Mavericks files / directories in finder slow showing up

Kenneth Collins1 wrote:

I have found a partial solution.

The following two folders were in the list, but were not on the other Mac.

com.apple.finder.legacy.mdlables

com~apple~finder

I deleted both files, and that has solved the immediate problem.

It seems likely your machine has other issues and possibily NOT the issue being discussed in this thread. The files mentioned are NOT on my machines and yet the issue being discussed in this thread persists ( without SnaggleTooth_DE's fix ).

You were right. That fixed the problem only until I restarted.

I figured that the problem was in my Library file, since other accounts didn't have the problem. I didn't want to create a new account, delete the old one, and move all the files, because then all my software would think it was being used for the first time. I figured I would just restore the Library folder from the Time Machine. That didn't work because of permissions issues.

I double-clicked on the Time Machine disk and found a backup that predated the weird behavior. I copied the contents of the Library folder from that backup on top of the one in my account. That required me to enter my administrator password. I logged off and then back on, and everything is fine.

One problem still remains. Finder doesn't automatically start up after killall or force quit, but it's more a curiosity than a problem—I just click on the Finder icon on the dock.

Finder appears to need bug fixes, but there are little annoying bugs in OS X, some dating back almost a decade, that have never been fixed. I theorize that Apple doesn't use Macs in their corporate office, which is the only way I could explain why these things persist and why they are dumbing everything down to the fourth-grade level.

Hi, I've also experienced the problem with slow finder windows in particular when trying to attach a file to an email - after clicking the attach paperclip I can wait up to 30 secs before the file list is rendered. I've spent ages searching for a solution and trying everything suggested, PRAM reset, SMC reset, spotlight re-index, clearing caches, killall finder, etc etc. Eventuallly the Apple help desk suggested erasing the disk and restoring from backup which was a disaster (Mavericks doesn't recognise any restore points from after the upgrade from ML, 4 months ago!!). Anyway, two days later and I've managed to rebuild my iMac back to the original state. Then I stumbled across a fix for the slow finder issue which has actually worked for me. It is at http://drbobtechblog.com/easy-fix-slow-file-open-dialogue-box-mavericks/ and basically involces a risky edit of the auto_master file in the /etc folder. In short, the issue would appear to be Mavericks searching for network attached file servers so if you comment out the /net line of the file and then 'sudo automount -vc' it stops the search for file servers. Clearly if you have NAS or similar then probably shouldn't do this and as always the caveat is 'at users risk'. I made a copy of the original file on my desktop in the event there was any problems but my system is now flying!

Maddog64: The website you referenced likely got the fix from this thread. It was first identified by SnaggleTooth_DE and reported here. It works perfectly for those that were being driven crazy by the waiting.

I've thanked SnaggleTooth_DE previously in some of my prior additions to this thread, but MANY THANKS AGAIN.

Hi Scott, thanks. new to the forum and will make sure I read back further next time!

Same issue on not only my iMac 27, running 10.9.1, but on my MacBook Pro, and all 21 of our MacBooks and iMac's in the office. The toggle scrollbar "always" on / off did not change a thing. One any application has finished the search and cached it, it works on a "reopen", but each application has to go through the process, and when turned off and rebooted it starts all over again.

Looking forward to the fix Apple.

Thx

how many files does your computer have?

Hi all,

By the way, raised this with the second level support at Apple who have had my case open for this issue. I mentioned what I'd done to resolve the issue (Snaggletooth_DE's solution) and got the support agent to confirm that the change would not have any unintended consequences on my build (noting I have no NFS attached). So reassuring that (a) the fix works and (b) wont do any harm. Second level support confirmed they would raise to the engineers as I pointedly mentioned I hoped the issue would be fixed in the next Mavericks release!

91,070 on mine

Maddog64 wrote:

Second level support confirmed they would raise to the engineers as I pointedly mentioned I hoped the issue would be fixed in the next Mavericks release!

I hope it helps. Thanks Maddog. (At least )Two open Apple rdars ( bug reports 15437435 and 15241878) have been open for months ( prior to 10.9.1 ), so I'm not particularly sanguine about Apple fixing this. Were any of the open rdars mentioned in the level 2 discussion?

I just submitted this to Apple:

Since the upgrade to Mavericks I have noticed that Finder is VERY slow when I try to save a document through the app I am using (Mail or other programs). The spinner in the bottom spins for up to 20 seconds before it shows the files in a folder. I am stuck many times a day for something simple as saving, placing or attaching a file.

This thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5492808 had many possible solutions of which none worked until this one:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5492808?start=60&tstart=0#24075456

Where it says: Open Finder, Preferences->Sidebar, uncheck TAGS

This helped.

But I am very surprised that Apple would keep a bug like that in it's system?

Hmm, this "fix" did not change anything for me . . . with scroll bars on, off or auto. I even unchecked every color and possible tag under the "tags" tab as well as the sidebar tab. Still no change.

Would the newbies who have just arrived at this thread please read the thread before posting "fixes" to this issue? There is only one fix that works. It was posted by Snaggletooth_De. The other "fixes" that people think work do not work after one or two reboots. And, those other "fixes" have already been discussed in this thread.

Scott Newman wrote:

Would the newbies who have just arrived at this thread please read the thread before posting "fixes" to this issue? There is only one fix that works. It was posted by Snaggletooth_De.

Amen brother. The approximate location of Snaggletooh_DE's post is here

Tried that... didn't work.