Turbotax 2019 Deluxe Crashes when printing on Mac

[mlohrer]

Very distressing…agree with everything you list:

(1) the printing is a Mac function at that point, and NO  I don’t get the dialog box.

(2) I can print as you show, or via the “Print Active Form” option just below that, or even via the “Preview” function.  All of those work fine if I am only referencing the Federal forms.  

(3) As soon as I include any MA or VT form, never gets to that dialog box, just the “spinning wheel of death” and I need to force a quit.

Using the console’s a good idea, will try that route, but again ultimately I am forcing the quit so might be tough to sort out beforehand where its hanging up…but worth looking into.

(4) Finally, dumbed down my “dummy” return to the absolute basics, so very few forms, just info forms, a few others, and it is the same result, so it’s not some inter-form linkage.

[macuser_22]

The spinning beach ball is not a crash but a process that has taken too much time to complete.  It can be caused by lack of memory, too many processes running or a loop within a process.  Since this has occurred on more then one system, I would suspect the latter, but that can be very difficult to trouble shoot without the source code.   You can use the Utilities -> Activity Monitor and select the "hung process" and the so a "Sample" that will show the looping functions. Sometimes just the function names will give a hint - other times that  exercise is useless.

[mlohrer]

Well, your advice re Console reminded me of too many previous Mac system episodes:

(1) Of course you are absolutely correct about the spinning ball, and looking thru various logs I could see that the Turbotax process kept getting hang events…no surprise there.

(2) I’ve experienced before that simply monitoring a problem with the Console running changes things enough that problems get solved…so off we went with the Console in the background.

(3) System hangs as previously, but then suddenly the printing handoff to the Mac gets going!

(4) Once that worked its way thru, now I can kill Console and all functions as it should!

(5) To make sure I wasn’t dreaming, repeated this whole exercise with Console on my “dummy” 10.14 setup, with the same result.  Even did a power cycle/restart, and the solution seems to persist, so for now I’m good to go!

I do thank you for pointing me in the right direction - be surprised if this doesn't arise for some others as well.

[macuser_22]

Great - perhaps you were not wait long enough  for the process to complete.

[mlohrer]

Hmmm...waiting 10 to 15 minutes ought to be long enough!

Furthermore, now that some "handshake" has been cleared, the system's response times is the few seconds it should be from "Print" selection to bringing the dialog box up...

There were a few posts recently from others who were having the same experience, and I think one of the users said he waited the day! 

Definitely something amiss, but hopeful this will keep it under control...

[macuser_22]

I am unclear.  Are you saying that got it to work and print?   I am not sure just what  you did to do that.

And what do you mean "handshake" has been cleared?

I am trying to figure out just where the "hang up" was and what you did to clear it?

[edited]

[mlohrer]

Will try to clarify, it's NOT a satisfying solution:

(1) Looking at various logs (SYSTEM and others) via Console, "hang" events were regularly reported for the Turbotax process, followed sometime later then by my "forced quit" crash.  WHAT exactly was hanging I can not report, just that the Turbotax process encountered a "hang" event.

(2) I started Turbotax YET again, tried to print state documents, and ended up in the same "stalled" spinning wheel state.

(3) I THEN started Console to see where we were hung up, but after just a few seconds the spinning wheel ended and the printer dialog box appeared -- no further insight into why with Console running whatever was stalled was allowed to proceed...but this is a "solution" I have actually experienced a few times in the past with "printer" related issues on software, not just Turbotax...

(4) This was all done first on the dummy system I had set up, which wasn't going to help much with actual returns.  SO, I repeated that "vague" process on my original 10.13 system - printing state form results in spinning wheel, starting Console allows process to proceed and printer dialog appears.

(5) On both systems, I then proceeded to retest this WITHOUT Console, and on both systems the printer dialog appeared within seconds of "printing" a state-related form.  This "fix" was then tested through full power off/power on restarts on both systems, and Turbotax continues to run correctly, by which I mean printing state forms results in a printer dialog box immediately.

All in all, not a particularly "actionable" problem solution, I understand, can only suggest others try it if in similar circumstances.

