Harperengineering

Q: Finder window does not refresh

Background:

I run a small engineering office.  It has 21 employees.  All using apple computers.  (7) seven of these work stations are running the Solid State Mac Pros.  The rest are running various other apple computers such as mac mini's or imacs, etc.  Up until 12/28, all work stations have been running on Mavericks.

 

Last year, we upgraded our apple server to a new solidstate imac mini running Yosemite server. It has been running without any hitches for about 1 1/2 months. 

 

Problem:

starting when I added a Yosemite computer (imac5K) on 12/28.   Now we are seeing issues with finder not updating. 

-     first started with the Yosemite work station.  When I was installing software (clean install) I noticed issues with the finder window updating.  The engineer that uses this work station has indicated that this seems to be happening on a daily basis.  The only way to get the finder to update is to relaunch.


Now I have discovered two other (Mavericks) work stations where this is happening.  In both instances, I had to force quite / relaunch the finder before the missing files would appear in the finder window.


Is the apple computer team aware of these issues?


Is there anything I need to do to get this to stop?


Please advise.


Dave H.


Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), Yosemite Server

Posted on Jan 15, 2015 12:23 PM

Close

Q: Finder window does not refresh

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Previous Page 2
  • by dagoot,

    dagoot dagoot Mar 11, 2015 2:38 PM in response to stuarta99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 11, 2015 2:38 PM in response to stuarta99

    Check out "Death to .DS_Store" https://www.aorensoftware.com/blog/2011/12/24/death-to-ds_store/

     

    You can download the App that prevents all .DS_Store files from ever being created.

  • by Youxin,

    Youxin Youxin Mar 20, 2015 8:57 AM in response to Harperengineering
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 20, 2015 8:57 AM in response to Harperengineering

    I have exactly the same problem, and I tried some suggestions I found online but none of them worked for me:

    • Deleting Finder's plist file and restarting Finder;
    • Deleting .DS_Store;
    • Repairing permissions and disk;
    • And holding cmd+option+p+r while booting up.

     

    But I did find out that this problem will not persist in a newly created account in the same machine.

    I verified this by using the `touch` command in terminal: in my original account " $ touch ~/Desktop/test " results in no change on my desktop, while in the new account after the same command a new file named "test" will appear on the desktop.

     

    I think this problem is hardware independent, as I've experienced it both on my MBP (mid-2010) and rMBP (mid-2013), and happens on both Mavericks and Yosemite.

  • by stuarta99,

    stuarta99 stuarta99 Mar 20, 2015 8:58 AM in response to Youxin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 20, 2015 8:58 AM in response to Youxin

    Interesting, although the machine I'm seeing it on is a clean build with a new account.  I could test by creating a new account and see if it has the same effect.

  • by Youxin,

    Youxin Youxin Mar 22, 2015 8:58 AM in response to stuarta99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 22, 2015 8:58 AM in response to stuarta99

    Booting in safe mode into my original account also provides a temporary fix. I then reverts to normal boot, and the problem comes back. Therefore I think it could be due to some software I installed, or we both installed.

     

    And I also checked third party kernel extension ( " $ kextstat | grep -v com.apple " ), the only 4 I have are form Little Snitch, Parallels, nVidia CUDA and DAEMON Tools. Don't think any of them could be responsible for this problem.

     

    And between my original account and the new account, there are differences in the console output relating to Finder every time I restart Finder.

    • In the new account there isn't any messages;
    • In my original there are always following 4 messages every time I restart Finder:

    3/22/15 11:46:59.937 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.Finder[5165]) Service exited due to signal: Terminated: 15

    3/22/15 11:47:00.057 PM Finder[5588]: assertion failed: 14C1514: libxpc.dylib + 97940 [876216DC-D5D3-381E-8AF9-49AE464E5107]: 0x89

    3/22/15 11:47:01.103 PM Finder[5588]: The function ‘CGContextErase’ is obsolete and will be removed in an upcoming update. Unfortunately, this application, or a library it uses, is using this obsolete function, and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system performance.

    3/22/15 11:47:02.048 PM Finder[5588]: Attempt to use XPC with a MachService that has HideUntilCheckIn set. This will result in unpredictable behavior: com.apple.backupd.status.xpc

  • by Youxin,

    Youxin Youxin Mar 31, 2015 1:02 AM in response to stuarta99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 31, 2015 1:02 AM in response to stuarta99

    I fixed my problem by re-indexing all my files in spotlight.

  • by AlexSAlexS,

    AlexSAlexS AlexSAlexS Mar 31, 2015 2:39 AM in response to Youxin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 31, 2015 2:39 AM in response to Youxin

    Thanks a lot Youxin, this fixed it for me as well.

  • by D.R.C.,

    D.R.C. D.R.C. Apr 28, 2015 2:07 PM in response to Harperengineering
    Level 2 (162 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 28, 2015 2:07 PM in response to Harperengineering

    Same here.

     

    I'm seeing it on a Mac mini running 10.8.5 with OSX Server 2.2.5 (so this problem is not limited to Yosemite).

    New files placed into a folder inside /Pictures don't appear in a Finder window.  Just noticed it today.

    The Date Modified field against the folder does indicate the time that the most recent file was added to the folder, but when I view the folder contents, recent files are missing. As of this writing, 40 or so files added within the last 5 hours are AWOL.

