Can't open DeltaChat on macOS no more: "Fatal Error during ini - TypeError: Provided dc_accounts is null, did you unref the accounts object?"

Mutual Help
1

Hi all,
when I want open DC on dektop macOS, then this alert come and it doesn’t open: “Fatal Error during init - TypeError: Provided dc_accounts is null, did you unref the accounts object?”
it’s since a half year or so. It was the DC version 1.32 I think. I tried it with 1.38.1 but it’s the same.

it could be that in this time I renamed my user directory… but the problem didn’t appear in other programs.

thank u :**

2

please look if the log files under /Users/<your_username>/Library/Application Support/DeltaChat/logs provide some useful information.
The content of /Users/<your_username>/Library/Application Support/DeltaChat/accounts.toml could also be helpful.

Backup your account folder /Users/<your_username>/Library/Application Support/DeltaChat/accounts then you can delete deltachat and see if it works again with a fresh account, later you can restore the account folder again.

3

Before Desktop 1.34.2 there is a chance your accounts.toml file used absolute paths rather than relative paths and included the name of your home folder. This issue was completely fixed in core 1.106.0 and Delta Chat Desktop 1.34.2 is the first released desktop version that used core 1.106.0.

As a solution you can rename your home folder back, make sure Delta Chat works, then upgrade it to a version >= 1.34.2. Alternatively, try to open accounts.toml and replace the dir with a relative path, so an example entry might look like this:

[[accounts]]
id = 41
dir = "4a02c489-8d68-4e33-81e8-f4992ef07c1b"
uuid = "4a02c489-8d68-4e33-81e8-f4992ef07c1b"

(or just replace the username there with a new one if that was the issue, Delta Chat will upgrade to relative paths itself afterwards).

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