How do I regain access to Font Book? It opens, hangs, then requires Force Quit

Question

I just purchased a new MacBook Pro and migrated everything over from the old one. I had imagined that it was the old one that was preventing me from being able use Font Book (Font Book.app); it’s not that.

When I attempt to open it on the new machine, looks like it is going to work for about five seconds, then becomes completely non–responsive, including the spinning wait cursor, until I use Force Quit.

So far I have tried deleting

1. ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FontBook.plist,
2. ~/Library/Preferences/Saved Application State/com.apple.FontBook.savedState, and
3. ~/Library/Fonts,

and then rebooting, but to no avail.

Answer 1

Make a backup of /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Library/FontCollections, and then delete that folder. Most likely, it's a corrupt font collection. Then, recreate the folder, and add each one back if you really want to investigate.

Otherwise, just delete the collections and start over.

Answer 2

After upgrading to El Capitan Font Book crashed - EVERY time I launched it. Though I couldn't delete the Font Collections folder, I could remove all of the items in it. AND IT WORKED! Font Book is now as it should be. Oh Happy Day!

Answer 3

A variation of suggestions from Alistair and Kevin and the Lucas, the OP, worked for me.

This is exactly the problem I was having. From Lucas: Before the hang begins, the pane on the left briefly shows four items ... “All Fonts” then a subheading “Smart Collection.”

I force-quite Font Book, went to the FontCollections folder (Finder Go Menu, pasted ~/Library/FontCollections).

Sorting by date added, there were some from the day of the crash. I threw those four font collection into the trash, and was able to reboot Font Book without a hitch.

To be safe I should probably trash them all, but for a quick fix this got me back in business.