Perpetual "Background Items Added"

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.

Just ignore that settings pane.

Michael12000 wrote:

Then I don't understand the "fix" that someone previously suggested.

For some, it is a fix because they don’t use the software anymore and didn’t know it was still running. For some, it is a fix because it stops the notifications, and they have no idea it breaks the app they installed. And, there are apps that install completely superfluous stuff that runs in the background of, and stopping that doesn’t affect the app at all. Printer manufactures are notorious for bundling a bunch of useless background processes, and deleting them does not stop you from printing.

TheTimeTraveller wrote:

While macOS is better than Windows in the fact that it doesn't have a centralized registry

macOS has many registry-style databases scattered throughout the system.

it's plists are usually stored within the app itself

plist files are usually stored in only 3 well-defined locations:

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchAgents

~/Library/LaunchAgents

However, a significant new change in Ventura does now allow these plist files to be stored inside an app bundle itself. I haven’t seen many apps use this new mechanism yet, maybe MS Office.

Note that this is completely different than “Login Items” which are (for the most part) stored inside the application bundle and have been for some time. Ventura really confuses the situation by mixing all these together.

there are certain caches, application logs, startup deamons/agents, that are stored elsewhere including the following common locations:

~/Library/Application Support

~/Library/Caches

~/Library/LaunchAgents

And certain (especially developer) apps, even store in these non standard locations. Such as composer storing at ~/.composer, npm storing caches at /usr/local/lib/node_modules, Code (by Microsoft) storing extensions at ~/.vscode and many more.

Aside from daemons and agents, this is true. It has spawned a cottage industry of “app zappers” and “clean up” tools to try to remove all of these bits and pieces. As you might expect if you’ve been paying attention so far, this is useless. Files in these locations no longer have any effect on the system whatsoever and only use a tiny bit of disk space.

As an added bonus, a few years ago Apple deprecated the old “kernel extensions” and replaced them with “system extensions” that are supposedly less likely to cause system crashes. Apple bakes these new system extensions into the operating system and protects them with its SIP security system. This means that none of those “app zapper” or “clean up” tools can ever remove them. They will stay installed, and forever running totally out of control, until you erase the hard drive.

(Note: true to form, in any consumer facing documentation or pop-up alert, Apple calls both of these two different things “system extensions”.)

I've tried to clear folders:

1. Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchAgents
2. Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchDaemons
3. Empty Bin
4. Restart

but it doesn't help.

So after several reboots I just opened notification centre and delete all notifications. So, when I turn on - there were 0 notifications "Background Items Added"

Deleting an app that installs a background process may not remove the background process. Apps can now ebbed them in the app bundle, but very few have done that.

Any app that requires an installer must be uninstalled using the developer’s uninstaller app or instructions.

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.

"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.

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. ;)

2c,

-dave

I would be interested to know if anyone who has actually tried this solution has had a bad outcome.

There are posts where people removed the launchd plists only to discover to their dismay the no longer worked. On others, the app just “repaired” itself and the notifications resumed. Is that a bad outcome? Perhaps if you are the user who still wants to use the app and has a limited understanding of the actual problem.

I only have three apps that use background tasks and they all behave. I uninstalled one to see how it would respond when I reinstalled. It only generated the privacy notification once on install. So, there are app developers who know what they are doing.

Jeremy Bolesky wrote:

All my 3rd party software is still installed and working fine.

Not if you have deleted parts of it. You just haven't exercised any of the functionality that is now broken.

And the major annoyance this thread _should_ be about has been resolved using Jeff Chapman's advice.

That advice was wrong. Users should not go into hidden folders and randomly delete files. Those files were put there for a reason. This specific thread is unusual because the first post included a list of very specific files. Many similar reports include items that say only "open" or "osascript". Advice that was wrong, and wrong even in a very specific and relatively unusual situation. In other cases, it could be dangerous.

I didn't.

You just haven't noticed it yet. You are welcome to hang around the forums for the next few months and help clean up the mess that will inevitably result from this bad advice.

