There appears to be a bug in my iMac 2019 Monterey 12.3.1

I installed AVG a year or more ago based on a recommendation from Consumers Reports (CR) magazine. I have a habit of trusting the info that they supply but obviously you have other thoughts on the subject.

I will follow your advice if I don't get any other suggestions that help.

Thanks.

Yes I understand and I did scan the info on the link you supplied. I should also mention that I am always very cautious about clicking on anything that I see. I just don't click unless it applies to me directly in some way that I relate to.

I'll expand my question now in terms of finding bugs (if that is the correct term to use in this case). Seen as how Malwarebytes and AVG found "nothing" can you suggest any other way to find out if my iMac is infected with something. I think I am safe in saying that something is going on just based on what described earlier.

When I go there and see my main email listed as part of the Game Center entry and I press - it asks if "I am sure I want to delete my email account" It seems too risky to click OK to that right now as that is THE mail account for me.

I want to fill in what I have tried so far. As recommended by dialabrain and rkaufmann87 I uninstalled AVG yesterday. During that process I found it kind of strange in terms of notifications like this one. Maybe that is normal but I don't know. Also I had to use my phone camera to take this picture as the screen capture I normally use did not work (shift-command-4) while uninstalling.

(I also did the safe mode start up process.)

On Internet Accounts I am still getting the Game center/my main email entry. When I click on that I get this "Angrybob74" response to the left of Details. Clicking details gives no response in the window below it (it stays blank). Clearly something is awry as I have no idea where the Angrybob74 came from (my name is Bob) and as I mentioned I have never used the computer to play games and I am the only person ever to use this computer.

The search responses I get from Spotlight are all screwed-up and I have had no luck rebuilding the index. I have never played around with Spotlight indexing before as the default was working perfectly for me and, unfortunately I never looked at the contents to see what was included. At the moment this is my primary concern. I have to admit files and related stuff are just not my cup of tea so it is a struggle to put it mildly.

My primary use of the iMac is to make videos for Youtube. After a quick check it appears as if what I was working on with FCP is ok. But I have to do more checking to be sure.

Each morning over the last four years or so I have been taking a still shot of my front lawn and the area extending out to the horizon. I refer to these as weather pictures. I note the date and give the current temperature on each picture (Apr 23 2022 5C) and that is also the file name. I take the pictures with my pole mounted Axis brand camera and they go into my Downloads file. So over the last 3 years or so I have been posting these pictures as a group to my Facebook friends. The routine is, I take the current morning picture and it goes to Downloads. I then go to Spotlight and just type in Apr 23. Amongst other stuff that appears will be my current morning picture as well as the pictures from the previous 4 years as they all will have Apr 23 as part of the file name. I then double click on each picture starting with the most recent one. I then go to Finder and under Recents I will see the four weather pictures neatly arranged in correct order. I then go to FB and select Photos/Video and then drag the group of pictures to the resulting window. I then put in some labelling noting the dates and temps and post them. That was worked perfectly up to two days ago.

So this morning when I typed in Spotlight Apr 23. I got a bunch of stuff and only one weather picture that I took just before that. To get the other pictures I typed in, for example Apr 23 2021, etc. individually until I had them all. So I double clicked on each of them, as I found them, until they eventually ended up in Recents in Finder. Very cumbersome compared to the way it used to be. To me it is strange that entering the common file part, say, Apr 23, does not pull in all files with April 23 at one time as it used to.

Anyway the files are "there" as they will show up as I described if I type in more info rather than just the month and day part of the file.

I clearly have to get more understanding about how to rebuild the Spotlight index. I tried a few things without any luck. And, of course, I have to wonder what went wrong with it in the first place... I didn't do anything.

Got rid of AVG and I didn't have anything else related to that kind of function.

As for removing mail accounts, that is not something I would want to attempt without some extra knowledge on the subject.

Thanks!

Since my last message someone else dropped by and played with the iMac for a while and eventually got rid of the Angrybob74 account listing. But sometime later it reappeared (maybe after a reboot - not sure).

The Spotlight file location system continues to be ineffective compared to the original. (If I type in Apr 26 I will get Apr 26 2022 but not Apr 26 2021 or other Apr 26's that are there. Instead now I have to type in Apr 26 2021 to get that file...).

Right now I don't want to risk trying too much else as I have many days of material prepared but not published. I might get to a point where i will be getting back here to ask how to wipe the whole system out and start out new.

Appreciate all the great advice.