Perpetual "Background Items Added"

At last, it works! The annoying 'Background Items Added' notifications are gone after this reset process!

1. Reset using "sfltool resetbtm" from Terminal
2. Reboot

Thanks a lot, muibui!

It absolutely works:

Reset using "sfltool resetbtm" from Terminal. Then Reboot.

This also worked for me. In particular, this solved the problem with syncthing.

@muibui Thank you very much for sharing.

1. Reset using "sfltool resetbtm" from Terminal
2. Reboot

I spoke with one of the Apple Support team members, and here's what I was suggested.

1. Reset using "sfltool resetbtm" from Terminal
2. Reboot

They should only appear once after an update or upgrade. 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.

@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.

This worked for me when Homebrew installed a new launch agent for PostgreSQL without removing the old one. I unloaded and trashed the old one and didn't even need to restart to solve the problem. I'll add an endorsement for the LaunchControl App that makes it easy to work with launch agents; it even offered to clean up the log files from the old version when I used it to delete the old launch agent.

I ran this command on terminal: sfltool resetbtm, after checking the locations jerlbaum mentioned where the files could be located and it deleted all the annoying Microsoft files and rebooted and the issue was solved

I had this with redis (multiple notifications mentioning `redis-server`) which was installed via Homebrew.

My solution was to run `brew uninstall redis` and then restart my Macbook and then did a `brew install redis` and only had one notification appear (which could be closed). Since then, no more notifications.

Just found this on r...it

1. Update to latest MacOS
2. In Terminal run the command: sfltool resetbtm
3. Reboot

slps01, have you tried my solution yet?

Look in ~/Library/LaunchAgents (you can copy paste into go to folder from Finder), sort alphabetically and look for whatever the name of the application is that's bugging you with those pop-ups. Delete, empty trash, and restart.

It's also worth looking in Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchAgents and Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchDaemons for those same applications. Again, delete, empty trash, and restart.

paul_melbourne wrote:

I cleaned out my Launch items in ~/Library

That's not possible. Or rather, whatever you were doing in ~/Library will have no effect or cause damage.

turned off the Login Items as suggested

Suggested by whom? Don't do that.

, and just get the same notifications piling up on my screen, advising me to turn them on! This is OS-wide and needs a fix from Apple, not just a workaround.

And to show I'm not picking on anyone in particular...

Look in ~/Library/LaunchAgents (you can copy paste into go to folder from Finder)

Nope. Not gonna work.

It's also worth looking in Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchAgents and Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchDaemons for those same applications.

Again, no. Don't do this. If may have an effect, but I'm positive it is not what you want.

Here's the story...

Many apps require some sort of background tasks running. Sometimes they are always running. Sometimes they only run in response to various system events. Regardless, they are part of 3rd party apps that you have installed on purpose, and possibly paid money for. If those files are deleted, your 3rd party apps will not work properly.

Perhaps, at some point in the future, 3rd party developers will adapt to this new interface and make their apps more robust in the face of this kind user "intervention". But for now, it would probably be a bad idea to delete these files or even to disable them. I realize Apple has provided an interface to disable these tasks. That being said, I strongly feel that very few developers are adequate prepared for this new behaviour. Use it at your own risk.

Furthermore, Apple has made fundamental changes to how these launch items work. These files that people are attempting to delete are migrating from those locations in ~/Library and /Library to inside their associated app bundles. If you try to modify the app bundles, the app may not launch at all.

And the bad news keeps on comin'. Even if you disable or delete these files, the app in question can always re-enable them or even reinstall them. I have seen reports that some popular apps are already doing this. I'm afraid that the only real solution is to uninstall apps if you do not agree with their behaviour.

There are reports that this repeated dialog may be a bug in Ventura. With this kind of software, it is very difficult to say. It could be buggy behaviour within the apps. Considering how difficult it is for regular people to diagnose these issues, it is very difficult to get meaningful information. And the new interface in Ventura doesn't help. It lists items by developer name. But it obtains this from developer signatures. But those apps most like to cause problems are the ones that don't have signatures. The are the items identified as "SCloudWatch", "SshResident", or even just "open". To even find out what those items really are is quite difficult. There are some easier methods, but I can't mention them. 😄

I wish I had something better to tell people. I thought this was going to be a royal can-o-worms and I'm being proven right. That had to happen eventually, eh?

