macos catalina file sharing tick box will not select or turn on

Update to this:

I reinstalled the OS as described above and it solved the problem.

However after logging in, I was immediately asked to install security update 2022-004 10.15.7 1.59gb

After doing this the problem returned.

So that's the reason in my case - it's this security update that's caused the problem.

Doing some searching on this security update I found this:

https://discussions-cn-prz.apple.com/en/thread/253909534

Which gives a terminal command that does turn file sharing on (I've checked that this does work on my other Mac - it sees the other Mac on the network)

However it's not really a fix as you now can't turn file sharing off, instead of being unresponsive to click on, it's now unresponsive to click off.

Logic suggests (but I haven't tested it) that you could run this command now, and not go through the process of reinstalling the OS like I did.

This is an absolute mess on Apple's part - so let's hope that Apple knows this and issues a fix in the future.

Further research has donut these 2 terminal commands as a workaround for now

To turn file sharing on:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist

To turn file sharing off:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist

No I've been trying lots of different things, nothing worked as yet.

I'm going to try reinstalling the OS from the recovery partition (this just overwrites the system files with new ones, it doesn't erase your computer), and I'll let you know if this helps.