Error Code -10660

December 31st, 2003
Categories: Interface, OS X

This message appeared when I double-clicked a document that was set to open with an application that had been deleted from my system:

Two problems present themselves:

  • The error message is completely unintelligible to users.
  • The dialog does not provide information about how to open the document with another capable application.

The PDF file I was attempting to open was associated with Acrobat Reader 5.1, which I deleted long ago. I wonder both why the OS didn’t remove Reader 5.1 as an option for viewing PDF files and why it didn’t automatically fall back to either Reader 6.0 or Preview, both of which are on my drive.

Running Cocktail’s cache cleaning function removed Reader 5.1’s “Open With…” contextual menu entry, but this is certainly beyond what should be expected of normal users.

29 Responses to “Error Code -10660”

  1. Anonymous, on February 18th, 2004 at 2:28 AM Said:

    Numeric messages need to be abolished!
    The application cannot be run because it is inside a Trash folder.

    You didn’t really delete the old version of Acrobat. You only moved it. Empty the trash.

  2. satrajit, on February 20th, 2004 at 11:55 AM Said:

    this one worked for me as i am working in a BPO and i work for Intuit Quicken and i dd not find this in our database. thnx a lot

  3. Daniel J. Wilson, on February 22nd, 2004 at 1:22 AM Said:

    Thanks for commenting, Anonymous Individual, but I do know the contents of my own hard drive. :-) The application had been deleted, not moved, months ago.

    How’s life in Taiwan?

  4. Anonymous, on June 15th, 2004 at 8:45 AM Said:

    excellent, emptying the trash fixed the problem…

  5. matt, on August 9th, 2004 at 1:24 PM Said:

    thanka thanka for posting this; finally got BBEdit to loosen its claws just enough to permit Oxygen XML Editor to retake the XML file namespace on my machine. Hooray!

  6. Julian, on January 20th, 2005 at 3:12 PM Said:

    Wicked, I was just begining to think I never should have bought this beautifull shiny Apple and tried to run crazy old Microsoft Office (Mac Ver). Fixed

    Couldn’t open a word doc on the desktop. Some how I’d ended up with a 30 day trial of Moffice which I found and trashed (But hadn’t yet emptied) when I realised the 30 day trial was opening the documents ahead of my legitimate copy.

    I could trick Word into opening the documents on the desktop if I went in through Word and choose to open them.

    Thankyou for this

  7. Daniel J. Wilson, on January 22nd, 2005 at 2:23 AM Said:

    Based on my search engine query statistics, this is a common problem for OS X users. Let’s hope an update will soon fix the problem (assuming it is a problem that Apple can address).

  8. Peter, on March 17th, 2005 at 11:08 PM Said:

    gday.

    yeah, same thing happend to me.
    didn’t empty the trash after i deleted the trial version of office.

    thanks for the tip.. i was just about to reinstall the whole of office as well

    cheers

  9. Roberto, on April 16th, 2005 at 3:48 PM Said:

    I got this while trying to import older mail into entourage.

    Still not resolved.

  10. Felix, on April 18th, 2005 at 1:11 PM Said:

    Roberto’s problem solved here. http://www.kbalertz.com/kb_890889.aspx

  11. Giacecco, on May 19th, 2005 at 1:15 AM Said:

    The same happened to me, and fixed it emptying the trash, too. I guess it could be really related to have deleted the Office trial without emptying the bin.

    Giacecco

  12. Nick, on May 27th, 2005 at 8:44 AM Said:

    Same problem for me after removing Tryout version of Office bundled with Powerbook (had installed full version first - doh)

    Emptying trash of Office tryout worked fine!

  13. rachel, on May 28th, 2005 at 6:03 PM Said:

    thanks! even i understand what happened now

  14. chris wilbratte, on June 26th, 2005 at 5:59 PM Said:

    thank you for posting this. It was a big help!

  15. Darrell, on July 18th, 2005 at 12:24 PM Said:

    OK I retreived Office from the trash and now I don’t get the error message but I don’t get anything else either.
    What I’m trying to do is install software to drive my HP Scanner. The download seems to require Word. This seems STUPID on a Mac.

  16. Amogh, on November 3rd, 2005 at 10:15 PM Said:

    Thanks a lot for the ‘empty trash’ solution. It worked :)

  17. Mario, on June 1st, 2007 at 10:19 PM Said:

    Great help!! I was trying to open a excel document and had the same problem, just empty thrash and it will work.

  18. Susan, on June 8th, 2007 at 5:53 PM Said:

    THANK YOU! I’ve been *trying* to network the two Macs that my parents just bought and couldn’t open up a Word document on my Dad’s that was sent from my Mom’s………….I emptied the trash (with the MO for Mac trial in it) and it not works. THANK YOU!

  19. Limey, on June 21st, 2007 at 5:03 PM Said:

    If you ever have problems such as this I would advise you to check out this link…it is called the X Lab and it is specifically for Mac problem solving.I would thoroughly recommend it…..The site is full of solutions to just about every problem you are likely to encounter on a Mac and it is free.There is also a book available that is also invaluable….The link here covers the topic covered above more extensively…..

    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html

    I hope you find this as useful as I do…..!
    Limey

  20. sheri, on June 28th, 2007 at 8:11 AM Said:

    I fixed my problem too by emptying the trash so thanks to whoever posted this!
    Best,
    Sheri

  21. nick smee, on July 20th, 2007 at 11:43 AM Said:

    I had this problem and followed the advice above and emptied the trash. I no longer get the error message 10660, but I still can’t open my Word documents. DOH. Any bright ideas out there?

  22. Jeff S., on August 21st, 2007 at 11:07 AM Said:

    Thanks! I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t open .ZIP files on my Mac. All I needed to do was empty the trash. Stupid that that would be a problem, but I’m glad the solution worked.

  23. matt, on August 25th, 2007 at 4:17 PM Said:

    hey thanks nick smee ii had the same problem as you and when i read your review and tried it ,worked like a charm

  24. mela, on September 11th, 2007 at 10:55 AM Said:

    :) YES! emptied the trash and it worked! :)

  25. Lindsay, on October 9th, 2007 at 10:28 PM Said:

    “Daniel J. Wilson, on February 22nd, 2004 at 1:22 AM Said:

    Thanks for commenting, Anonymous Individual, but I do know the contents of my own hard drive. :-) The application had been deleted, not moved, months ago.”

    You clearly did not delete it properly, that error code can only refer to opening an application that is either partially deleted or in the trash.

  26. Olivia, on October 29th, 2007 at 5:00 PM Said:

    I just had problems opening a Powerpoint document and came across this site. I emptied the trash and it worked! Thought I’d lost all my work! Thank you!

  27. CJCP, on November 14th, 2007 at 12:05 AM Said:

    Wow, that was helpful. First thing that popped up when I searched Google for Error 10660.

  28. sebhardt, on November 29th, 2007 at 2:59 PM Said:

    I emptied the trash. It worked. You Rock! thank you!

  29. Tara, on March 14th, 2008 at 3:07 PM Said:

    Like sebhardt: I emptied the trash and corrected a problem that had bugged me for months. Blessings and joy! Ain’t it great that something someone writes will sit here for ages and help people over and over? You rock!

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