OSXFAQ Mac OS X Tip-of-the-Day 
Trouble-Shooting IV (Advanced) - Launch Services
By Adrian Mayo - Editor - OSXFAQ
This week's tips give some advanced trouble-shooting tips, mostly
involving the terminal and single-user mode.
Week 28 February, Trouble-Shooting (Applications) considers
trouble-shooting a particular application that is not behaving as it
should.
Week 7 March, Trouble-Shooting II (System) concentrates on
trouble-shooting system problems that affect many applications, or the
system in general.
Week 21 March, Trouble-Shooting III (Hardware) considers hardware
problems like disc corruption and faulty memory.
The Finder, and the command line based 'open' command, both use Launch
Services to associate documents with applications. The Finder also uses
this information to associate icons with documents.
The 'lsregister' command can be launched from the command-line, and
gives scope for manual maintenance of the Launch Services database.
Problems involving incorrect icons or documents failing to open (with
the proper application) can be solved using 'lsregister'
$ /System/Library/Frameworks/
ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/
Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/
Current/Support/lsregister
(all on one line)
lsregister: [OPTIONS] [-domain { system | local | user | network }]...
[path]...
Search the paths for application bundles and add each found item to the
Launch Services database. For domain specifications, ask CF for the list
of application locations in the given domain(s).
-kill Reset the global Launch Services database before doing anything else
-lint Print information about plist errors while registering bundles
-convert Register apps found in older LS database files
-load Load the LaunchServices service plugin if it's not already loaded.
-lazy n Sleep for n seconds before registering apps if the local cache is aleady populated.
-r Recursively register directory contents, do not recurse into packages or invisible directories.
-R Recursively register directory contents, including the contents of packages and invisible directories.
-f force-update registration info even if mod date is unchanged
-v Display progress information.
-dump Display full database contents after registration.
-h Display this help.
Issuing the command:
...the/long/path/lsregister -kill -r -domain system -domain local -domain user
will repair the Launch Services database.
I've not investigated this command much, but it does have potential for querying, maintaining, and resetting the LS database.
Enjoy !! :-)
Panther 10.3.8
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