2022 Mac Studio freezes on startup, and Finder can't find key files

[K2000]

Hello, my Mac Studio is acting strangely but it's inconsistent. When booting up for the day, the mouse and keyboard are sometimes frozen so I cannot log in. But not always. This has happened before, it lasted for a few months off and on - it's inconsistent - then it stopped happening. Now it seems to be happening again. I noticed that if I wait 5-7 minutes, I will have mouse control back, and I can log in. Finder also doesn't work correctly: I will search for a file sometimes as a shortcut, instead of manually opening the desktop folder it's in. The file does not show up in Search results. Then I manually find and open the file, and then it will magically show up in the Finder list. So far this has not been a huge problem but I imagine that it could be a big problem at some point, if I need to find files and I don't actually know where they are.

Tech support has been of no use, I've spent a dozen hours on the phone with them. Apparently Apple doesn't have a way to diagnose file conflicts (I suspect there may be a legacy extension or plug-in that is causing a problem, but that's just a layman's wild guess). And they don't have a way to detect bugs or malware? At least that's what the tech support people tell me. I find it very surprising that there are no troubleshooting apps besides Disk Utility. Tech support suggested rebuilding (re-indexing I guess) the folders where this Finder error happens, by removing it and adding it back into the Spotlight search folder. That didn't work. My OS was updated since then (Sequoia) and still having problems. Tech support told me to take it to the Genius Bar, a total waste of time.

Any suggestions? Anybody else had these issues? Search did not bring anything up.

 

[K2000]

Another strange thing that happened: when I booted up at the Genius Bar (where it didn't freeze) the app Font Book launched. I had disabled the "launch at startup" function for FontBook a long time ago, and it doesn't launch at home any more (I haven't used Font Book regularly in years). But at the Apple store, it launched. Back home again, it does not launch. I always thought that computers were binary; Either something works or doesn't work. This inconsistent behavior is disturbing.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I am not an expert on this, but I do have decades of experience using Macs and seeing various issues…. To me, if a computer is acting inconsistent (after doing usual “erase and ire-install OS” troubleshooting) there is some form of hardware failure.

You mentioned that you have brought the Mac to the Apple Store (Genius Bar). Did the issues happen there as well? If not, maybe some faulty peripheral?

 

[K2000]

At the Genius Bar, the Mac Studio did not freeze. I did not realize that Finder wasn't working properly so that wasn't even addressed. I bought a new Apple wireless keyboard and mouse while I was there. The next day, booting up for the first time with new peripherals, it froze.

 

[MacsRgr8]

At the Genius Bar, the Mac Studio did not freeze. I did not realize that Finder wasn't working properly so that wasn't even addressed. I bought a new Apple wireless keyboard and mouse while I was there. The next day, booting up for the first time with new peripherals, it froze.

Nothing else attached to the Mac at home, which isn't the case at the Genius Bar?

• USB / TB disk
• Ethernet
• ...?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Yes…you need to describe in some detail what's connected to you Mac…and probably list all third-party apps and utilities that you have installed.

A troubleshooting step that's very common is to create a new, test User Account and see if the issues persist when logged into that new account. If the new account runs without issue it indicates that there's likely some sort of corruption or conflict in your current account. You should do this testing with unnecessary external devices disconnected.

Reinstalling macOS (the non-destructive way) is another common step. This can potentially fix any macOS corruption that's not in any particular User Account.

Another thing to do these days is, if you have adequate space on your system drive, to create a new volume on the drive, install macOS on it, start it up and create a test user account there. This step is basically doubling up on the other two steps. You can delete the new volume after you're done testing.