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Empty Finder folders don't display correctly in Mountain Lion

Anyone else experienced this or have a solution?



I upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion last night (on a late 2010 MacBook Air). Everything went smoothly. But I have an irritating problem with Finder.



When opening folders (from sidebar icons or from main window icons), if the folder contains documents or subfolders Finder displays the contents of the folder correctly.



However if the folder is empty, Finder displays either the contents of the last folder that I looked at that did contain documents, or a strange jumbled mix of icons. These can be selected, but cannot be deleted, opened, viewed, etc.



So, for example, if I open my Documents folder (which has a lot of things in it), Finder displays the contents correctly.



If I then open my Downloads folder (which is empty), Finder either displays the contents of the Documents folder, or a strange mix of icons.



Any suggestions? The only workaround I've found is to set the empty folders to a different type of view (e.g. the detailed list).

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 4:55 AM

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32 replies

Jul 29, 2012 3:37 AM in response to Crisiomiro

I ran into the same issue too and it's happening on two computers. 2011 MacBook Pro, clean install, and 2009 unibody MacBook, upgrade. I even made a YouTube video about the bug.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5cyvL6Fs20&list=UUaK2ovq5pv1x96-xN17_Ihg&index=1 &feature=plcp


I hope this thread picks up steam and is promptly fixed in the 10.8.1 update.

Jul 30, 2012 9:06 AM in response to Corey Arakaki

Same here, including a NAS device mounted as server using samba and an external firewire drive so it isn't restricted to a specific interface.


Have you tried changing view mode? I normally have Finder's icon view set by default but once I hit this problem changing to List View (⌘ 2) seems to get round it. Moving back up a level and changing back to Icon View sticks!


I've reported this to Apple and hope lots of others do likewise. Agree with scottcocoabeach: it's amazing this made it to the final release version of ML.

Aug 23, 2012 11:14 AM in response to Jouster

I'm aware that this is far from ideal, but there's a temporary working "solution" for this problem (which I also have). When you try to open an empty folder (perhaps one you've just created), simple press Command-2 and then Command-1 and you'll get into the folder in icon view.


By the way, I'd like to test a hunch of mine as to why this might be happening in some machines. My is a Mac Pro 1,1, hacked into a Mac Pro 2,1 and presently running Chameleon (a Hackintosh!) to boot the 64-bit kernel of Mountain Lion. Everything works great, except for this Empty-Folder Finder nonsense. In addition to the above hacks, I caused my Mac Pro, back in Lion days, to be compatible with AirDrop (via the Terminal) in spite of the fact that it lacks Wi-Fi, supported or otherwise. Can sufferers of the Empty-Folder Finder bug verify if they, too, got the AirDrop capability through a hack?

Aug 23, 2012 11:26 AM in response to Edumara

I have a 2008 iMac and a 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. Neither machine has been hacked and neither machine has been modified from the way it came from the factor. The only thing my vanilla-flavored Macs have in common is Mountain Lion, which runs fine otherwise.


If I create an empty folder and attempt to open it, the Finder window has the same contents but the title of the empty folder. At some point there is no way to get out of the empty folder (except by opening a new Finder window). If you are outside the empty folder, at some point it cannot be deselected or deleted. (It can be deleted in the Terminal with the rmdir command.) Restarting FInder doesn't seem to help. You can only remove the folder in the Terminal.


If you create a new folder and immediately put something into it, it behaves normally, but if you remove that item from the folder, the weird behavior returns. If an empty folder has ever contained anything, you can't delete it in Terminal because it now contains a .DS_Store file. You can delete that file and then remove the foldler.


If you create an empty folder on the desktop, it will behave as expected. If you move that empty folder to some other place without putting anything into it, it has the weird behavior in the new location.


Some developer at Apple is really sweating bullets right now.

Aug 23, 2012 11:47 AM in response to Edumara

I migrated a Snow Leopard installation to a new MBP with Lion, then upgraded to Mountain Lion when it came out. I never had any hack in place for AirDrop. So it can't be that alone.


I haven't installed the 10.8.1 release yet, but I'm surprised to read that this hasn't been addressed. Apple must be having a hard time reproducing the issue.

Aug 23, 2012 11:51 AM in response to Kenneth Collins1

Thank you for sharing your experience, which clearly disproves my hunch that the odd behaviour was related to hacks we users have applied. What I still can't figure out is why on earth this happens to me on a "Chameleoned" Mac Pro 1,1 on my main user and to you on a 2008 iMac and a 2012 Retina MacBook Pro, but it doesn't happen in my sons iMacs and, presumably, wouldn't happen to me if I were to log in using a different user account.


There must be something that went wrong when we upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion. Some odd conversion of the user accounts or something like that. Well, we'lll have to wait until 10.8.2 is released or someone comes out with something betters than pressing Command-2 Command-1 on an empty folder Finder window.

Empty Finder folders don't display correctly in Mountain Lion

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