Finder and Open&Save Dialogs Hanging/Freezing after Catalina Update

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Level 1

9 points

Finder and Open&Save Dialogs Hanging/Freezing after Catalina Update

A few weeks back I decided to update my 2012 Macbook Pro from High Sierra to Catalina (10.15.4). Since then I've come to regret this decision beyond belief. It has become nearly IMPOSSIBLE to use my MBP for work due to the CONSTANT freezing/hanging whenever I open Finder and try to browse through folders. The problem also appears to happen anytime I try to Open or Save a file... regardless of the program I'm using. When this happens, the hanging file/process starts eating up resources and entire system comes to a halt. The only way to get things back to normal is to Relaunch Finder or through activity monitor locate the program that i was using to open or save with and locate the following process below it...

"com.apple.appkit.xpc.openAndSavePanelService (**PROGRAM NAME DISPLAYED HERE**). The "Recent Hangs" count continues to go up until I Force Quit. The problem persists unless I wait about 5-10min and SOMETIMES Hanging is cleared up or I'll have to Force quit about 7-8 or more times and finally I'm able to open/save or browse files.

See screenshot below.

I've done quite a bit of diagnosis myself and have tried the following (and probably more that I can't recall) most to no avail.

SYSTEM:

Mid-2012 Macbook Pro 13"

2.5 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

OS: Catalina (10.15.7)

Ram: 16GB

Attempted Fixes:

Delete Finder plist and restart
Run FirstAid on disk drive
Disable Icloud Drive (no other cloud storage or backup enabled)
Ensure enough free space on drive (More than 350GB available on drive with OS)
Ram has been maxed out at 16GB
Disabled all extra items, local & network drives/folders/devices from showing up in Finder's Sidebar
Ensure Spotlight is not currently Indexing
Clean/Delete all cache files
Tried reinstalling the update to catalina (10.15.4)
Installed latest Catalina update (10.15.7)
Reset NVRAM & PRAM
Reset SMC

The ONLY thing that actually worked was creating a new user and switching users. Like magic the problem disappeared. Leads me to conclude the issue is definitely (most likely) within my current users settings/permissions or something along those lines but I can't seem to get a bearing on what it could be. I was hoping someone could at least point me in the right directly. I'll also include a Sampling of the process "com.apple.appkit.xpc.openAndSavePanelService" during one of the events in question. Maybe that can help.

I hope the info provided was enough but if there's anything else anyone may require please don't hesitate to ask.

I'm open to most reasonable suggestions/solutions but I REALLY wanna avoid having to migrate everything over to a new user... Hopefully it won't come to that if someone can find a solution.

Thanks in advance!

-Harry

Sample of Hanging Process

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 5, 2020 12:45 PM

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Answer 1

JoKeRz42o Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 6, 2020 12:10 AM in response to Old Toad

Wow... I wasn't expecting a reply for at least a couple day. That was definitely quick.

I am familiar with EtreCheck and I have included the report with this reply. Hope this helps shed some light on the issue.

Again, thank you for your PROMPT reply!

-Harry

EtreCheck Report

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Oct 7, 2020 9:17 AM in response to JoKeRz42o

Try one of the standard fixes: boot into Safe Mode (How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support) by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following;

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

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Answer 3

JoKeRz42o Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 7, 2020 1:29 AM in response to Old Toad

Thanks for the update...

CMM was actually installed after the update to Catalina and POST this issue arising but I did remove it several days ago... which I forgot to add to the list of things I attempted trying to resolve this. I will go ahead and download FAF and remove any associated files but I'm fairly certain that had nothing to do with this problem seeing as it was installed after the issue began.

As for the crash section... most of those app crashes are due to the openandsave process which locks out any use of that specific program and in turn I'm left with no choice but to "Force Quit" the program. As far as I can remember, its been AGES (more than a year) since I've had any crashes due to other issues. Unfortunately its the same process that is used by all programs when opening or saving files so all those crashes are unavoidable... hence my reason for reaching out on here.

To be honest I'm usually the guy people come to with computer repair issues, and though it's mainly with pc based systems, over the last 3-4 years i've become acquainted with the macos to do most troubleshooting myself.

Anyways, so as far as the number of items in the System/Users & Groups/Login Items preference pane, as you can see on the following screenshot, I only have one item that runs at starts... It's my fan control software since my 2012 MBP runs WAY too hot.

Finally regarding confirming the crashing apps are compatible with Catalina... AFAIK, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Paintbrush, Adobe and virtually any other programs I'm having issues with are compatible with Catalina since they're all widely used programs.

I'll go ahead and post an update once I've cleaned up any rouge files with FAF.

Thanks again for your help.

-Harry

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Oct 5, 2020 1:11 PM in response to JoKeRz42o

Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report

IMPORTANT:

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the Etrecheck's Privacy preference pane so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

Also click and read the About info to further permit full disk access.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what might be causing the problem.

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Answer 5

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Oct 6, 2020 10:16 AM in response to JoKeRz42o

You've installed what most of the experienced contributors to these forum consider akin to malware: CleanMyMac. There is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or security apps on your Mac. This user tip describes what you need to know and do to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community

Uninstall CMM according to the developer's instructions. Then you can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running Find Any File to search for any files with the application's name and the developer's name in the file name. For CleanMyMac you'd do the following searches:

1 - Name contains cleanmymac

2 - Name contains macpaw

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.

You should limit the number of apps in the System/Users & Groups/Login Items preference pane to only those that you must have at login. The others can be launched when needed and closed when done.

The crash section of the report shows a fair number of apps crashing multiple times. This may be due to CleanMyMac so run for a while after it's been removed and then rerun Etrecheck to see if those apps are still crashing or not. If they are make sure they are up to date and compatible with Catalina.

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Answer 6

rzazula

Level 1

96 points

Nov 9, 2020 4:04 PM in response to JoKeRz42o

I found this discussion when I searched for 'generateImageWithRequest' which I found in a spin report for Finder.

We have similar spin reports - lots of time spent trying to get images. In my case, I was trying to view the /Applications folder of a networked machine. After the spinning subsided, I tried visiting a directory with plain-ol folders, and it loaded quickly.

So, my theory is that we're waiting for Finder to pull images from the remote system. /Applications is probably the worst-case scenario as I'm guessing Finder doesn't have icons stored for these .app file types. It must be pulling them from the Application metadata for each and every app!

You will also see this if you are browsing a folder with images / video as Finder will try to pull thumbnails. However, I do notice some media files displaying something briefly and then overlaying the thumbnail - could it be an asynchronous fetch? It should be...

Hmm, Finder has been spinning like crazy and I have gotten a few good samples... All of them point to getting file attributes (name, image, etc.).

Time to file a bug report... Also, a different problem but related, if you view a remote directory containing images, photoanalysisd fires up and starts doing its thing (looking for faces, etc...) chewing up a lot of CPU. Hmm.. if only I knew some folks over there ;)

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Finder and Open&Save Dialogs Hanging/Freezing after Catalina Update

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