can be fixed properly by the Xojo team.
Possibly related issue?
This is what James reported:
https://tracker.xojo.com/xojoinc/xojo/-/issues/80602
I added some info to easily crash Xojo and make it not possible to run/build/edit until manually delete the bad info.
Thanks for the link and example Alberto and for reporting the issue James.
Ticket upvoted.