"At the very least @etresoft is wrong in some cases" allows for the possibility that @etresoft is wrong in every case.

I thought I was wrong once, but it turned out I was mistaken.

Many of the arguments against the approach of deleting the autolaunch plist files seem to suggest that it will cause more problems than just the theoretical possibility of needing to reinstall an application. That's not how it works.

Most of the guidance is the same as every other problem posted here, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Most problems are different, even if they appear to be the same. Start your own thread with your specific details and get your specific problem handled. Running willy-nilly through the file system deleting everything isn't a solution to any of these specific issues.

For me, deleting the plist files didn't damage any applications.

For those, it might not have. Years back, I had a Garmin navigation set. Its software installed a Launchd plist to put a completely useless menu in the Status Menu area. Its only purpose was to open or quit the app. Deleting the launchd plist cause the app to crash on launch. I dumped the Garmin.

Why did you delete the launchd plist file for all of those apps? Were all causing notifications? Off your list, I only have a slightly old version of Office (2019). It doesn't cause any notifications. Maybe Microsoft's licensing helper doesn't check every time you open an app, so yours hasn't caused any noticeable harm. I have seen posts that say Office causes notifications, but I haven't got a response as to what version they are running. Perhaps the old version doesn't cause that problem, only the newer 365 apps.

I can just imagine one of my users searching for a solution to this problem and after reading this thread thinking they had to live with or have me fix it because this simple solution was going to cause data loss or burn everything down.

Or, they could actually read the thread and know they just need start their own thread to get specific help with their specific problem instead of blindly ripping through their Mac disemboweling it.

Why did you delete the launchd plist file for all of those apps? Were all causing notifications?

I was getting at least a dozen notifications. I emptied the mentioned folders completely. I was prepared to restore using time machine if necessary, but I didn't need to do that because it worked, in spite of protestations by people (who haven't tried it, and haven't even seen this issue) that it's impossible to do this without breaking things. An application that will destroy OTHER applications and/or the OS when it can't access one out-of-package resource is either intentional malware in the first place or so poorly designed that it qualifies as malware.

It doesn't cause any notifications.

Not everyone has this issue. It seemed to start for me after I did a safe boot to see if something was interfering with my VPN.

Or, they could actually read the thread and know they just need start their own thread to get specific help with their specific problem instead of blindly ripping through their Mac disemboweling it.

There are over 1,000 people with this same issue. You want 1,000 threads because every situation isn't EXACTLY the same, even though this the same error message and a new development with OS 13?

[Edited by Moderator]

Same. Took about 5 minutes following @etresoft's guidance. Unfortunately, several big companies (Microsoft, Google, and Steam) cannot update their software to respect the Login Items. Instead, I'll have to deal with quitting their apps each day or deleting them rather than removing them from the area of System Preferences that Apple provides. Either that or upgrade my 8 GB M1/M2 MBAs, as I'm running into high TBW from too much multitasking/app usage.

This happens in Sonoma too. Here is a detailed description of a problem and potential solutions, if that helps anyone.

---

Every time I unlock my laptop from sleep I get a bunch of "Background Items Added" & "Login Item Added" Notifications. I have to swipe away each one individually. And they keep popping up every single time my computer goes to sleep.

The only solution is to remove the apps from Login Items and disallow Background Items. This "solution" doesn't work for me, because I actually like this apps. I trust them, and I want them to run a login and run background tasks.

What I don't want is to get a notification about that every single time. Here are possible solutions:

1. For each app that System sends notification about ask if I "trust it". If I do, don't send notification.

2. In Notification Settings allow to block notification from the System.

3. At the very least you could make a "read all notification" button so that I don't have to remove them one by one.

Was hoping that this would be resolved in Ventura 13.1, but no such luck.

Still getting these alerts constantly.

I contacted apple support, they opened a case and escalated the issue.

Tomorrow I expect to receive a call.

Hope they come with some solution or workaround. Since is really crazy.