Multiple Issues With macOS 14.4, anyone else?

For the alert sounds not playing, if it's still happening to you, try force-quitting the coreaudiod process in Activity Viewer. This is (for me) a recurrence of a long-standing bug that has come and gone across various recent versions of macOS. It's particularly bad again in 14.4. This workaround usually works (without requiring a reboot).

My first suggestion would be to get rid of TechTool. Just look at all of those Micromat processes it loads.

Years ago, I used this app. Then with one particular upgrade, it didn't take long for me to see it was then entirely useless. Worse than that, it practically takes over your Mac. I dumped the app and never purchased or used it again. And that was at least 10 years ago.

What makes it so bad? If you let it just use every tool it runs by default, it does things like this:

1) Nothing you delete ever goes away. When you empty the trash, TechTool instead moves everything that was in the trash to a hidden folder so you can easily get "deleted" items back. i.e., you never actually get your drive space back. Files just keep getting added to the pseudo trash.

2) TechTool makes snapshots of your drive every day. If I remember correctly, multiple times per day. This eats up not just megabytes, but gigabytes of the drive. And it will keep making snapshots until it fills the drive - if you let it. It's a useless and space hogging "feature" you don't need when you're already using Carbon Copy Cloner (which I see you have) and/or Time Machine. And besides, what good is a snapshot/backup that's on the same drive? If the drive dies, all of the so-called backups go with it.

I went through every feature of the last version I had, and there weren't any that couldn't be done using the OS' own functions, or with free and/or much less expensive third party tools that only run when you choose to use them.

I also have the Mac Studio but none of your issues. Run the free app Etrecheck and see if anything shows as an issue. You can also post the results here for us to review.

here is my problem: Sonoma 14.4 update causes the performance… - Apple Community

I think they are related.

and Multiple Issues With macOS 14.4, anyone e… - Apple Community may make sense.

If you are running the Mac Studio in an active directory network, there can be lag logging in as it handshakes the domain controller. This process brings up the green dot to make mobile accounts on Active Directory connect.

VPNs can cause lags, and so can mobile device management that schools and companies use to manage multiple computers across a network. If you see Profiles in System Settings, that's a sign of mobile device management.

Do not have any optimizers installed, as they will actually slow you down.

Amended comments to MacKeeper tip - Apple Community

I wonder if this all is related to single cause of new security checks in macOS Kernel for protected memory access that is causing Java (JVM) processes crashes?

See https://blogs.oracle.com/java/post/java-on-macos-14-4?source=:so:tw:or:awr:jav:::&SC=:so:tw:or:awr:jav:::&pcode=

and https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-6802

Apple likely needs to roll this back and reintroduce it later when developers are on board with the changes.

Various Apple tech media sites are reporting that macOS 14.4.1 is imminent. Also see today’s article on the MacRumors site. Don’t read the comments because it’s utter chaos from haters. Nothing but sarcasm and snark.

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/18/do-not-update-macos-sonoma-14-4/

I've noticed on some pages in Chrome, it doesn't react to mouse clicks typing on the keyboard. Not all the time, but often. And not on every site. Safari has no issues.

Chrome is up to date

Version 123.0.6312.59 (Official Build) (arm64)

I guess I need to wait for a new Chrome fix?

My finder window keeps getting hung up with the spinning ball. A lot of websites are non-functional using Safari, but work find if I use Mozilla or Chrome. My computer tends to lag a lot since the update - but the most annoying is the finder window - it always get hung up there

Looks like 14.4 upgrade moved all the"Documents Data "to iCloud and now anything that points to the Dociument folder (Accounting Data Files) can't find it. Did find the main Co. File but forms and custom stuff still looking for. Any else seen this type problems?

Thanks, tom