It is not uncommon that a preference file becomes corrupted in Mac OS X. If you suddenly have strange behavior or a crashing application, a preference file corruption may be the issue. Cocktail has the ability to check the syntax of the XML-format property list (.plist) files located in the /Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Preferences folders.
To check for corrupted preferences files:
• Choose Window > Specifications
• Click the Advanced tab
• Choose Preferences Files from the popup menu
The "stream had too few arguments" message is not an error but an indication that the file is empty or inaccessible.
The following is an example of an error message:
/Users/Kristofer/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Sherlock.plist:
XML parser error:
Encountered unknown tag list on line 3
Old-style plist parser error:
Expected terminating '>' for data at line 1
The standard way to fix a corrupted preferences file is to just delete it and then reset any custom settings in that specific application next time it is launched.
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