How can you stop a Mac from reopening applications after a crash?

mia5ma wrote:

This response does not address my question. I am fully aware of the risks and reasons behind the intentional crashes of my system, as these are part of a controlled testing process. I need answers that specifically address the issue I’ve outlined.

That should have been clearly stated in your original post.

The quality & relevance of responses is directly proportional to the quality & detail of the question & background information provided. You may want to review the following article before posting questions in the future to help get more relevant responses. For 99.99% of the time, my response would have been 100% appropriate.

Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question - Apple Community

Since the linked forum thread only offers a couple of suggestions which you say no longer work due to changes in macOS behavior, then you will likely either need to wait & see whether a macOS update changes things back, or you will need to explore the inner workings of macOS to understand how macOS handles the unexpected system shutdowns & triggers the relaunching of open apps & windows. I doubt there will be a way to prevent it since the macOS system volume is now signed & sealed to prevent tampering. You likely have your work cut of for yourself since there is probably very little, if any, information out there.

Good luck.

The better option would be to figure out why the computer is crashing in the first place. System crashes are not normal. System crashes are likely to get worse where they could end up causing data corruption or loss of data. Start by running the third party app EtreCheck and posting the complete report here so we can examine it for possible clues.

I sure hope you have good frequent and regular backups since there are a lot more new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD of the recent Macs due to all the hardware, software, and security changes.

You should also try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. The only useful diagnostic is one which produces an error code.

You may also want to disconnect all external devices in case one of them is causing the problem.

mia5ma wrote:

This response does not address my question. I am fully aware of the risks and reasons behind the intentional crashes of my system, as these are part of a controlled testing process. I need answers that specifically address the issue I’ve outlined.

By virtue of those two statements

Are we to understand the user is purposely trying to Cause a System Crash ?

Asking questions on there forms, are generally for those who have a Technical Apple Question to solve something that Should Not Happen

Versus solving an issue the user seems to be purposely trying to create

mia5ma wrote:

My current focus is specifically on controlling the behavior of applications reopening after intentional system crashes for testing purposes.

The steps mentioned, like checking external devices or running diagnostics, are valuable for addressing crashes generally, but they don't directly address the behavior of applications reopening after a crash. I’m specifically looking for solutions or workarounds within macOS Ventura that control or prevent applications from automatically reopening after a system crash.

If anyone has experience with settings or tools that can help manage this behavior, or if there’s a known method in Ventura for preventing applications from reopening after crashes such as the one that was linked in the opening post by dialabrain:

"Try unchecking "Start up automatically after a power failure" in System Preferences > Energy Saver. And as previously stated, Make sure "Reopen windows…" is unchecked for Restarts and Shut downs."

So in effect.

Is the user looking for a " Hack " to bypass the builtin functionality of macOS 13 Ventura ?

Good work there 👍

👍