Catalina: Finder not refreshing with new items.

Same problem here with Catalina 10.15.1, I noticed yesterday downloading files from Safari that didn't show in finder, however they opened in preview and Saving a copy in preview it opened the save dialog with the download folder selected and the file is there, similar to using the "ls" in the terminal.

Also, I've Microsoft One Drive and it is detecting the files and is uploading them to the One Drive cloud, so the problem just seems to be related to visualization of the files in the Finder app.

Hope this problem will be fixed asap.

Same issue here on 3 separate machines (16" MacBook Pro 2019, and 2 15" MBP Touchbar early 2017). Seems to happen most often for me when a file or directory is created by another app (in my case, Lightroom or Photoshop). Finder will not show the new files/directories until it is relaunched or computer is restarted.

This is a major disruption to workflow and I hope Apple can acknowledge and fix this asap.

After installing the newly released 10.15.2, the problem may have been fixed. I can run npm install and generate large numbers of folders and files and Finder displays them now where it did not before.

Curious if others are observing the same result after the 10.15.2 update.

Kirk

After updating to 10.15.2, I am still experiencing file management issues. My latest is the preview icon not appearing on newly created files and no amount of Finder plist deletion has been able to fix any of these annoyances.

This release seems more towards fixing the new Catalina feature bugs rather than focusing on the ongoing core issues that have been plaguing the macOS for the last 4 years or so.

Now we wait for 10.15.3 in hopes that they eventually reach or get closer to the bottom of the bug barrel.

It is pointless and futile to wait for an update to solve issues that are local. These issues are either caused by a corrupted file (such as corrupted Finder preferences or a bad cache), or by a software conflict (such as an incompatible system extension).

Think about it: if it were a bug, and millions of users had it, there would be much more than a thread like this. The outcry would have reach the news.

Did you try:

-restart in Safe Mode to clear caches

-delete Finder preferences?

-uninstall any antivirus that you may be using?

Luis does make a great point about the troubleshooting steps to try first which is what the Apple Support Community is for. Unfortunately, there are still many who have posted in this thread that we have tried these unsuccessfully.

One of the time consuming steps (last ressort) that was not mentioned here is a clean install. However, if this has to be done more and more frequently, then the issue lies in the OS stability and not the users.

I have been following Apple development since Mountain Lion and their recommendations with each OS release with the latest being the end of 32-bit support which was announced a few years back and has been delay until now. I also make sure that crash reports are sent to Apple for review.

Apple has a great ecosystem that has evolved from storing files locally to everything being synced in the cloud. That being said, macOS has seen many changes as well since its switch to Intel base processors. The biggest was when the file system went from HFS+ to APFS.

As for the media, they focus on the very current and to what appeals to the masses. So something like file system issues would seem rather boring to say for example the release of the Mac Pro. When I did a web search on this issue, I came across many articles which ended in finding this thread.

While I agree that corrupt files can be an issue, I do not think this is the case here.

BTW: The media has recently reported that Apple is reviewing how it does triage and prioritizes bug reports in the wake of the iOS 13 release. My iPhone got so hot that I though it was going to burst into flames and this was finally fixed in iOS 13.3.

Thanks Old Toad for the recommending EtreCheck. Fantastic App! I had heard about it but never tried it so I downloaded from the App Store and tried it then purchased it to unlock the rest of the features. Except for 2 plist files from apps that were previously removed, my MacBook Pro has a clean bill of health.

Unfortunately, Finder issues remain.

I have looked at it in BBEdit (copy/paste) and it isn't that long. If you could point out what to specifically look for (i.e. Sections, Loaded, Not Loaded,...), I could look at it more closely because nothing really stands out as being out of place.

Thanks

Adding another "me too" for tracking purposes.

I created a new 10.15 system volume (fresh install on a brand new drive) on a SanDisk SSD. While running from that system, I began to notice this issue when downloading files from Chrome, and copying from another machine via Airport and Terminal. I upgraded that volume from 10.15.1 to 10.15.2 (developer beta) without any improvement.

I then experienced trouble where that volume would boot my MacBook Air, but not my 2012 Mini. Since I primarily needed this drive for Mini, I eventually wiped the SSD and started fresh again. After 5 days or so of using the boot disk, I started noticing files not appearing in the Finder again.

I'll try updating to 10.15.2 again at some point, but it definitely didn't fix the problem before, and sounds like it hasn't fixed it for others.

Did you notice this:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.abbott.launcher.plist

Executable: /Applications/FreeStyle Libre/.adc_launcher.app/Contents/MacOS/adc_launcher

Details: Executable file is hidden - possibly adware

Are you familiar with such an application "FreeStyle Libre"? This looks suspicious, just as the report says. A hidden executable file...

I'm also having this problem, on a new Macbook Pro 13" running Catalina (10.15.1). Finder + the Desktop often do not update with new files, however I can see them in Terminal (using ls or find). Relaunching Finder seems to fix this.

Currently helping a co-worker fix this same issue.

Brand new (2 day old) MBP 16" 2019, has 10.15.1.

Computer literally has next to nothing installed at the moment, only Creative cloud suite and Capture One V9 and V20.

Nothing is populating within finder unless I force find the file (Show in Finder) through the Capture One system which then seems to only recognize the individual file.

Purposely holding off on going to 10.15.2 due to already know compatibility issues with C1 so seeing if the update fixes the problem only will create another problem.