I have no idea of the issues involved in the relationship between Apple and its developers, and I don't know why I should really care. I raised this problem (and others had the same problem) because I had transferred my files over from my MacBook Pro to a new MacBook Air (I had to install Ventura on the Air to make the transfer). After I made the transfer of the files, I started receiving notifications that certain apps were running in the background. The notifications appeared and reappeared when I opened System Settings>Login Items or when I restarted my computer. The problem did not exist on the MacBook Pro. Whether or not it was a good idea, the problem has (for the most part) disappeared when I deleted the files from the Launch Agents/Daemon folders in the Library. This action does not seem to have affected any of the apps installed on my computer (yet). I still think that this is a software glitch in Ventura, but if it reappears, I will just have to live with it until Apple fixes it. Also, I know that this is an Apple Community forum, but I would hope that someone at Apple might look at it from time to time.

Old Toad wrote:

For some reason some of the developers of software you've installed are not signing their certificates with their Developer Account name and not the name of the software. Googling Robby Pahlig indicated he's the developer of Launch Control and other apps.

I'm afraid in this case, at least 80% of the blame for problems is on Apple. In the past, it was common to assume that an app that didn't work on the latest version of macOS probably had lots of problems before that just weren't ever enough to break it. That is no longer true for apps that have background tasks in Ventura. Apps need to be specially coded for Ventura to show up properly in Ventura's new "Login Items/Background tasks" lists. Apps that were built 100% correctly for Monterey will not show up properly in Ventura.

There were also changes to the internals of how these background tasks are loaded and managed. I'm not as sure about how existing apps work in Ventura. It is possible that problematic apps were doing something wrong and that is causing the repeated notifications. But it might be some other problem. That's why I blame Apple for "at least" 80%. It might be more.

Just ignore that settings pane.

That is by far the best thing that end users can do. Making any changes in this new Ventura user interface is a bad idea. Maybe in a couple of years, 3rd party developers will have learned how these new APIs work and will be better able to respond to them. But for now, I recommend avoiding those settings.

dhave wrote:

etresoft wrote "I realize Apple has provided an interface to disable these tasks."

System Settings > Login Items lets us "turn off" login items but this has no effect on the startup noise.

Yes, because it is more complicated than that.

"If you try to modify the app bundles, the app may not launch at all."

This is what we want: neither the app nor its parts launch at all until we explicitly open it. Then we can update, straighten our tie, whatever.

No, sorry. You can't have it both ways. You can either install the app and let it run as designed or you can uninstall the app properly. The fundamental problem here is that Apple gave users a third, invalid, option to hack up the app in ways that it wasn't designed to operate. Plus, Apple added these notifications to keep users informed.

But those are two separate things. For one, Apple never should have provided this interface. That was just a bad idea. The notifications, however, were actually a good idea. Unfortunately, many developers had simply always been managing their launchd tasks incorrectly. It is only these repeated notifications that are displaying those 3rd party errors in flashing lights.

Didn't Windows used to have a "certified" sticker to guarantee that an app satisfied certain benchmarks before being blessed? Ah, the good ol' days. ;)

Apple has the too. It is called the Mac App Store.

Most of these launchd tasks are not allowed in the Mac App Store. Mac App Store apps did allow a certain kind of login item. But Apple was always very strict about those login items. They couldn't be required for the app to function. The app had to give users a way to manage the login item. Apple enforced this through its App Review process. If an app didn't do the login item properly, it got rejected.

The problem here is that Apple took that good idea from the Mac App Store, tried to implement it for all Mac apps, and is enforcing it through the user interface and notifications. But Apple never checked with 3rd party developers to ensure that their apps could actually function properly without their accompanying launchd task. They just gave users an interface to disable the tasks. And I think Apple didn't realize that so many 3rd party app developers were simply managing the launchd tasks incorrectly in the first place, causing all the notifications.

I think there is a good likelihood that Apple will notice the notification problem and fix it through a software update. I'm not saying that Apple will fix it. I'm just saying that it may be technically possible.

But that is strictly about the notifications. The more general problem of end-users vandalizing apps is more general. It may take a few years before more 3rd party developers understand this change and adapt to it. Many 3rd party developers have no idea because they actually have very poor Mac support and no one has told them. Instead, everyone blames Apple. In this case, much of the blame is Apple's. But for certain [redacted] reasons, Apple probably isn't going to change this. For the next couple of years, people who want their 3rd party apps to work properly had better made sure to avoid this new Login Items user interface in Ventura.