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Finder is now VERY slow with Ventura 13 and 13.0.1

Hi all,


after upgrading to Ventura 13 and, later, to 13.0.1, I have to report that Finder is now EXTREMELY slow showing the content of folders with many files, something never happened before moving to Ventura.


I’m using a 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9 10 cores + 128 GB RAM + AMD Radeon pro 5700XT 16 GB.


The issue remains even starting in safe mode. I managed to reset NVRAM and SMC, but nothing.


This is very annoying, to say the least, as it takes 10 seconds to finder to show a folder with, say, 1000 files. Same delay when you want to save a file and try to point to a folder with many files. This happens with every external driver, both HHDs and SSDs.


If I test the speed of the driver with Blackmagic, it responds immediately and perform as excepted, so it does look like a specific issue with Finder.


Any other similar experience out there?


Thanks and take care

Gian

Posted on Nov 11, 2022 5:31 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 11, 2022 7:52 AM

I don't have Ventura installed on my 2020 3.8Ghz Core i7 iMac, so cannot explore the potential for Finder slow down on Intel hardware and mounted drives. I also have no HFS+ journaled or HDD mounted to that iMac, nor any folders containing 1000+ files.


I noticed that your Samsung X5, and both Sandisk SSDs are formatted HFS+ Journaled and the Ventura Finder is optimized to work with APFS filesystems, so that may or may not be a factor in your Finder lethargy with large filecount folders on those particular drives. And Apple may have changed the Finder (again), but that would be internal Apple information that I have no access too.


I would expect that G-Drive HDD to be substantially slower than your SSDs (even with APFS), and depending on the age of that LaCie, it could have some issues with Ventura. If that is the source of your Finder slow down, is there LaCie firmware updates available for it?


The report verifies that Spotlight's mdworker thread storm is causing High CPU usage, just as it would on my M1 mini, or MBP M1 Pro. It can affect all cores at >= 100% and that will slow down the Finder and everything else.


It also showed several software crashes within a minute of one another earlier this (2022-11-11) morning, but have no idea why.

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9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 11, 2022 7:52 AM in response to VirtualTelescope

I don't have Ventura installed on my 2020 3.8Ghz Core i7 iMac, so cannot explore the potential for Finder slow down on Intel hardware and mounted drives. I also have no HFS+ journaled or HDD mounted to that iMac, nor any folders containing 1000+ files.


I noticed that your Samsung X5, and both Sandisk SSDs are formatted HFS+ Journaled and the Ventura Finder is optimized to work with APFS filesystems, so that may or may not be a factor in your Finder lethargy with large filecount folders on those particular drives. And Apple may have changed the Finder (again), but that would be internal Apple information that I have no access too.


I would expect that G-Drive HDD to be substantially slower than your SSDs (even with APFS), and depending on the age of that LaCie, it could have some issues with Ventura. If that is the source of your Finder slow down, is there LaCie firmware updates available for it?


The report verifies that Spotlight's mdworker thread storm is causing High CPU usage, just as it would on my M1 mini, or MBP M1 Pro. It can affect all cores at >= 100% and that will slow down the Finder and everything else.


It also showed several software crashes within a minute of one another earlier this (2022-11-11) morning, but have no idea why.

Dec 15, 2022 9:30 PM in response to VirtualTelescope

I'm having the same problem with Ventura on my M1 Mac Mini. Directories with 2000 files take forever to open in Finder. These directories are on an HFS+ external SSD. If I use another file manager like Filezilla or another third party file manager the files in those directories are listed instantly. The problem only occurs in the Finder and in the OS file picker used by applications.

Nov 11, 2022 5:47 AM in response to VirtualTelescope

If Spotlight is running its 30+ md_worker processes (and Time Machine is running) while you are folder diving in the Finder, you can expect some lethargy, even with that high-end configuration.


What software did you install just prior to, or right after the Ventura upgrade?


Consider downloading the free EtreCheck software, giving it full disk access in Ventura, run the application, and copy/paste its report into the Additional Text tool at the bottom of this editor. EtreCheck will save us twenty questions and provide a privacy protected look at what is running on your Mac, possible conflicts, and deeper details about its configuration.


Nov 11, 2022 8:51 AM in response to sorianofromanchorage

You probably do not have all of the OP's external drive variety mounted either. On my 2020 iMac with a 1TB internal Apple SSD and 40GB RAM, I can get the fans running if I have Windows 11 Pro guest running in Parallel's 18 Pro and Spotlight lights up its mdworker processes. The third-party htop utility shows several CPUs pegged at 100+% CPU utilization.

Nov 15, 2022 9:02 PM in response to VirtualTelescope

Hello,

Me and 2 other friends of mine facing the same issue after upgrading to Ventura 13.0.1 (22A400). I am using Mac Studio while others are using MacMini and iMac.

All external hard drives (powered as well as external SSDs - Samsung T5 and t7) were working smoothly.

Following are the problems that occurred after update:

One of my powered-external hard drive went missing, can't detect it anymore.

Finder has gone extremely sluggish. A folder with more than 9000 images can't be opened at all.

Photo Mechanic was running extremely smoothly and now it's limping big time.

In general, emptying trash bin is a task now, files remain in there despite of emptying bin multiple times.


Please help! Much appreciate a quick response.


Urvish

Finder is now VERY slow with Ventura 13 and 13.0.1

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