Cannot stop programs from launching at boot/login

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Level 1

14 points

Cannot stop programs from launching at boot/login

Each time I reboot, and then login, “welcome to Mac features dialogs”, and 6 or seven programs always start.

I do NOT check reopen at login(I’ve tried to check that, reboot, uncheck, then reboot again hoping to clear some issue).

There are no apps flagged to open in the dock, and there are no items in the login startup list.

I’ve checked the ~/Library/Launchxxxxx and /Library/Launchxxx directories for .plist files; none except Apple.com

ive wiped the disc and restored-they still start (maybe to be expected since I restored the same prefs?)

they still start after booting in safe-mode. Not sure what to do or check once in safe mode to stop it from happening in next normal boot.

they don’t start if I login as another user.

this seems to have started with Sonoma.

When these apps start, they seem to configure themselves as if they were launched the first time. For example, podcast auto launches in “intro to podcast” mode, even though I’ve clicked through the intro each time. Quicken always wants to intro me to new features. Even macOS wants to tell me about all the new sequoia features on each boot up.

it seems like there is some preferences file and/or system state (first time booting) that is either corrupted or I don’t have permission to modify.

been running Unix/linux machines for 40 years, can’t figure this one out.

iMac 24″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Nov 18, 2024 5:10 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

tgaryet Author

Level 1

14 points

Dec 15, 2024 3:31 PM in response to tgaryet

So resolution:

I've finally stopped un-commanded launch of the same apps whenever I login. Un-commanded means the programs launching were not selected to autostart by any of the documented methods ("open windows on restart" or LaunchDeamons, for example).

There were other associated symptoms with this problem, like every program, including MacOS, presented what I would call the intro/what's new/welcome dialog, even though it wasn't the first time the app was launched.

"resetting finder preferences" did the trick:

1. Open Finder

2. Click "GO" menu > "GO to Folder"

3. Type or Paste ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist in to the box and hit "GO" button

4. Delete the plist file

5. Delete com.apple.sidebarlists.plist file too

6. Restart or Logout Mac

I also fixed a seperate issue I came across while trying to fix autostart prolem, the rapid creation of the login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-zEyImz type files, by removing the keychain.db file and (manually) rebuilding the keychain.

I have the old finder.plist file if someone is key to analyze it and find out more details. I believe it was corrupted as it hadn't been updated for over a year.

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Answer 2

Nov 18, 2024 11:28 PM in response to tgaryet

The first thing that needs to be taken care of: your system drive is FULL.

Any system drive should have at the very least 15% free, yours has about 4%.

This may not be directly related to the issue you described, but causes severe slowdowns and ultimately can lead to crashes and loss of data.

You have a number of kernel extensions - these seem old, probably migrated from an old mac. You can see that they say 10.9 SDK or 10.8 SDK - these refer to Mavericks and Mountain Lion...

You have very old and long abandoned plugins:

GarminGpsControl: 2.7.3.0 Release (? - installed 2024-11-17)

Silverlight: 5.1.41212.0 (? - installed 2024-11-17)

AdobePDFViewer: 21.005.20058 (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2024-11-17)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 17.012.20098 (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2024-11-17)

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: 2.1.0.33 (? - installed 2014-07-16)

EPPEX Plugin: 3.0.5.0 (? - installed 2024-11-17)

They appear to have just been installed (dated two or three days ago). Why? How did you do that?

Silverlight and Flip4Mac have not worked in years.

I can only surmise that you migrated all this stuff from another mac. Is that correct?

There have been numerous crashes.

1) I'd make sure to have a full Time Machine backup.

2) Then I'd erase all contents: System Settings->General->Transfer or Reset->Erase All Content and Settings

(This does NOT erase the OS itself, only the data; the core OS is protected and unchanged)

3) When asked, choose to migrate "from another Mac, disk or Time Machine backup", select the backup disk you have, and CRUCIALLY check ONLY the user accounts and nothing else.

4) Install any needed applications

See how it goes from here. Hopefully, this will restore your mac to sanity and you can enjoy it without issue.

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Answer 3

Nov 18, 2024 9:46 AM in response to tgaryet

Is your system being managed? A managed system won't always respect the options you configure in System Settings. If you bought a used computer or even bought a new one through an employer or school (even if for personal use), then the computer may still be managed by them.

Without an EtreCheck report there really isn't much more we can do to help you. I would suggest taking the computer to Apple or an AASP to be examined since it may require someone to see it first hand anyway.

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Answer 4

Nov 18, 2024 7:36 AM in response to tgaryet

Did you close all applications before shut down? And even then, these applications start?

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

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Answer 5

tgaryet Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 22, 2024 7:21 AM in response to tgaryet

A little update.

In my search for the root cause of this issue, and as pointed out by Luis Sequeira1, the internal 1T disc was very full.

