FAQ

Quicksilver FAQ

Quicksilver crashes

Problematic Applications

First, check to make sure you aren't running any Known Bad Applications.

Console.app

Check the log in Console.app to see if there are any log messages or crash reports hinting at what might have gone wrong. Look on the left hand side for log messages titled 'Quicksilver' If you find some reports, send them to the bug tracker.

Catalog

If Quicksilver crashes at startup, firstly try running Quicksilver with a disabled Catalog. This can be done by holding ⇧ when launching Quicksilver. If Quicksilver launches with no problems, then one of your catalog entries is problematic. Try disabling them in turn to find the problem. This is done by opening ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Catalog.plist and changing the 'Enabled' key for each entry to 'NO'.

Cache

If Quicksilver is trying to read a corrupt cache, this can cause it to crash. Try Clearing the Cache.

Shelf Problem

If this doesn't solve your problem, see if you have a ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Shelves/ folder. Quit Quicksilver, move it out of the way and start Quicksilver again. Sometimes the shelf gets corrupted or if you've copied a huge (say photoshop file) to the clipboard history QS tries to allocate huge amounts of memory and fails.

Why can't I see action 'x' in Quicksilver?

If an action appears to be unavailable in Quicksilver's 2nd pane (the actions pane), ensure you have the action enabled in the Quicksilver Preferences under the 'actions' tab. If the action you're looking for is obtained from a certain plugin, ensure you install the plugin before checking the 'Actions' preferences.

Clearing the cache

If you start to see strange changes in behavior that was previously working fine, clearing out the cache will probably fix it. A common example of such a problem is when searching for something, you can only get an entry that ends in "(Catalog)". To clear the cache:

1. Quit Quicksilver
2. Move ~/Library/Caches/com.blacktree.Quicksilver/ to the Trash
3. Move ~/Library/Caches/Quicksilver/ to the Trash
4. Start Quicksilver

It may take a minute for the catalog to become repopulated.

Quicksilver uses lots of memory, cpu or hangs

Quicksilver keeps the entire index in memory and scans the catalog sources regularly. Usually when it uses too many resources it's because the catalog is configured too large. The default ~/Documents/ source is configured to a depth of 2, if you create a custom source of infinite depth it will make the catalog large. Also if you configure a source for your home directory (~) it will probably scan many unnecessary files (~/Library, etc.). This is also why your music and pictures aren't in the global catalog and should be accessed via the iTunes and iPhoto plug-ins which require you to type → to get into your music files and photos.

Also network drives configured to be scanned can make the catalog large. Note the "Find All Applications" catalog source (in the Applications set) will scan your entire machine, including network drives for applications.

If you have the "Clipboard Module" plug-in installed and configured in the Clipboard Preferences to Capture History you might have large clippings in the history. This causes Quicksilver to use lots of memory. To clear it you can use the clear button in the Clipboard History panel.

Quicksilver doesn't find my files

By default Quicksilver finds files on your Desktop and in your Documents folder but it doesn't scan very far into those locations. To scan these folders deeper, clone the source in the [qs://preferences#QSCatalogPrefPane Catalog Preferences] so it's in the Custom set in the catalog and editable. To do this, select the Users set and the Documents source, open the drawer and select the Attributes tab. click on "Create Copy" to create a new source in Custom named Documents. Select the new source and click on the info (i) button to show a drawer with three tabs. Select the Source Options tab and select the depth. Do not just set it to infinite, the catalog will be too large and Quicksilver will slow to a crawl. See the Catalog section for some tips.

Quicksilver won't install any plugins and hangs when trying

This is often a permissions problem and kGTD has been known to cause problems. Check that your user account (and not root) owns ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/ and the PlugIns folder beneath it. You can check and change this if needed by doing Get Info in the Finder and looking in the Ownership & Permission section. After making sure the folder exists and you own it and have permissions to write to it, restart Quicksilver.

The other cause is if you're running Little Snitch which is a reverse firewall and prevents Quicksilver from contacting the server where the plug-ins are.

Doesn't Spotlight make Quicksilver unnecessary

Find out more here

Quicksilver's window keeps disappearing and won't stick

Secondly, Quicksilver is known not to play nicely with applications such as Windowshade X and Spirited Away. See the list of Known Bad Applications.

I don't see feature X

Make sure you have the appropriate plug-in(s) installed. If it's something in the first pane you don't see, make sure it's enabled in the catalog and scanned (so that the catalog source has a number next to the checkbox).

Triggers don't save

1. Triggers are saved in ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Triggers.plist if the permissions of that file or directory don't allow you to write, then no trigger will be saved. There have also been reports of this file becoming corrupted.
2. If you have triggers using actions from some plugin and then uninstall that plugin, the triggers remain and QS can be confused. Sometimes a particular trigger doesn't display, sometimes only one of many triggers appears in the prefs. To fix, reinstall the needed plugins, delete the related triggers, then remove the plugin.

How to Quickly Reset Quicksilver Settings

Reinstalling Quicksilver doesn't change any saved configuration. Quicksilver stores all it's state in the following locations (~ represents your home folder):

• ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.blacktree.Quicksilver.plist
• ~/Library/Caches/Quicksilver/
• ~/Library/Caches/com.blacktree.Quicksilver/

To restore Quicksilver to it's initial configuration, quit Quicksilver and rename the first two items above (to back them up) and delete the two in Caches, then restart Quicksilver. If your problem stops then you know it is something in this directory. Try copying items back one-by-one until you find the cause of your trouble. Here's what the files in the app support directory do:

• Actions.plist - list of installed actions
• Catalog.plist - the configured catalog sources
• Mnemonics.plist - learned inputs, defaults and abbreviations
• PlugIns.plist - the list of available plug-ins and how they are configured
• Triggers.plist - the configured triggers
• Caches/ - another cache folder
• Indexes/ - folder of indexed items
• PlugIns/ - installed plug-ins
• Shelves/ - where items on the Shelf and clipboards are stored
• Actions/ - not installed but create this folder to add scripts that implement actions
• Templates/ - not installed but create this folder to use with the Make New... action