Firewall settings not sticking - reverting without user involvement

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Firewall settings not sticking - reverting without user involvement

Like other people, I'm being pestered at every login by the "Do you want the application "mediasharingd" to accept incoming network connections?". I spent 45 minutes chatting with Apple Support who took me through changing the Firewall settings to block incoming connections to the mediasharingd process.

Now I find that those changes to the Firewall settings do not stick. After a restart, the settings have reverted to they were before. In particular, the setting for mediasharingd is changed back to "Allow incoming connections".

Worse, I decided to block ALL incoming connections. That seemed to work. After a restart a couple of days ago, it was still set to block. BUT, I could see that in the greyed out list of processes mediasharingd was again set to "Allow".

Today after startup, I again got the pesky mediasharingd popup. I checked the Firewall settings and found "Block all incoming connections" was OFF.

I have thought that changes to Firewall settings required admin credentials. So, how can my settings change without any admin (or other) involvement ?

I have used Feedback Assistant to send the details to Apple. But, I assume there will be no response. Does anyone understand what's going on ?

Posted on Jan 12, 2023 6:04 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 12, 2023 8:03 PM in response to MacRetired

set system settings to require an admin passwd to make any changes, and see what happens

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Answer 2

Jan 13, 2023 1:10 AM in response to supercondr

Where is that setting ? "System Settings" in Ventura is quite different – e.g., there is no "Require admin to change" setting in Networks. However, to make any changes to the Firewall, I do have to enter admin credentials. What I don't get is why those settings revert to the previous settings after a restart – with no input from me at all i.e. without admin password.

OOPS - found it, sorry.

UPDATE: I turned on "Require an administrator password to access systemwide settings" then, changed Firewall settings to what I want (block incoming connections to mediasharingd), entered admin credentials then did a restart. After logging back in I got the mediasharingd popup. Checked the Firewall settings and found they had reverted to the previous setting i.e. "Allow incoming connections" to mediasharingd. So, the "Require an administrator password to access systemwide settings" does not work in this case.

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Firewall settings not sticking - reverting without user involvement

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