Quick Look no longer works after the 13.3 update.

In Notes, I have a slew of gifs stored in different notes that I often view in with Quick Look, but this functionality is gone after the update. When I activate Quick Look from Notes, either with the menu command or the space bar, the wheel spins and spins and spins. My notes are stored in iCloud, but I have tried to use Quick Look with files on my local hard drive and I get the same response. Gifs animate as they normally do in Photos.

The same gifs in Notes (stored in iCloud) do animate with Quick Look on my iPhone 11 using 16.4.

I'm running a 2021 14" MacBook Pro (16 GB / M1 Pro with 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU), 13.3.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Does anyone have a solution to restore this lost functionality?

TIA,

Nathan

MacBook Pro (2021)

Posted on Mar 28, 2023 12:03 PM

Top-ranking reply

MindFad

Level 1

52 points

Posted on Mar 28, 2023 8:31 PM

Oh, thank goodness I’m not alone. This has been maddening all day.

I deal with GIFs and GIF-creation daily, so can confirm QuickLook is busted after 13.3 when playing GIFs (including Finder preview panes), and attempting to do so immediately breaks it.

Other image formats are fine, but as soon as you view a GIF (either via QuickLook or allow it to load into a Finder preview pane), after the GIF ends to begin its loop again, QuickLookUIService will hang (not responding) and the hang counter in Activity Monitor will start counting up indefinitely—breaking the functionality completely for all other images. The UI in the Finder will also start to choke and stutter.

I’m on a Mac Studio M1 Max.

I’ve tried all the suggested troubleshooting:

Resetting and nuking the QL generator caches via terminal.
Nuking preferences and .plists.

I even loaded into Safe Mode and the problem persists and is reproduced in exactly the same way, so it is not some software conflict. I’m pretty sure Apple just accidentally busted QL this release and no one caught it.

Hopefully it can get sorted out quickly, it’s very frustrating.

In the meantime, you can kill it via Activity Monitor—or more quickly, just ⌥-Right-Click the Finder icon and Relaunch Finder.

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Similar questions

49 replies

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 30, 2023 6:33 AM in response to vladcom95

vladcom95 wrote:

I have the exact same problem!

Yes, everyone does apparently and everyone should send Apple feedback.

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 31, 2023 10:24 PM in response to eternalrz

As I already said, the problem is GIF support in 13.3. It affects the Finder, Preview, Quick Look, Messages as it turns out. Possibly others.

nanoGUY

Level 1

55 points

Apr 7, 2023 11:41 AM in response to dialabrain

The issue occurs with all file types on my MB Air M2.

Mart64A

Level 1

20 points

Mar 29, 2023 9:10 AM in response to Nathan Walters

Same here. Pressing the spacebar will loop an animated gif once and stop. If I click "open with Preview" the Finder locks up. I do have this free app called Photostickies from the Mac App Store that will open an animated gif just fine but I'm so used to using the spacebar. This is very frustrating. What do I do? Downgrade to Monterey?

I'm running a MacBook Pro M1 (and I still have a 2006 iBook G4 running MacOS 10.4 that actually works without a problem)

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 30, 2023 5:34 PM in response to VanillaStudio

VanillaStudio wrote:

I just found that .exr files aren't shown, it persist even on restarts, safe mode or relaunching finer.

Very frustrating

I downloaded a couple .exr files. Some display, some don't. I have no idea what the difference is.

Mar 31, 2023 10:22 PM in response to dialabrain

If the same process in Finder is used in Messages and both are crashing when doing the exact same things, then how are these different issues? Seems more like the same issue among multiple programs, which is again, Quick Look, since it's not just exclusively used with Finder. So far, I have no issues with other image formats as far as I'm aware.

micradar

Level 1

20 points

Apr 3, 2023 1:25 AM in response to Nathan Walters

Same here. Reported to Apple.

GIF-files in Finder cause the process to hang.

I wonder how something like this can slip through QA. Nobody noticed in the beta tests or was Apple not listening to bug reports? And does Apple not have automated regressions tests: For QuickLook the natural thing seems to open all supported file types.

But maybe the problem is not affecting everybody who uses GIF-files. Maybe another condition has to be met for the issue to occur. I wonder what that other condition could be though.

Mar 28, 2023 12:48 PM in response to dialabrain

My Finder's behavior is the same as yours.

Thank you both for at least affirming that it's not just me.

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 28, 2023 1:56 PM in response to Nathan Walters

You're welcome.

Mar 28, 2023 6:08 PM in response to Nathan Walters

Same problem here. After the 13.3 upgrade, Quick Look not working on images or mp4's. It works sometimes on documents, and always on web links.

MindFad

Level 1

52 points

Mar 29, 2023 6:51 AM in response to dialabrain

First thing I did after Safe Mode also exhibited the issue!

Mar 29, 2023 6:54 AM in response to MindFad

I've also reported to Apple.

Mar 29, 2023 11:58 AM in response to Nathan Walters

Same here- Glad to finally know that I was not going Crazy.

Mar 30, 2023 6:30 AM in response to Nathan Walters

I have the exact same problem!

Mar 30, 2023 7:01 AM in response to dialabrain

will send one too!

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Quick Look no longer works after the 13.3 update.