Applications keep opening and showing on the display on start up.

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Level 1

8 points

Applications keep opening and showing on the display on start up.

Whenever I restart my iMac Pro, the following always reappear on the display:

Maps, 2 sessions of Safari with all old tabs, Finder, Mail, System Preference in Sharing mode, Calendar, and Total AV. Other applications also appear in the dock but not on the screen.

I do remember all these apps being opened a few days ago but no matter what I do now in the System Preferences/Users and Groups, or in Safari preference, or in the Dock, this old session keeps coming back. I tried making changes in safe mode but this unwanted session comes right back when I switch to normal mode. I also tried some of the suggested software like CleanMyMac X, and App Cleaner, useless. I did pretty much all suggested processes in these apple support forum and others on the web, but ya, no joy. Anything else I can do?

Posted on Aug 17, 2021 5:44 PM

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Answer 1

1ssmith

Community Specialist

Aug 18, 2021 12:40 PM in response to lecuyerr

lecuyerr,

Thanks for letting us know.

At this point, we suggest reaching out to us directly using this link: Get Support

Take care.

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Answer 2

lecuyerr Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 18, 2021 12:21 PM in response to Lager1

Thanks for your support. My Mac is starting to freeze. While I'm writing this reply, I can't scroll the page and earlier I had to shutdown to restart the Mac.

Yes I have done all the steps you have suggested. It seems like the Mac draws on iCloud to reload the same web pages on 2 sessions of Safari every time I restarts. The only App that I can't disable the "Open at Login" is Safari.

I disabled access to iCloud and iCloud Drive but I didn't deselect the iCloud Drive yet.

I tried to recover the SyncedFilesInfo.plist and SyncedRules.plist from an earlier backup but I still get the same symptoms; same Apps open up on restart, same web pages are showing up on Safari, and System Preferences also opens up automatically and quickly opens to Sharing. And my Mac is starting to freeze on and off.

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Answer 3

lecuyerr Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 18, 2021 12:38 PM in response to lecuyerr

Update, my rules are back in mail. That's one problem solved. It seems like there is a picture/carbon copy of what was running on my Mac on a certain day and it keeps reloading that state every restart. If we could find the file that contains that state and delete it...

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Answer 4

lecuyerr Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 18, 2021 12:24 PM in response to lecuyerr

And I removed Safari and System Preferences in the User and Groups Login Items but they keep coming back.

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Answer 5

Lager1

Community Specialist

Aug 18, 2021 12:05 PM in response to lecuyerr

Hi lecuyerr,

We understand you have some questions about your Mac automatically launching apps when it starts, and we'd like to help.

It sounds like you have done some great troubleshooting steps so far. Just to make sure, all of these apps have been quit before shutting down as outlined here? Quit apps on Mac - Apple Support

We see that you visited "Prevent apps and windows from reopening", did you have a chance to follow all of those steps?

Also, please make sure you don't have "Open at Login" enabled. If so, they'll automatically launch each time you sign into your user account. We have more information here:

Change Users & Groups Login Options preferences on Mac

If this doesn't resolve the issue, please let us know and we'll take a closer look.

Have a great day!

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Applications keep opening and showing on the display on start up.

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