Perpetual "Background Items Added"

Since upgrading to macOS 13.x, I've received a sequence of Background Items Added notifications with every restart. Permission for all these is enabled under General > Login items: Allow in the Background:



Nonetheless, every time I restart, I get another round of notifications. Obviously this is nothing like fatal, but nonetheless, I'd like to suppress the superfluous warnings about things that aren't problems.

Mac mini, macOS 13.1

Posted on Nov 2, 2022 3:30 PM

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265 replies

Dec 19, 2022 7:08 PM in response to etresoft

I think I will follow you because you seem to have the right attitude. Been an exclusive Mac user since 1985, and am continually frustrated by feature fuddle and how System Prefs seems to be the neverending story. Could you share why you are reluctant to give ways to obtain app signatures (those are the developers’ bona fixes, right) and how they can be important?. Thanks.


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Dec 19, 2022 7:13 PM in response to r bryan

It has taken me 25 years to learn to wait 6-8 months before upgrading the new MacOS, formerly OSX (until Tim 15 months ago told us to call it MacOS, like it was in the early 2000s). The reason is because of a half-dozen or so video and audio apps that do not upgrade their own software fast enough to be compatible with the latest version of Apple operating system. Be well.

Dec 20, 2022 6:31 AM in response to Jed Fish Gould

Jed Fish Gould wrote:

Could you share why you are reluctant to give ways to obtain app signatures (those are the developers’ bona fixes, right) and how they can be important?

I have been publishing information from app signatures for several years. But in my case, I also include the associated plist configuration files and any associated data files to help users identify exactly which apps are responsible.


I've seen many people confused by the limited information that Apple provides.

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I've been reluctant to provide an interface to disable background launch agents and launch daemons like Apple has done.


It has taken me 25 years to learn to wait 6-8 months before upgrading the new MacOS, formerly OSX (until Tim 15 months ago told us to call it MacOS, like it was in the early 2000s). The reason is because of a half-dozen or so video and audio apps that do not upgrade their own software fast enough to be compatible with the latest version of Apple operating system.

I do the same thing. I'm still running Monterey on my primary computer and will continue to do so until May or June next year. I regularly use my older computer running Ventura too, just so I know what my users are dealing with. After June, I'll be running macOS 14 on that so I know what people will be dealing with in the future. I strongly recommend that anyone who uses a Mac for their livelihood to do likewise.


Barney-15E wrote:

I think it is because he can’t suggest you use his software on this forum.

That's only part of it. I've got some other conspiracy theory angles too.


I do fault Apple for not providing a better interface. And I will take the opportunity to explain how I would, and have, done it better. But to be clear, I do agree with Apple's ultimate goal. The world is changing. Things have been going great for several years and lots of people want to put an end to that. They will be successful. In response, Apple has been acting much more aggressively in certain areas. My recommendation is to trust people like Apple. Don't trust then based on what they say, but based on what they've done. Notably, Apple says very little and does an awful lot to support and empower its users. As someone once said, "by their works you shall know them."

Dec 20, 2022 1:16 PM in response to etresoft

@etresoft,



etresoft wrote:


hollistonma wrote:

I will do as you've suggested and file a bug report.
No need for that.

The problem here is that this feature has absolutely nothing to do with notifications. Perhaps some of the other people reporting this problem had the same misunderstanding. And that would be why most people can't reproduce it.

This toggle switch is actually for VMWare itself. You aren't turning off a notification. You are turning off VMWare. So then, when you want to run VMWare, it seems clever enough to notice that you've turned it off, so it attempts to turn itself back on. That seems reasonable considering that you are trying to run it after all.

And the same applies to all of the other software in the list. You aren't disabling notifications, you are disabling apps. So if there is some important task that you need some of those apps to perform, and you've turned them off, better turn them back on.


Thx for the clarification. I have now set VMWare back to "enable". Unfortunately the question still remains: how do I stop the notifications from occurring everytime I use VMWare Fusion? Surely it's not meant to notify me everytime it starts up that somethings been added? Or could this be happening because some files are being deleted when I close VMWare Fusion? In any case, rather annoying and wish I hadn't upgraded to Ventura yet.

Dec 20, 2022 2:43 PM in response to hollistonma

hollistonma wrote:

I have now set VMWare back to "enable". Unfortunately the question still remains: how do I stop the notifications from occurring everytime I use VMWare Fusion?