    All files are visible if I list the folder contents using Terminal.

    The files are being written into the folder via FTP. They're coming from a security camera that writes to the folder using FTP. 

     

    As suggested by another poster on this thread, I tried disabling Spotlight (put my Home folder into Spotlight's Privacy list, and then removed it).

    Spotlight then reindexed my entire home folder. This brought the view of the problematic folder current, but an hour later, the problem persists.

  • by shaunfromblairstown,

    shaunfromblairstown shaunfromblairstown May 21, 2015 12:06 PM in response to jblythe2870
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 21, 2015 12:06 PM in response to jblythe2870

    I had the same experience as a programmer using Sublime Text Editor. New files were not showing up on the Sublime sidebar. At first I thought it was Sublime having issues, but then later realized that new files (and file deletions, and file size changes) weren't showing up in the finder as well. The problem persisted even after turning off all login programs, all applications, trashing the application support for sublime, and rebooting. I noticed the problem was specific to a certain folder (my work folder, in fact) and its subdirectories. This makes me think it is possibly an OS bug somehow preventing filesystem events from being registered by applications. Deleting the finder plist and .DS_store files did not resolve the situation. Force quits of finder (or respectively, restarting Sublime) did refresh the view (resp., update the sidebar), but this of course does not count as a solution.


    I was able to fix the problem by going to finder and duplicating my entire work folder, trashing the original one, and renaming back. After this, finder refreshes occurred as well as Sublime sidebar updates. For the time being, it appears to work. Perhaps Youxin's spotlight reindexing solution would have also worked. I'll try that if the problem re-occurs.

  • by NSRichard,

    NSRichard NSRichard Jul 3, 2015 1:05 PM in response to Harperengineering
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 1:05 PM in response to Harperengineering

    Why there isn't a Mac equivalent of F5 on Windows I have no idea.

     

    However, for me, the quick fix is to rename a file in the directory (add a dash or space or something). I'm guessing saving a new file would work too, or duplicating an existing file.

     

    This forces finder to refresh the directory and the files all appear.

  • by Antonio Escobar,

    Antonio Escobar Antonio Escobar Oct 11, 2015 12:34 PM in response to NSRichard
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 11, 2015 12:34 PM in response to NSRichard

    This will help you:

     

    > http://soderhavet.com/refresh/refresh-finder/

     

    I have this issue for years, unresolved, across different systems and OS. Apple SHOULD take a look at this.

  • by pbanados,

    pbanados pbanados Jun 21, 2016 7:04 AM in response to Youxin
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 21, 2016 7:04 AM in response to Youxin
    Meaning you must reindex each time a new file appears in a folder to have a working file server? Reindexing at the server or at each client, that somehow magically must know there are new files needing reindexing?  Amazing, this problem has years waiting for a decent solution, given that for all practical terms, it makes OS X Server almost useless as a working file server.  In our case, we finally just "upgraded" to El Capitan, and it seems the problem just got worse. That, to add to the general sluggishness of El Capitan, that's almost like downgrading your mac 3 or 4 generations back in speed.
  • by Pixel.Partizani,

    Pixel.Partizani Pixel.Partizani Aug 18, 2016 8:35 AM in response to Harperengineering
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 18, 2016 8:35 AM in response to Harperengineering

    we had this issue, but not only the newly created files / folder wound not appear, but Finder browsing would stop completely. Could not move left or right in column view.

     

    issuing the "killall Finder" in terminal fixes the problem but only for 20-30sec. After that Finder freezes again.

    In the past we could fix this by deleting the cloudd daemon cache files - in older OS X, but now El Capitan it turns out to be something else: Google Drive.app is what makes Finder unresponsive.

     

    OS X El Capitan 10.10.6 and Google Drive 1.31

     

    fix: quit Google Drive and completely delete from your mac. Don't use it. An additional "killall Finder" via Terminal is required, or logout/login instead.

  • by Jazanna,

    Jazanna Jazanna Aug 23, 2016 10:27 PM in response to Pixel.Partizani
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 23, 2016 10:27 PM in response to Pixel.Partizani

    Thank you! This seems to help more than any of the other suggestions!

  • by lloydme,

    lloydme lloydme Sep 4, 2016 12:41 PM in response to Harperengineering
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 4, 2016 12:41 PM in response to Harperengineering

    I found this sort of thing happening on El Capitan.  My situation is that my Mac connects to a remote Linux server running Samba, and if somebody else changes the directory/folder contents, it's not reflected in the Finder.  My workaround is to unmount the Linux share and then double-click on the share alias to start over.

     

    I really wish there was a refresh button or keyboard shortcut for when it's on a remote non-Apple mount.  Cmd-R would be nice.

  • by Pixel.Partizani,

    Pixel.Partizani Pixel.Partizani Sep 4, 2016 12:50 PM in response to lloydme
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 4, 2016 12:50 PM in response to lloydme

    hi lloydme,

     

    it's two different situations when a folder on a local drive is not refreshing (for some reason) compared to a remote folder - on a server in your case.

     

    If the file server is running an OS X, the folder content will refresh, that's for sure.

    Try this (it's faster than disconnecting and reconnecting the server:

     

    go to the parent folder, then back with the following keys:

     

    Command+Up Arrow followed by Command+Down Arrow

     

    or simply use the left and right arrows in the top left corner of Finder window.

Previous Page 2