Hi,
I've upgraded from Ei Captain to Catalina on a iMac 27 inch Late 2015.
Since then, the finder becomes unresponsive every few minutes. Sometimes force relaunch works, other times not.
I'd appreciate it if you could offer a remedy. I'm not a techie, so simple solution needed.
Thanks in advance
iMac 27", macOS 10.15
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 some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.
If the problem still persists try downloading and applying the macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update.
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 some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.
If the problem still persists try downloading and applying the macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update.
Do you have another Mac you can use? If so connect the two Macs together in Target Disk Mode with your current Mac the one in Target Disk Mode. Then you can access the Downloads folder from the other Mac and delete the contents.
Can you get the ownership and permissions of the Documents folder via the Info pane for it, i.e. Control (right) - click on the folder and select Get Info. If you can post a screenshot of the window.
A temporary workaround until you find a solution is to set Safari's General preferences to direct downloads to a different folder. I use a folder in my Documents folder and have an alias to it on my Desktop:
Hi Old Toad,
Thanks for your reply.
The problem still occurs in Safe mode.
I downloaded the update but the problem still exists.
Its the Download Folder that is the issue or at least triggers it.
When I open the Download folder - the Finder freezes.
When I try to delete from Download Folder - the finder freezes.
I don't know if I deleting the Download Folder will work - sort it out.
I also dont know how to delete it through terminal.
No, I realize by the date I'm too late but don't hook up another Mac. I too have had this problem for quite sometime. I have a 21" late 2013 build I brought a machine home from work and now it's doing the same as my home machine has been doing for a long time and it is software causing it in my (uneducated) belief. I have completely erased the hard drive and reloaded the system and it still kept giving me unresponsive finder errors nothing I have tried has worked.
For my mac freezing - its 100% related to the downloads folder. Anytime its opened - the mac freezes.
I am unable to delete the contents of the folder but have set up a new downloads one - and the mac has not frozen since.
If you have access to another Mac you can hook the two up in Target Disk Mode (you computer in the TDM) and empty that folder that way.
I noticed that it is happening anytime I open my Downloads folder - I cant delete any of its contents as the finder keeps freezing.
If I knew the exact terminal commands I could give that a go?
Thanks , Ive done that. So now I can avoid using my old Downloads folder.
But at some stage I'll have to get rid of it as it has more than 50GB of files in it I need to delete.
Thanks
Once you download and install apps or whatever you can delete the .dmg file from the Downloads folder. There's no need to keep any dmg file that's already been utilized.
catalina - finder freezing on late 2015 iMac
