Optimizing Your Mac message upon log in

I too saw this when moving from Ventura 13.3.1(a) to Ventura 13.4

This occurred on 3 different M1 / M2 Computers

I just ignored it and it eventually when away without any User Interventions or Actions

What is causing the Mac to hang may have nothing to do with that banner.

Try starting up in safe mode and see if you can login.

Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Barney-15E is correct, I too saw Spotlight re-indexing and showing the optimization notification after macOS updates at least twice in the last 2-3 updates. It will eventually complete the indexing.

I have the same bug - and it is most certainly an Apple bug. You are supposed to see the optimizing message only after an OS upgrade or something that messes with shared executable libraries. As far as I can tell, this has to do with something in your home directory, presumably in the Library hierarchy. Evidence for this is that the problem happens only with some of the accounts on the machine, and because migrating an account with the problem to a new machine brings the problem along. Reloading the OS doesn't fix it - eventually I couldn't stand it any more and tried to rebuild the home directory for that account - which is much harder to do than you would think if you want to keep all of your data. For example, it isn't clear to me how you can move your email history (which is hidden away in the library) so that you have all the mailboxes you moved to your local machine, without making a mess. There is probably a simple fix that some engineer at Apple knows, where you get rid of some files in the Library so that the OS can rebuild whatever files it is having trouble (or doesn't have permission for) fixing. Apple should make some utility to clean up the Library - it isn't a bad as the Windows Registry, but the Library does accumulate problems. If anybody figures it out, it would be great to know how to fix this problem...

My IMAC (Ventura 13.2.1 - 2019 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7) Started this phenomenon suddenly. Startup goes fine. I log into the computer and a banner comes into the top right corner with the (Optimizing your computer performance may be affected...)

Then it hangs. I let it go for 15 hours, and still the spinning wheel of doom. I cannot access this computer. Tried power cycling, safe mode, recovery with first aid. Nothing works. The computer is stuck on this.

Is there a way to disable this before logging in. I need this computer for a classroom.

Thanks, Barney.

Nope. Tried starting in safe mode. Same thing happened. Optimizing banner came up at login then went to the spinning wheel of doom. I tried letting it run, but after 24 hours, I decided it was enough.

I also tried Disk First aid, and recovery install. Even after reinstalling the recovery OS, it still does it.

Barney is, without doubt, correct. Moreover, this behavior is account specific on my machine, suggesting that the problem lives in ~/.Library. It would be super useful be able to preserve your good stuff (email, messages, etc.) while reinitializing the messed up OS stuff that is causing the OS to think it has to re-Optimize each time you login. I've been told that even if the issue is some kind of permissions brain damage (as is often the Unix way), unlike the old days where you could just brute force chmod chown your way along to get the OS to clean stuff up, the security system in OS X does other magic. In this case, OS X seems to have fallen but can't get back up...

-Richard

I think I saw it with one of the recent updates.

Welcome

That notification won’t go away until you close it, and I don’t think it has anything to do with spotlight

When you reinstalled, did you erase all content in settings?

Reinstalling, the OS will probably never do anything anymore. Any glitches are going to be on the data volume.

I'm having this same problem! Were you able to correct it?