ELAN 6.4 Stuck Initializing

ELAN
1

When attempting to open an .mp4 or .eaf file from an external hard drive, ELAN gets stuck in “Initializing…” for an extended period of time. Eventually it will say “Undefined File Name” but stay stuck on a blank screen and never actually open either file. None of the controls or menu options are available when it’s stuck like this. In order to get out of the screen and attempt to try again, I have had to force quit the application since a simple quit command doesn’t do the trick.

I have also tried to move the .eaf file to the Desktop on the computer to see if it was an issue with the fact that the file was on an external drive, but I had the same issue. I also tried to validate the .eaf file and it said that there were no errors or warnings detected.

I am using macOS Monterey (12.3.1).

I see that there are other reports of the same issue from many years ago, but none seem to have a solution for the problem.

I also see that in the other reports, requests for the log file were made, but I am not sure how to access those.

2

Did you also try to copy the .mp4 to the internal drive? I guess that would more likely be the problem, but maybe that isn’t the issue either.

Concerning the log: as long as the application is still responsive, it can be accessed via View->View Log.... Otherwise, after a forced quit, the log file(s) can be found in ELAN’s data and preferences folder and the files are name elan0.log, elan1.log etc. (check the timestamp to see which one was used last).
The location of the special ELAN folder as described here.