High Sierra 10.13.6 - Finder Problems Everywhere

Question

High Sierra 10.13.6 - Finder Problems Everywhere

Accidently upgraded to High Sierra yesterday, worked on computer for 4 hours no problem, left computer unattended for 2 hours, when I got back all **** has broken loose.

Finder is not working. My Sidebar favorites' icons all changed to little box with ear turned down. Wheel of death repeatedly when Finder is open. Click on sidebar favorite, get "XXXXX can't be opened because original item can't be found." error (appears to be broken shortcut, because the fles & data is all there - I can navigate to it the long way). Can't remove Sidebar favorites from Sidebar, they just automatically reappear a few seconds later. Can't add new folders/files to Sidebar. When tried, Finder wheel of death, then new items disappear, deleted items reappear. More wheel of death.

Spent 5-6 hours troubleshooting last night. Removed com.apple.finder.plist (multiple times, with restarts, including boot to safe mode and CMD-R to disk utility) = Did not fix.

Reinstalled High Sierra = Did not fix.

Created new Admin User = Did not fix.

Safe Mode = Problem persists in Safe Mode. Repeated steps above (removing plist, etc.) in safe mode. Restart = Did not fix.

Other Symptoms: Clicking on Apple Icon = wheel of death delays to get even to settings. Finder preferences: No changes to Sidebar options. Clicking and unclicking options there results in temporary loss of all Sidebar items, wheel of death, then they all reappear again in corrupted form.

Called Apple Support: They acknowledged it was a known issue, asked me to send a screen-cap video. Only thing they did suggested which "kind of" fixed "some" of the problems was the deletion of all files in com.apple.sharedfilelist (Library > Application Support > com.apple.sharedfilelist)

All this did was delete all of my favorites from the Sidebar (40 or 50 items, all organized and mission critical to my daily work-flow -- all gone, can't add anything back to Sidebar). Still can't add or delete files to Sidebar. Still can't use Finder Preferences to make any changes to view of Sidebar. Still have wheel of death repeatedly whenever Finder window is activated. Still have wheel of death clicking on Apple Icon. Still have wheel of death doubleclicking on desktop to do basic things like "Sort by" views.

Apple support, while nice, wasn't able to help me further. They said they would call back in next few days, that engineers are working on the issue. No timeline for fix. Only option they gave me was to delete my hard drives, reinstall High Sierra, then reinstall all applications (can't even migrate). Unacceptable. I use this computer all day to work, and I'm not sure I can reinstall some mission critical 3rd party applications I use all day at work on this computer (i.e., like Word version 2011, no longer available for download from Microsoft. (can't use newer versions because of lack of macro & customized toolbar functionality). Needless to say, this is very frustrating. This Mac is 6-months old and it's unusable. Sharing problem, what I've tried and what Apple has told me.

Posted on Sep 11, 2018 11:48 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

JPSAppleOwner Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 11, 2018 5:45 PM in response to JPSAppleOwner

I ran EtreCheck and the following resulted in the Diagnostic report:

===========

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-09-11 17:38:27 sharedfilelistd Crash (20 times)

/System/Library/CoreServices/sharedfilelistd

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[NSTaggedPointerString unsignedIntegerValue]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x3015'

terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

abort() called

2018-09-11 16:07:03 SIMBL Agent.app Crash (20 times)

/Library/ScriptingAdditions/SIMBL.osax/Contents/Resources/SIMBL Agent.app

dyld: launch, running initializers

/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

============

Any advice here?

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

136,121 points

Sep 11, 2018 5:58 PM in response to JPSAppleOwner

JPSAppleOwner wrote:
Any advice here?

Yes, uninstall SIMBL and next time post the entire EtreCheck report.

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Answer 3

Sep 12, 2018 9:01 AM in response to JPSAppleOwner

Since you have already confirmed the issue persists in both a test user, and safe mode, and even reinstalled macOS the only thing left to do is backup your Mac, and erase your Mac and reinstall macOS (as per HT204904).

Do NOT restore your system from your backup using migration assistant as this will likely bring the issue back.

It is faster and safer to set up the Mac as new and manually reinstall your apps, and restore your data (things like your Music, documents, photos...).

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Answer 4

Sep 12, 2018 10:10 AM in response to JPSAppleOwner

Since you have already confirmed this happens in a test user, safe mode, and even after reinstalling macOS its time to backup, erase the hard drive and reinstall macOS ( as per HT204904 How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support)

Make sure you do not restore you data via migration assistant as this may bring the issue back.

You will want to set up the Mac as new and the manually reinstall your apps, and data via Finder. (Things like Music, Movies, Photos, Documents...)

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Answer 5

dialabrain

Level 10

136,121 points

Sep 11, 2018 6:37 PM in response to JPSAppleOwner

SIMBL's location is listed in the report…

/Library/ScriptingAdditions/SIMBL.osax/Contents/Resources/SIMBL Agent.app

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Answer 6

KiltedTim

Level 10

225,774 points

Sep 11, 2018 12:22 PM in response to JPSAppleOwner

How does one "accidentally" upgrade to High Sierra? That makes no sense at all.

Of course, since this is a critical system, I'm sure you have a Time Machine backup from before you upgraded, right? You can always revert to Sierra and recover your apps and data from your backup.

