MacBook Air M5 Location Services not working on Tahoe

gwgibbons wrote:

I'm running Tahoe 26.4.1 on a 2026 MacBook Air M5. Maps and Find My is not finding my precise location. The Me icon in Find My just shows Locating. In Maps, if I click on the location arrow, it just spins. Also, when I go to a website via Safari that will attempt to locate me, it can't and says my locations services are not running. I have tried all the tricks suggested online and more than what's below:

Toggle Wi-Fi (Even if using Ethernet)• : macOS uses nearby Wi-Fi networks to triangulate location. Some users have found that location services only "magically" start working once Wi-Fi is enabled, even if the primary connection is via a cable.

The "Power Cycle" for Locationd• :

Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and turn Location Services1. completely off.

Open Terminal1.  and type: sudo killall locationd.

Return to settings and toggle Location Services1.  back on.

Adjust Network Privacy Settings• :

Navigate to your current network's settings in System Settings > Wi-Fi• .

Try turning off Limit IP Address Tracking and Private Wi-Fi Address•  for your specific network, as these can sometimes interfere with geolocation data.

Check App-Specific Permissions: macOS Tahoe may require you to re-enable permissions for individual apps. Ensure the main toggle is on, then scroll down to verify that apps like Safari or Maps•  have their specific switches toggled to the "On" position.

•

What's odd, is my iPhone, iPad, and my wife's MacBook are working fine. I do have Nord VPN installed but it's not running. My MB Air was NOT restored from a Time Machine backup, as I encountered the same issues with my M4 MB Air that I just traded in for the M5. When I first fired up the M5 MB Air Find My worked. Then I started installing apps, but none that I would think would squash my locations services:

MS Office 365 (Including MS Defender)

• Nord VPN (this is turned off at the moment and location services still do not work)

• 1Blocker extension for Safari

• Daily Wallpaper

• PDF Expert

• Uplock

• pwSafe

• Keka

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated? I'm just thinking this is a bug in Tahoe 26.4.1 as some searching seems to indicate this with other users also.

—Try uninstalling the VPN, and compare your results....

followed by a SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

—MS Defender <Microsoft Defender is a comprehensive, cross-platform security suite providing antivirus, anti-malware>

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

Third party AntiVirus is not recommended— it typically does nothing but add issues to the macOS and competes directly with Apple’s own built in security.

gwgibbons wrote:

Hey Leroy - I finally figured it out!! I was starting to follow your instructions and unhooked my MB Air from my Apple Studio Display. I had the MB in clamshell mode connected to the Studio Display. When I removed the Thunderbolt cable from the MB and opened the MB, all of a sudden Fid My and Maps started working!! I Googled it and it appears that there could be a bug with location services when a Mac in is clamshell mode and possibly connected to a Studio Display. Check this out: https://share.google/aimode/FcV0S6Rk2feoM18BM

I will say if this is the case, then it sucks as I do prefer to keep my MB Air in clamshell and attached to my Studio Display. Hopefully they will come out with a fix for this soon. I feel like this is something that got broken in the last few IOS updates as I've had my Studio Display for a while and have always used my MB in clamshell mode and don't recall having this issue until recently. Any other thoughts on what could be causing this?

BTW, TY for your assistance, as I would not have figured this out if you hadn't replied!

Good computing gwgibbons ! Appreciate your feedback here.

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your feedback here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos