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10.15.7 ongoing issues

MacBook Pro 2020 13-inch running Catalina 10.15.7.


I’m having recurrent issues with the finder (hanging searches, for example) or applications hanging upon opening or not closing properly. (Apple Music, Microsoft Word, to name two) hanging upon. Once an issue occurs and I try to reboot the machine, it hangs on restart/shutdown command.


I’ve performed the usual suggestions for addressing these issues without success: NVRAM and SMC reset, safe boot, reinstall of OS.


Here is an Etrecheck report, run today:


Thanks in advance for any help in resolving this.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 28, 2021 11:39 AM

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Posted on Apr 7, 2021 8:18 AM

Update: It turns out that the cause of the problems I’ve been having is Time Machine. As with the issues I posted about above, I’ve been having Time Machine issues since I started using this MBP four months or so ago. I do TM backups to a NAS--the backups have been interminable if they ever complete, and older backups seem visible (some of the time) but inaccessible. Not sure if TM under Catalina doesn’t play nice with a NAS or what, but I thought all of that was a separate issue. Apparently not. The timing coincidence finally prompted me to turn TM completely off, and lo and behold, the problems I described above have vanished. So now I need to address Time Machine and try to sort that out.

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Apr 7, 2021 8:18 AM in response to Stuart Munro1

Update: It turns out that the cause of the problems I’ve been having is Time Machine. As with the issues I posted about above, I’ve been having Time Machine issues since I started using this MBP four months or so ago. I do TM backups to a NAS--the backups have been interminable if they ever complete, and older backups seem visible (some of the time) but inaccessible. Not sure if TM under Catalina doesn’t play nice with a NAS or what, but I thought all of that was a separate issue. Apparently not. The timing coincidence finally prompted me to turn TM completely off, and lo and behold, the problems I described above have vanished. So now I need to address Time Machine and try to sort that out.

Mar 28, 2021 12:28 PM in response to Stuart Munro1

Usually the first questions asked when Macs are experiencing symptoms like this are:


Do you have any "cleaner" third party software installed?


Do you have any security third party software installed?


Do you have any third party anti-virus software installed?


It seems that the answer is "yes" to all three. Any of these could be interfering with normal MacOS operations. You have a new Mac that should be extremely fast and responsive. I would remove ALL of the above items (completely uninstall them).


Also, you have Profiles (your can see these in System Preferences), perhaps JAMF but maybe others. Sometimes malware installs these and that can slow the computer, or legitimate Profiles can interfere because they can be intrusive. Do you have to use JAMF and those Profiles? You have also disabled the MacOS built in security/protection which means you could have malware. You might consider downloading the free Malwarebytes to do a scan of your Mac for malware.


You also have WD third party disk utility/helper extensions and software installed, it may be trying to interact with your external drive and interrupting processes on the Mac.


I don't recognize a number of your third party extensions, not sure why they are needed. Of course you should be able to install things, but if you have many items running in the background, one wants to be sure that they are needed and useful. Sometimes they can slow down a MAc.

Mar 28, 2021 1:00 PM in response to steve626

Thanks very much for the response. The only cleaner-type software I'm aware of is MemoryClean, and I don't use that for any cleaning, but monitoring memory usage. But I'll uninstall and see if that makes any difference. JAMF is enterprise device management software installed by employer IT (the MBP is a work machine) so it's legitimate, but I can't uninstall it (I may check to see whether I can temporarily stop it from running to rule it out, though). Same goes for the anti-virus software (Sophos), which I suspect may be the culprit. I believe native Apple security is disabled because Sophos is running.


With the exception of one (Cisco AnyConnect VM), all of the Profiles belong to JAMF and Sophos. Third-party extensions: not a lot there, really - a couple of Microsoft, dropbox, Sophos again, a file archiver (Keka), and a couple of backup apps that I was test-driving. I'll remove the backup apps, extensions, etc.


I thought I had uninstalled the WD disk utility software, and did not notice it in the Etrecheck report, so I will remove that as well.


I look forward to anything you have to say in response to the above. I'm going to remove what I can and see what results. If nothing changes, I'll have to wrangle with IT about shutting down what they've installed to see if that the source of my problems.



Mar 28, 2021 1:23 PM in response to Stuart Munro1

So your employer requires JAMF and Sophos. Fair enough, it's their computer, after all. The MacBook Pro that my employer provides also has JAMF plus a Symantec suite. However, they do extensive testing before installing and rolling new things out so the Macs with their standard configuration generally run smoothly. Although I would prefer none of those Profiles and no Symantec, but like you, don't have a choice.


Does your IT Department extensive test their configurations? If they do, you need to look carefully at anything you have independently installed. Also, if you are able, can you create a new user and log in as the new user and see if the problems are gone? That would make it easier to track down since it would be isolated to just your original account, versus a system wide issue.


Unfortunately, with a configured system like you have, it is best to minimize any customization you might want to do because those things can easily conflict with the sometimes intrusive system changes done via the Profiles and security suites, while on a "clean" Mac they would cause no such problems! I don't do ANY customization on my employer's computer, I only install stand alone programs such as SuperDuper.


Removing software you installed yourself can be challenging, everything must be uninstalled/removed, including associated Startup files, login items, and other things that create background processes. Look for complete uninstaller from the vendor or from other web sites where people have reported success in removal.


Can you change the Sophos system preferences, say perhaps to not do constant monitoring but instead to just do daily scans, for instance, something less intrusive?


Something that interferes with MS-Word or Apple Music is being pretty intrusive and the forced shutdowns seem to indicate something very basic is amiss. It could be an endless detective hunt on a computer that you can't even configure yourself. I would try to make it as clean as possible with only the employer-mandated stuff on it, to start, and then slowly install only things you REALLY want to have and retest after each install.

Mar 28, 2021 1:57 PM in response to steve626

Fair enough, I agree, except that until our IT support was outsourced, I had a tacit agreement with them--they didn't bother me, and I didn't bother them. When I had issues, I solved them, and on occasion, solved things that they had no clue how to address. So I find this level of intrusiveness a little irksome, especially when they seem to have a blanket policy of installing AV software, something that on my understanding is pretty well-established as unnecessary on Macs. But you're right, it is their machine, not mine, so they have the right to do what they're doing.


I have no idea how extensively they test configurations before installing. I don't run a ton of third-party stuff on my machine--Postbox email client, ARQ backup and the like, a handful of utilities, nothing exotic. I don't really do any finder/system/etc. customization through third-party apps.


I also do my daily work on a standard account, and only use my admin account on the machine when necessary (for example, so that Etrecheck can access diagnostic reports when it runs). So I'll see if the stuff I've removed was the problem. If not, I'll set up a new user and trying running that, and also check with IT to see whether they will at least disable Sophos temporarily see whether that is the source of my troubles.

10.15.7 ongoing issues

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