Clock app showing blank and unresponsive interface in macOS Tahoe (26.0+)

I have been experiencing this since the latest Sequoia patches (15.4+) on my 2023 MacBook Pro with M3 Max, and, now, in Tahoe (26.0.1–26.1), the Clock app is completely broken.

Back in Sequoia, I started to notice a distinctive slowdown in the Timer function only: clicking on the green button to start a timer would not respond until, about 20 seconds later, as many timers as you clicked would appear, all started at the correct time. Pressing on 'Cancel' would get the same behaviour. The button would not respond or, better, it would respond about 20 seconds later. Here it is how it behaved in Sequoia:

https://youtu.be/EY0bkFSOb70


After updating to Tahoe (and it persists in 26.1), the Clock app is now unusable: the 'Local Times' tab '+' button takes a few seconds to respond but it works; the 'Stopwatch' tab apparently starts but there is no numbers on screen. Pressing the Lap button given a series of "0:00:00" laps; the 'Alarm' tab apparently works until, then, the alarm is not set; finally, the 'Timer' tab is just blank (or, well, black). No interface, nothing at all.

Here's a video of the issue in Tahoe 26.0.1 (same in 26.1):

https://youtu.be/z1R33m3Qf_o


I have already tried to reinstall macOS, without any progress.

In a new user account, both standard and administrator, the Clock app works flawlessly.


Through Apple Support we have gone through all the standard procedures: Safe Mode, clean the user and system library of all temporary files, launch agents/daemons, plus much more (including resetting permissions). I have an open ticket which is: 102729620952. The engineers sent me the CaptureData.dmg app and I uploaded the sysdiagnose file provided.

For now the advisor is suggesting to erase the Mac and start afresh but, using this Mac for work and seeing no issue outside of the Clock app, I am a bit reluctant to proceed in that direction. The previous advisor, which then disappeared without calling me on the appointed day, prompting me to look for further help, had suggested to migrate to a new admin user. While we never managed to get there, this is possibly where I will end up while the engineers try to find what is causing this. My only doubts are:

  • I don't want to use Migration Assistant nor Restore from Backup because it would bring back all my user library, with the issue potentially included.
  • I am not familiar with how to use the Public/Shared/Write Only/Drop Box folders and the Apple Support articles did not clarify it enough to make me feel comfortable using them.
  • I could simply copy files to an external SSD, then copy them back. I am aware, though, that recent macOS has the new concept of "owner", meaning that I could get in troubles once I remove the old user.


Analysing the logs capture with both the Console app and the LogUI app produce results that, compared with a log from a functioning Clock app, show little to no differences.

I'm attaching the logs here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hbaep9z6kk45lc6uwb7jw/LogUI-Clock-App-Malfunction.zip?rlkey=bapzjjp5mw9wn9jhqfw5np2rv&dl=0


What do you think could / should be done in this case?

Regardless of how this issue will be resolved, I would like to take the chance to thank you everyone who has already been helping me so far, even if to no avail.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Nov 7, 2025 6:33 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 11, 2025 7:18 AM

NotationMaster wrote:

Man, you are a bloody genius!
This restored the Clock app to perfection! It also restored all my saved timers from before!!

Curiously, there were two files in that location, one as you spelled it and one without the final 'd' character, which I didn't touch. The one you suggested had a quite suspicious size of 6.8 MB! Upon dragging it out to the Desktop (and with the Clock app still quit), the library recreated it under my eyes without having to reopen the app.
Now the new plist is 1 KB (yes kilo!) in size.


I'm glad it's resolved. This one was harder than most.


Interesting that no official advisor thought about looking for this when I told them "the log says that the Clock app is trying to continuously create a 0ms timer and killing it and recreating it in a loop". They thought better to erase and restore the Mac, which I just won't do at this point! :-)

And guess what: if you'd erased and then migrated back, the problem would have remained the same.


Usually, these problems disappear in Safe Mode, which means there is a third party software involved.

This was NOT the case here.

Also, it did not affect other users, so it had to be something within your account.


I have learned from experience that corrupted preference files can and do make applications crash or behave in strange ways. Final Cut Pro is a prime example, so much that "deleting preferences" has become the usual number one troubleshooting step.


That is why I previously suggested trying to delete com.apple.clock.plist (which in your case apparently did not exist).


Then how did I come to find the real problem?


This has worked with other apps before:


1) Open the ~/Library/Preferences folder, and set it to List View and showing most recently modified files at the top


2) Make changes in the application in question, and keep looking at which files appear near the top of the list.


This is how I came upon com.apple.mobiletimerd.plist

I had no idea this file even existed until I started to test this.


Let me know if you are ever in NW Italy, I will gladly invite you to the best pizza place ever!
PS: is there a way to mark this answer as correct?


Thank you! I am in Portugal, and maybe I will come to Italy sometime. I was there the last time in 2007. Boy, how time passes!

You cannot mark it as correct, but you can upvote it. There used to be such possibility but this was changed a while ago.


PPS: would seeing the corrupted plist be useful to you or anyone? I will not trash it for now.

I don't think so. It is an extremely long xml file, which could be somehow malformed, and parts of it will maybe be loooooong strings of hexadecimal codes. Even if one were to pore over it and find an unbalanced tag, it would be nearly impossible to determine how that came to happen.

One thing that made this hard to figure out is that it was the first time, at least that I know of, that this problem has been reported here. Should this happen again, we'll know what to do :-)

19 replies

Nov 11, 2025 7:01 AM in response to NotationMaster

NotationMaster wrote:

Yes, an official advisor.
We even took logs, sysdiagnose etc. and sent them to the engineers.
The suggestion was always the same. Either create a new user (but they didn't mention the potential issues with ownership) or erase/reinstall. Curiously, they also only mentioned using Recovery to erase, without mentioning the EACAS option from System Settings. I wonder what difference it makes.

This forum is truly great, but the new way the answers are displayed is a nightmare: one cannot see any hierarchy for replies, it's all a continuous list!

Not sure I understand the " one cannot see any hierarchy for replies, it's all a continuous list! "


If and only if your mean your questions and answer are all jumbled, out of a logical order and not in a chronological order by Date ?


Click on your User Name  >>   >> " Edit Profile and Preferences "


Scroll way down and look for >> >> " Other Preferences "


Change the >> >> " Default sort order " to Oldest 

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Clock app showing blank and unresponsive interface in macOS Tahoe (26.0+)

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