DIT Triage - C1 Crashed
Symptom: Capture One has crashed, is frozen, or won’t launch.
1. Is Capture One frozen (beach ball) but still running?
The app is unresponsive — spinning beach ball cursor — but the process hasn’t quit.
Yes — Wait 30 seconds. Capture One may be processing a large preview or writing to disk. If it recovers, continue shooting. If still frozen after 30 seconds: force quit by right-clicking the Capture One icon in the Dock > Force Quit (or Cmd+Option+Escape > select Capture One > Force Quit). Then proceed to the crash recovery in question 2.
No (app quit entirely / disappeared) → Next.
2. Did the app crash to desktop (quit unexpectedly)?
Capture One disappeared. macOS may show a crash report dialog.
Yes — Dismiss the crash report. Proceed to EC - Crash Recovery Sequence for the timed step-by-step recovery for your specific workflow tier (Pro: target <60s, Studio: target <90s, Wired Only: target <30s).
Tell the client: “Give me 60 seconds — I’m bringing the system back up.”
No (the app is still there but something else happened) → Next.
3. Did the whole system crash (kernel panic)?
Gray screen with “Your computer was restarted because of a problem” or the Mac spontaneously rebooted.
Yes → EC - Kernel Panic Recovery
No → Next.
4. Did the Mac go to sleep or hibernate?
Screen went dark, laptop lid was closed, or power was briefly interrupted.
Yes → EC - Sleep Wake Recovery
No → Next.
5. Capture One won’t relaunch?
You’re trying to open Capture One and it won’t start, crashes immediately on launch, or shows an error.
“Disk full” or write error → EC - Disk Full Recovery
License error or trial mode → EC - License Deactivation
“Session is in use” or “Database locked” — Another Capture One instance is running. Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor), search for “Capture One”, force quit any zombie processes. Relaunch.
Crashes immediately on launch (no error) — Preferences may be corrupt. Move the preferences aside: in Terminal, first find the current plist with ls ~/Library/Preferences/com.captureone.* (the filename includes the version number, e.g., captureone16 for version 16), then move it: mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.captureone.captureone16.plist ~/Desktop/ (adjust the version number to match what ls returned). Relaunch. If it works, you’ll need to reconfigure workspace settings. If it still crashes → the application itself is broken. Fall back to shooting to card while diagnosing → EC - Card Import Fallback
Relaunches fine → Next.
6. App launched but the session is broken or empty?
Capture One opened but shows no images, or the session/catalog structure is damaged.
No images visible but files exist on disk — The session database (.cosessiondb) may be corrupt. In Capture One, go to File > Import Images > navigate to the capture folder and re-import. Ratings and adjustments stored in sidecar files (.cos folder) will be preserved.
Session opens to wrong folder — Check the capture destination: Capture One > Session > Capture Folder. Redirect to the correct location.
Catalog in use instead of session — If the photographer set up a catalog instead of a session: catalogs are functional for tethering but have higher corruption risk and are harder to hand off. If the catalog is damaged, the embedded database may be unrecoverable. For new captures, consider creating a new session and importing from the catalog later.
7. Nuclear: All else fails
If you’ve exhausted all steps above and Capture One is still not functional:
- Restart the laptop entirely. Shut down (don’t just reboot — full shutdown, wait 10 seconds, power on). Budget 90-120 seconds.
- Relaunch Capture One and reopen the session. Run through EC - Crash Recovery Sequence to restore all services.
- If Capture One still won’t work — the application is broken for this shoot. Switch to shooting to card → EC - Card Import Fallback. Import between setups. The shoot continues.
Tell the client: “I’m restarting the system. Give me two minutes and we’ll be back up.”