Appreciate all your interest and suggestions, hope for Turbotax this is a "one time" event, but since it happened on 2 completely independent systems of mine, going to hazard a guess that it will come up again...

[mlohrer]

Not sure how to do this via this forum, but if you can send me an email I could forward you the Turbotax 2019...macbook.hang log, really very uninformative to me, a snippet:

Date/Time: 2020-02-20 15:56:34 -0500
End time: 2020-02-20 15:56:36 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.14.6 (Build 18G3020)
Architecture: x86_64
Report Version: 28

Data Source: Stackshots
Shared Cache: 0x240e0000 945B37AF-A705-3F7D-8D[phone number removed]61
Shared Cache: 0 7B9711B1-CACF-3055-9CB4-615AE1637F77

Command: TurboTax 2019
Path: /Applications/TurboTax Home Business 2019.app/Contents/MacOS/TurboTax 2019
Identifier: com.intuit.turbotax.2019
Version: 2019.r18.033 (2019.r18.033)
Parent: launchd [1]
PID: 95356

Event: hang
Duration: 2.19s
Steps: 22 (100ms sampling interval)

Hardware model: MacBookPro9,2
Active cpus: 4

Time Awake Since Boot: 150000s
Time Since Wake: 910s

Fan speed: 2000 rpm

.....followed by stack info...

[macuser_22]

Glad you got it to print.   I doubt the log would do me much good.

I have seen other reports of print hangs and some have said that restarting the Mac in the "save mode" allowed printing.    The safe mode disables addons and extensions, start up apps and only loads the system fonts.

That leads me to suspect an interaction (or a resource hog) by some other process that prevents the TurboTax print routine to complete.   It might even be a nonstandard font that is installed (or some other software instillation installed) that is not comparable.

This type of hang can be hard to pinpoint until a method is found to reproduce it at will until the source of the problem is found.

[mlohrer]

Safemode is indeed a useful "crutch", at least often lets you get something critical done, but as you say can be very tough and time-consuming to pinpoint these types of things.

My problem is at least temporarily solved, although I will not be too surprised if it re-emerges after an update of Turbotax or two.

My two systems being completely different, very little software or setup overlap, but each exhibiting the issues, makes me suspect something more fundamental in Turbotax's internal call structure to process state info.

Fortunately,  I can now move on to what I was actually trying to get done - some tax returns!

Again, thanks, your inputs really were instrumental in moving me in the right direction.

[ZOZOIL]

Same problem with Turbotax 2019 Premier.  Federal return prints fine.  When I initiate the printing of my Arizona tax return, the SPD appears.  "FORCE QUIT" shows Turbotax "not responding".

I tried it on my son's tax return with a Louisiana tax return.  Same problem.  I can print specific supporting schedules, but Turbotax hangs when I attempt to print the main form.

Running macOS 10.15.3

I reported the problem to Turbotax support back in February.  Told to wait for a patch.

I attempted to remove all installed Turbotax files and reinstall.  Same problem.

I reported the problem again in last week.  Support was of no help as the person kept on giving me instructions for online Turbotax (clear your cache, close your browser, .....)

I have been using Turbotax on a Mac for years.  Never a problem......

[macuser_22]

If you use the File -> Save to PDF will it complete?

If you wait out the spin for 20-30 minutes does it evenly print.  Just because the beachball is spinning does not mean that it is not still working on it albeit slowly.

[ZOZOIL]

After 30 seconds of spinning beachball, I go to the "FORCE QUIT" app.  This shows Turbotax as "not responding" in red type.

[ZOZOIL]

Oops, I meant to also say that "Save to PDF" produces the same spinning beachball and "not responding"

[macuser_22]

Don't wait 30 seconds, wait 30 minutes and see if it prints.

From other reports it is starting to look like there might be a Mac process that is hogging a resource that is needed to print and it is just very slow to respond.     Just because it says "not responding" does not mean that it is not still processing slowly.

Once it prints the first time then it seems to print fast after that.

You can also try booting into the "safe" mode and then see if it will print, but again wait if it is spinning.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262