Turns out there was a whopping 500G (!) of keychain temporary files hanging around. I haven't done anything but delete the temp files, so there are still 40 500K files are getting created every second. These temp files are also eating up the time machine backup drive.

I'm wondering if the Keychain is totally corrupted and this is causing the other issues I'm having. If I reset the mac to defaults, and then restore my keychain from backup, and its the cause of my problems, I'm back to square one.

It's looking like I have to reset my Keychain to fix this spawning of temp files.

Looking for some comments/considerations before I proceed.

Thanks

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Answer 6

tgaryet Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 22, 2024 7:09 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Indeed, they file creations appear to stop in safe mode.

Using Activity monitor, I saw that mdworker was using 99% cpu. I shutdown spotlight searches on the internal drive and rebooted (crazy apps still launched).

It seems like spotlight restarted indexing from the start (even though I haven't manually restarted them). Now I'm only getting a few keychain temp file per hour.

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689500 Nov 22 14:01 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-zEyImz

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 692164 Nov 22 14:22 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-b8zYjw

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688356 Nov 22 14:23 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-n5ZG9M

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 14:46 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-JeMfH0

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688852 Nov 22 14:46 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-gnsyUe

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 14:51 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-PZ9K0U

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688724 Nov 22 14:51 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-YjQzyc

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688220 Nov 22 14:52 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-hf1cLB

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 15:02 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-uNLRrm

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 15:07 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-PFKack

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688852 Nov 22 15:07 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-HxsjWS

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688356 Nov 22 15:36 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-RdwNLw

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 16:11 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-6mj9Y3

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688852 Nov 22 16:11 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-EbC1ly

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 16:25 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-7py3rQ

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 688852 Nov 22 16:25 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-2SFwd5

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 17:02 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-u307IV

-rw-r--rw-@ 1 Terry staff 689516 Nov 22 19:02 login.keychain-db.sb-fc01bbe9-PBAdCG

In the launchd log there are two process that are repeatedly SIGKILLED:

2024-11-22 20:58:52.946416 (user/501/com.apple.mdworker.shared.07000000-0500-0000-0000-000000000000 [19911]) <Notice>: exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[109], ran for 21912ms

2024-11-22 21:04:33.955481 (pid/20655/com.apple.CoreGraphics.CGPDFService [20659]) <Notice>: exited due to SIGKILL | sent by launchd[1] during teardown of process-scoped services after host exited, ran for 709ms

Don't know if these are related to the temp files or not, but the mdsworker SIGKILL appear to be related.

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Answer 7

tgaryet Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 18, 2024 8:00 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Yes. Everything is closed before shutdown and “ open windows on restart” is not checked @ shutdown.

not going to put etreccheck on system.

a side-by-side comparison of launchctl print /user/501 (one that launches apps) vs /user/502 (one that doesn’t) shows many more agents and hundreds of more endpoints for 501 vs 502. Not sure how to approach finding the mechanism here.

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Answer 8

Nov 18, 2024 8:07 AM in response to tgaryet

tgaryet wrote:

Yes. Everything is closed before shutdown and “ open windows on restart” is not checked @ shutdown.

not going to put etreccheck on system.

a side-by-side comparison of launchctl print /user/501 (one that launches apps) vs /user/502 (one that doesn’t) shows many more agents and hundreds of more endpoints for 501 vs 502. Not sure how to approach finding the mechanism here.

Your system, your call.

Etrecheck is a free diagnostic tool by etresoft, a frequent contributor. It makes no changes to your system.

All it does is provide a report on your hardware and software setup.

You can see many of its reports posted here every day, because that is how users can help others - by having enough information to try and figure out what might be causing problems.

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Answer 9

tgaryet Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 19, 2024 5:48 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

thanks for the feedback.

These plugins have definitely been migrated. The only hint to the install date is that to try to fix this problem (and frankly, lots more), I wiped the internal drive, reinstalled OS, and restored from backup. It looks like my mistake was to restore everything, not just the user files. I've deleted them.

I've been trying to recover some disk space. It seems each time I move 100GB, it rapidly gets filled again. I've moved lots to external drive, put some into iCloud, etc.

The crashes are disturbing. Any ideas how to figure out why? syslog doesn't seem too helpful.

I'm beginning to think that there is a lot bigger issue than these programs restarting. They are subtle though:

1) If I check "remember in keychain" when mounting encrypted external drive, it doesn't persist.

2) Finder can't erase old BIG local iphone backups from the Manage Iphone Backups options (when a phone is plugged in).

3) Prior to reinstalling OS, in mail, if I tried to remove (lots of old) mail, they would delete from view within mail, but the files were still in ~/Library/Mail ... This really corrupted the way mail worked!

4) Certain programs state doesn't persist between boots. One example is Podcast. On the first launch after a boot, the into to podcast info comes up. If quit and restart Podcast, it starts directly at HOME (normally). All programs seem to do this.

I will consider wiping as you suggested.

Thanks again

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