Finder freezes with macOS Catalina

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint: Public VPN's are anything but private.  You're privacy is not assured.

That being said uninstall BitdefenderVirusScanner according to the developer's instructions.

Then reboot and see if there's any improvement in performance.

Hello, tightpurchase.

Sorry to hear you're having trouble with your Mac.

Try this:

Reboot your Mac and see if the problem is cleared. If rebooting your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer to safe boot (10 min) so be patient.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support 

Safe mode forces the OS to clear certain caches and logs and do other miscellaneous housekeeping. It's non-destructive to user data so is safe to do. Very often certain weird software behavior is corrected by simply logging in this way as a troubleshooting method. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's normal.

Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again.

If the problem is still unresolved, please return here and post a reply and we’ll see what else we can come up with for help.

It's pretty obvious that something is not right.

To find those files you're looking for, I'd recommend you take a look at Find Any File (https://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/). It's donationware but free to download and evaluate.

Meanwhile, you still appear to have an issue with the Mac. It could be anything from an unintentional malware installation to a hardware bottleneck or failure. Some things are fairly easy to fix.

I recommend that you run an EtreCheck evaluation of your Mac. EtreCheck is a diagnostic app that gathers important info about your hardware and software and reports it back to you. It is very highly regarded and meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help others help you troubleshoot and resolve your Mac problems.

Please navigate to EtreCheck.com and download the free version of EtreCheck. Once you’ve run the app and created your report please post it with your reply to this message. 

You must upload the full report. To see how, please click  How to use Add Text when posting… EtreCheck Report.

We can use the EtreCheck report to look for the more obvious things that may be causing your problem and advise how to correct them.

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint: Public VPN's are anything but private.  

That being said uninstall Hotspot Shield as it is using a lot of CPU resources.

Also SeaMonkey is using up lots of CPU resources. Do you really need it?

You MBA has a minimum of RAM and storage. It's never going to be a barn burner.

If you run Etrecheck again give it Full Disk Access so that we can get more diagnostic info.

Lastly boot into Safe Mode according to Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support and then reboot normally. Check to see if there's any performance improvement.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

Please post the full report here as follows:

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what might be causing the problem.

+1 to the reply by @Old Toad.

I see that some diagnostic info is missing, but that can be viewed if you allow EtreCheck to have full disk access and run a fresh report.

I agree with OT re: the VPN and SeaMonkey software. If a Safe boot doesn't resolve the Finder problem, then I would uninstall these two softwares.

I also agree that 4GB of RAM is barely enough to keep the Mac running, and I think the computer would like to have more. Not sure you can do anything about that, though.

Otherwise, the report down't look bad and points no finger at any single really bad issue.

EDIT - Sorry. I see you did say you have started in Safe mode but with no resolution. That being the case, this issues may come down to either a conflict with SeaMonkey and/or the VPN with the OS and might be resolved by uninstalling these, OR it my be necessary to reinstall the macOS. That can be done non-destructively and without erasing, formatting, partitioning or otherwise altering your startup disk and messing with your data. We can provide help with that if you like.

tightpurchaser wrote:

I forgot what I did last night; but I successfully removed Hotspot. BitDefender just came off. #1 - Do I need any kind of firewall? Now there is no antivirus on this computer. #2 - Is Malwarebytes all I need? I'll try Safe Mode again; but #3 - is there anything else we can do to fix Finder?

#1 - if you have a desktop Mac and are sitting behind a router at home you don't need to turn on the Firewall. If you have a laptop and are out using public WiFi then you should enable the Firewall in System preferences.

#2 - yes, the free version of Malwarbytes is all you need. You can run it occasionally if you think you might have picked up some adware or malware. If you feel more comfortable with full time protection then get the paid version and have it run in the background full time.

#3 - if you're still having problems with the Finder Boot into the Recovery volume (boot with the Command + R keys held down) and reinstall the system. Be sure to make a Time Machine backup just prior to starting the system reinstall.

Yes, run Etrecheck and post the report.

Are either of those two apps listed in the System/Users & Groups/Login Items preference pane?