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Answer 7

Sep 11, 2018 12:56 PM in response to macjack

Doubt it is failing hard drive. Everything worked fine before High Sierra upgrade. Googling High Sierra Finder Problems shows months of posts with people having similar Finder issues with items disappearing, inability to add/delete favorites, unresponsiveness and other glitches. Apple Care said on phone that I wasn't the only one with this issue and that they are "working on it." Just bummed because I had decided not to upgrade but my daughter got on computer and clicked the update now button on the Update pop-up window that I've been dismissing for months. GRRRRRR.

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Answer 8

dialabrain

Level 10

136,121 points

Sep 12, 2018 9:02 AM in response to JPSAppleOwner

You're welcome. SIMBL is deprecated so it should be removed anyway.

I have to wonder what Apple support was thinking when they said it's a known problem. I have six different Macs and I don't have any of your issues.

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Answer 9

tygb

Level 9

65,010 points

Sep 12, 2018 9:06 AM in response to JPSAppleOwner

Avoid using third party apps / softwares on the Mac take views about them with apple support see this link Contact - Official Apple Support

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

In case if you again install these apps same problem might come ( its your decision ) once all data is transferred delete the old user account Delete a user or group on Mac - Apple Support

Remove the user’s home folder from the computer: Select “Delete the home folder.” The user information is deleted and the storage space is freed.

Click Delete User.

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Answer 10

Sep 12, 2018 9:27 AM in response to JPSAppleOwner

For the record, there is also a com.apple.finder.plist instance in ~/Library/SyncedPreferences. I deleted that one too (together with (1) the instance in ~/Library/Preferences, and (2) the folder and all content in com.apple.sharedfilelist in ~/Library/Application Support), shut down, restarted. = Did not fix.

Tried the same technique in Safe Mode. = Did not fix.

Also want to note that numerous posts here and elsewhere on the web about this issue since at least 2016 also state that one should try to delete /Users/usernamehere/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist. I couldn't find ANY instances of com.apple.sidebarlists.plist on my computer. Does anyone know if the name of this plist has changed? Or did it's location move? I don't see it in ~/Library/* or /Library/* (EasyFind locates nothing).

I did, however, find yet another instance of com.apple.finder.plist in [HardDrive]/System/Library/Preferences/Logging/Subsystems, and interestingly, THIS instance was not found by EasyFind. I found it by digging through folders. System won't let me delete this instance.

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Answer 11

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Sep 11, 2018 1:08 PM in response to JPSAppleOwner

Yes, there are many folks with issues in Finder, but that's because of a problem in their user account. As I said I haven't heard of both problems in a user and systemwide problems with Finder. I'd be interested in hearing what the engineers come up with.

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Answer 12

Sep 11, 2018 6:27 PM in response to dialabrain

SIMBL isn't showing up in my applications folder. Also not showing up in Spotlight. Where is it located?

EntreCheck Report:

* The large number of iCloud transfer results from me trying to turn off iCloud Drive so I can turn it back on. It's now creating an archive and that was going on while this report was generated.

=========START

EtreCheck version: 4.3.6 (4D041)

Report generated: 2018-09-11 17:40:14

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 1:54

Performance: Excellent

Problem: Computer is too slow

Description:

FInder 2

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.

Stuck iCloud - This machine has a large number of pending iCloud transfers.

Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.

Kernel extensions blocked - There are blocked kernel extensions awaiting user approval.

Apps crashing - There have been numerous app crashes.

Unsigned files - There are unsigned software file installed. They appear to be legitimate but should be reviewed.

32-bit Apps - This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.

Abnormal shutdown - Your machine shut down abnormally.

Hardware Information:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)

iMac Model: iMac18,3

1 4.2 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-7700K) CPU: 4-core

32 RAM - Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR4 2400 ok

BANK 0/DIMM1 - 8 GB DDR4 2400 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR4 2400 ok

BANK 1/DIMM1 - 8 GB DDR4 2400 ok

Video Information:

Radeon Pro 580 - VRAM: 8192 MB

iMac

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE SSD SM0128L 121.33 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

Internal PCI-Express 8.0 GT/s x4 NVM Express

disk0s1 - EFI [EFI] 315 MB

disk0s2 [Core Storage Container] 120.88 GB

disk2 - Macintosh HD (Journaled HFS+) [Fusion Drive] 3.11 TB

disk0s3 - B*******X [Recovery] 134 MB

disk1 - APPLE HDD ST3000DM001 3.00 TB (Mechanical)

Internal SATA 6 Gigabit Serial ATA

disk1s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk1s2 [Core Storage Container] 3.00 TB

disk2 - Macintosh HD (Journaled HFS+) [Fusion Drive] 3.11 TB

disk1s3 - Recovery HD (Journaled HFS+) [Recovery] 650 MB

Mounted Volumes:

disk2 - Macintosh HD [Fusion Drive] 3.11 TB (2.74 TB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /

Network:

Interface en1: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

One IPv4 address

Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

iCloud Quota: 113.95 GB available

iCloud Status: 36 pending files

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G65)

Time since boot: About an hour

System Load: 1.20 (1 min ago) 1.60 (5 min ago) 1.67 (15 min ago)

Configuration Files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 65

Security:

System Status

Gatekeeper Mac App Store and identified developers

System Integrity Protection Enabled

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Java Updater.app/Contents/MacOS/Java Updater -bgcheck