If you leave it enabled, then you shouldn't get any further notifications of that fact. It sounds like you were only getting the notifications because you had disabled it. Then, when you ran VMWare fusion, it reloaded the software, which triggered the notifications.

Surely it's not meant to notify me everytime it starts up that somethings been added?

No. You should only get those notifications when some software loads a persistent background task. Normally this happens only when you install new software.


To clarify, are you saying that you have enabled VMWare and you are still getting notifications that VMWare has been installed every time you run VMWare, and you have stopped disabling VMWare? You have to be absurdly specific about these things.


This is why we always tell people to start their own questions, respond to requests for more information, and always, always avoid the "me too" posts. It might make you feel good when you click that button "Me too" button, or post a reply that sounds somewhat similar. But this thread is a good example. Start with a good question on November 2nd, add 30 confused "me too" replies, and 8 weeks later nobody is any closer to knowing anything about what is going on with your computer.


Dec 20, 2022 3:40 PM in response to etresoft

etresoft,


Thx for the quick reply.



etresoft wrote:

If you leave it enabled, then you shouldn't get any further notifications of that fact. It sounds like you were only getting the notifications because you had disabled it. Then, when you ran VMWare fusion, it reloaded the software, which triggered the notifications.


To be clear, I receive the notifications regardless of whether VMWare is enabled or disabled. I understand now why I receive them if I disable VMWare.


However even when enabled, I receive the notification and VMWare will show up on the list of apps as I previously showed. Once I shut down VMWare, VMWare disappears from the "Allow in the Background" list (again, I have not disabled it). Once I use VMWare again, I receive the notification and VMWare will show up on the list of apps in "Allow in the Background" list.


are you saying that you have enabled VMWare and you are still getting notifications that VMWare has been installed every time you run VMWare, and you have stopped disabling VMWare?


Yes.

Dec 20, 2022 3:58 PM in response to r bryan

We should get those notification onlly when we update or upgrade the system. Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.


NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 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


NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.


Dec 20, 2022 5:51 PM in response to hollistonma

hollistonma wrote:

However even when enabled, I receive the notification and VMWare will show up on the list of apps as I previously showed. Once I shut down VMWare, VMWare disappears from the "Allow in the Background" list (again, I have not disabled it). Once I use VMWare again, I receive the notification and VMWare will show up on the list of apps in "Allow in the Background" list.

Well that's very interesting. That means that VMWare simply isn't compatible with Ventura. You wouldn't have noticed this kind of behaviour before Ventura. You would think that VMWare would have noticed since Ventura was first released to developers six months ago.

Dec 21, 2022 10:25 AM in response to Phantom Steve

Phantom Steve wrote:

Same here. It's ridiculous.
Half of the items on my list are unknown to me — it would help if there was some info — like which software relies on which background item.
I decided to turn some off — and the problem got worse !!!

Why would you turn them off? You installed software to do some function for you, and that software does some of that function in the background.

They aren’t doing anything you didn’t ask them to do on your behalf. It would be great if when you installed a piece of software, it told you exactly what it was installing and what it would be doing, but they don’t the only difference between any previous OS and Ventura is Apple is showing you what things are running in the background. All of those apps were running the background processes prior to Ventura, it’s just that nobody told you they were.

Dec 22, 2022 5:58 AM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:

Well, if you own any Microsoft products, it’s obvious the developer can include lots of detailed information in there background process, Microsoft Autoupdate or Microsoft Licensing Agent.
Maybe the developers will start updating their signing certificates to at least provide useful information.

That’s just how Microsoft named those apps. Even then, they just got lucky by structuring these things somehow that caused the Ventura UI to display them in a readable fashion. I can assure you that none of this is documented in any way.


There is no place in the Developer signature for anything other than the developer name and team ID (which is not provided). Nor is there any dedicated field in the plist file for developers to explain what these are for. Apple requires such fields for things like the camera and microphone access.


This particular technology has always been defined to be background tasks totally hidden from the user. And then one day, Apple displays it to the user. Look at it. Apple even has a field for an icon. When did that become a requirement for launch daemons? Now it makes it look like something is wrong. I display icons in my app when they are available, but I don’t assume they should be available.


There’s no good way to spin this.

Perpetual "Background Items Added"

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