com.apple.preferences.sharing.plist Zero bytes and sharing preferences do not save after restart.

Hello Y,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!

I understand that your sharing preferences are not being saved after a restart. To continue troubleshooting and isolation, there are a couple of different steps I suggest working through.

First, restart your Mac using safe mode and try to save the preferences.

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support

If the issue continues, lets isolate a little further and test in a new user.

How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support

Cheers!

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit the application.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.