The Mac Archiver is Apple’s built in archive utility that handles  ZIP archives.  Recently, when I tried to decompress a downloaded ZIP file the Mac Archiver started up and then became         unresponsive.  I found the following solution corrects the problem –

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1) Using Finder, open the Applications folder then the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.  Run Disk Utility – In the left pane select your system disk – on the right you will see the First Aid tab.  Select REPAIR DISK PERMISSIONS near the bottom. Wait until it finishes.

2) Using Finder click on the GO dropdown menu and select Go to Folder.  Enter ~/Library  – that’s a squiggle forward slash and the word Library (uppercase L).

3) Open the Preferences folder and move the following files to the trash-
com.apple.archiveutility.plist
com.apple.archiveutility.lockfile (may or may not be there)

4) Restart your computer and test it.  Be sure to rstart before running Archiver again.