Opening folder on initial screen in OSX hangs

[arnaldopiccinelli]

Steps to reproduce

With Obsidian open to the Create/Open dialog:

Scenario 1

1. Click “Open” for Open folder as vault.
2. Obsidian hangs for 30 seconds.
3. Obsidian returns to the main screen.

Scenario 2

1. Click “Create” for Create new vault.
2. Enter a Vault name.
3. Click Browse for Location.
4. Obsidian hangs for 30 seconds.
5. Obsidian returns to the main screen.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide?

Yes, I tried to follow the troubleshooting guide. However, this failure precedes any vault being opened.

I reinstalled Obsidian from scratch multiple times.
I manually removed the contents of /Applications/Obsidian.app Library/Application\ Support/obsidian.

I also started Obsidian from the command line so I could see errors, but nothing appeared during the time Obsidian was frozen. Afterwards, I got this single message:

2024-02-17 12:55:46.327 Obsidian[4565:34678] *** Assertion failure in -[NSOpenPanel _initBridgeAndStuff], NSSavePanel.m:432

Full logs: Obsidian OSX hangs - Pastebin.com

Expected result

I want to be able to navigate to the folder of my choice and open my vault.

Actual result

I cannot open any existing vaults or create new ones since I cannot navigate the file system.

Environment

I cannot access the Command Palette without an open vault.
I have granted all permissions I can in OSX.

[ariehen]

If you have admin rights, you could try creating another user account in macOS to see how Obsidian behaves there. Something similar from a bit ago:

Not responding when Create vault -> Browse

I’m assuming other apps and the Finder work normally? Is there anything special you can think of about the setup of the macMini? e.g. restricted user account, network attached storage, etc. When you have time, can you try creating a new admin user account in macOS and test opening Obsidian in there? If you can open it, save the vault to /Users/TESTUSER/{VAULTNAME} and create a few test notes and folders within Obsidian. I’m wondering if the issue is isolated to your main user account or system…

[andimai]

I had the same issue with my normal user account. But when I used an account with admin rights, the problem didn’t appear anymore. So it seems Obsidian needs admin rights to be able to create a vault on Mac OS X.

[chrissyeg]

I have this same problem on my Mac with an admin account and with Full Disk Access granted to Obsidian:

Obsidian 1.5.12
Mac OS X Sonoma 14.3.1

[lobrien]

It was Full Disk Access for me. I had been using Obsidian on this computer, but when I turned it on this AM, I had the “opening dialog hang,” issue. System Settings | Full Disk Access didn’t even show Obsidian in the list as disabled, so added it. Worked right away, no reboot.

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.5.12
Installer version: v1.5.12
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 23.4.0: Fri Mar 15 00:12:41 PDT 2024; root:xnu-10063.101.17~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 23.4.0
Login status: not logged in
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 1
Plugins enabled: 1
1: Importer v1.6.1

RECOMMENDATIONS:
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.

[huateduck]

I can only make it to work by using sudo.

sudo /Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS/Obsidian

Is there any way not to use sudo to run Obsidian?

[olip]

I had exactly the same problem, but on Linux. Under my current user (which has a lot of different env variables set), the program hangs on opening a File browser window.

When I run it with sudo or if i create a vanilla user without any customization and run it under those, the program works flawlessly. So my solution to this problem, to make it run under my current non-working environment is to clean the environment and any env variable set (using env -i) and only define those necessary for making the program run (atm only DISPLAY). So I created an alias:

alias obs=“env -i DISPLAY=:0 ~/bin/obsidian-1.6.7-AppImage/Obsidian-1.6.7.AppImage”

then just run:

$ obs

Now I can use obsidian without any trouble

[WhiteNoise]

This problem seems to be tied to permission problems. The way you installed obsidian or the location of your vault is not accessible to obsidian.