MacOS Catalina 'Verifying Files'

This is a follow up to yesterday's comments about useless suggestions. Here is another one: The apple tech -- after 1 hour and 50+ minutes online and on the phone -- abruptly said I would have to contact Microsoft customer support. I spent another two hours on a chat with an MS tech, turning the helm over to that person. It appeared toward the end that the verifying files issue might have been overcome with word, excel and power point. We had not yet gotten Outlook to open, but the tech declared victory and went home, suggesting that I try all four Office apps on my own. I have done that several times, following shutdowns and restarts, and quitting and attempting to reopen programs. The same problem persists: verifying files either takes about eight minutes to launch the program or, more common, the verifying files function runs but the program never opens. I am far from an expert, but it seems like the feature that allows programs to open when they are from a known independent developer does not work at all with MS Office. This is not a problem with MS Office; I have Office 2016, which has been continually updated in part to keep abreast of Apple's precipitous decisions to release massive system changes prematurely. Incidentally, while I took four minutes to type this, a miracle happened: After two unsuccessful attempts to launch Word, it finally launched. Better go before Catalina changes her mind. APPLE NEEDS TO FIX THIS. HOW CAN THIS BE COMMUNICATED TO APPLE? MR. DUNMOW?

This is a follow up to yesterday's comments about useless suggestions. Here is another one: The apple tech -- after 1 hour and 50+ minutes online and on the phone -- abruptly said I would have to contact Microsoft customer support. I spent another two hours on a chat with an MS tech, turning the helm over to that person. It appeared toward the end that the verifying files issue might have been overcome with word, excel and power point. We had not yet gotten Outlook to open, but the tech declared victory and went home, suggesting that I try all four Office apps on my own. I have done that several times, following shutdowns and restarts, and quitting and attempting to reopen programs. The same problem persists: verifying files either takes about eight minutes to launch the program or, more common, the verifying files function runs but the program never opens. I am far from an expert, but it seems like the feature that allows programs to open when they are from a known independent developer does not work at all with MS Office. This is not a problem with MS Office; I have Office 2016, which has been continually updated in part to keep abreast of Apple's precipitous decisions to release massive system changes prematurely. Incidentally, while I took four minutes to type this, a miracle happened: After two unsuccessful attempts to launch Word, it finally launched. Better go before Catalina changes her mind. APPLE NEEDS TO FIX THIS. HOW CAN THIS BE COMMUNICATED TO APPLE? MR. DUNMOW?

How can I remove Gatekeeper entirely? My computer now acts like it has a virus since it has to verify each and every time I open an application which then takes minutes for them to verify. On Top of that I then find out they didn't save my files because it didn't pop up asking for file permissions. This security update is overbearing to users and removes access to many useful software which are outside the Appstore. Stop treating the desktop like a phone.

It just took 5 minutes to start Logic Pro X because it went through another verifying process. It's not the first time I've used the app on my mid 2012 MacBook pro under Catalina. The most up to date apple piece of software and it's now slower than before. WOW! well done apple, Catalina sucks.

I just posted a solution that will work for me on a temporary basis: File share your mac with a windows device and wait for Apple to do something. I have a late 2012 iMac, and while floundering about looking for a solution I learned that "owners of iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Mac products may obtain service and parts from Apple or Apple service providers for 5 years after the product is no longer manufactured—or longer where required by law. Apple has discontinued support for certain technologically obsolete and vintage products. 'Vintage' products are those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 and less than 7 years ago." Apple has discontinued hardware service for vintage products," with limited exceptions. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624. Apple lists your MacBook Pro and my iMac as "vintage" products. This suggests that waiting for a patch might not help us. Nonetheless, I'm going to wait and see.

Good luck.

Mike

The problem is that it isn’t just files and MS apps doing this, it’s Apple apps too.

and now it’s choking on another update that I am an hour into and it is still chunking along. This MacBook Air used to scream before this update.

I am about to go back to using Windows. At least you know it’s going to be buggy.

Same here... upgrading to 10.15.1 did nothing to fix this. Following Apple's technote on how to allow apps to run was useless. I am on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) and worked flawlessly before the upgrade the Catalina. Now every apps gets "verified" before launching... every...single...time! So frustrating!!!!

None of the three techs took me through that process. It was never suggested. What is is disquieting about it in this day and age is turning off security checks. I'll stay in wait and see mode for now. The workaround turns out to be cumbersome, but sort of tolerable, and IO'm hopeful an update will be created to resolve the problem without the SIP compromise.

The Apple support tech did not suggest that I turn off SIP. I got that idea from a previous post in this discussion. What bothered me was that the original install of Catalina destroyed my recovery partition and did not let me know until I actually had to use it.

Acrobat Pro (I think I had X or XI, something like that) just quit working altogether. Adobe says they're not doing anything to fix Acrobat Pro X/XI, and that the only suggestion is to buy ($500) or rent what you have. I did not know DC was also a problem, as I opted instead for PDF Studio Pro, which seems does most of what I could do with Acrobat Pro and costs a lot less. Check it out on a trial basis. Safari has just seemed to get slower and slower over the years and updates. I use Chrome a lot because it seems to work better.

I’m be been using a Mac since 1998 and for the first time ever I’ve had to roll back to the previous OS - in this case Mojave. Perhaps if I was a new adopter with nothing but the latest apps bought from the App Store and brand new files then maybe the constant verifying wouldn’t be happening but it was just beyond tolerable and throttling my MacBook Pro. Every app was constantly stalling to verify including the very latest up to date versions of Apples own apps such as Numbers, Pages, Mail, Logic to Microsoft office and more. Nothing would fix it so I used my time machine back up to roll back to Mojave and everything is fine again. So disappointed with this and also perplexed that the media have given Catalina such an easy ride. They must obviously just be using a brand new machine with no legacy files or apps. Apple have designed an operating system with zero thought for the loyal Mac customers who have been with them for years. I’ll happily use Catalina in the future on a new machine but will keep my MacBook Pro with old files on Mojave and will not update it just in case.

Same here exactly. And it was a bit more painful than I anticipated reverting back to Mojave, as the restore from Time Machine didn’t go smoothly the first time, I ended up needing to do a clean wipe and install a fresh copy of high Sierra

, then upgrade it to Mojave, then connect to time machine capsule, rename the file extension back to .sparsebackup since Catalina changes it for some reason..... Then use Migration assistant to bring back all my data, then reinstall all my apps, Etc. A couple days of arduous work to undo the Catalina disaster.

i agree with you that Catalina wil probably work fine on a new machine, and maybe if I had done a clean wipe and install of Catalina on my current laptop and brought my data in through migration assistant, maybe it would have been fine as well. Wasted too much time though and definitely not willing to waste the time now.

By the time I get my next new machine, I’m sure we’ll have seen some major updates and the OS will be more stable and life will be good again, even Microsoft recovered from Vista eventually......

One of the techs suggested I go to Pages and Numbers as a possible solution, even if temporarily while awaiting an MS/Apple solution. The reviews of Pages are not that great, and I would not switch from Word at all, were it not for the Catalina problem. I'm not going to opt for a solution of marginal benefit to solve a huge problem; it's probably not a good idea.

The techs are not addressing the actual problem. It’s NOT a microsoft office issue as thousands of users are having the same problem with apples own up to date apps. The fact that they fail

to acknowledge the real issue is what’s so bad. Wouldn’t have happened or Steve Job’s Watch.