Finder crashed and can't force quit without operation restarting after reboot

[FedoraTime]

Hi there.
iMac 2012 doesn't natively supports Ventura, so I'm assuming that you are using a patch.
You describe very slow access times, your iMac has feen fitted with a SSD disk or still have the original one?

I would start by booting from the CCC backup, (plug the disk, turn ON the Mac and immediately press and hold the OPTION/alt key)

If you can boot, then your iMac is probably working correctly.
Once logged, open Disk Utility and run First Aid on the internal disk, also check if there's some empty space available.
If not, you can delete the contents of the Caches folder (and empty the Trash folder) in the user library to quickly free-up some GB's.
If errors were found and corrected and/or the disk was full, you can try to restart and boot from the internal disk.

If the internal disk shows errors and they cannot be fixed by the Disk Utility, then you can have a faulty disk or a corrupted APFS volume.
A faulty disk will need a replacement
A corrupted one will need you to restore from a backup.
Before restoring, you can save your email folder (in User's Library) to have those emails safely stored.

Yes I am using OCLP
No I don't have any slow access times. I have an SSD, it works flawlessly. This thread was borne out of just ONE problem. I tried to move aroudn 37,000 photos from one folder to another. Silly maybe, but it hung (as i half expected). I had to force quit and reboot. But that 'command' seems stuck in memory, hence after every reboot Finder just tries it again, which means it hangs again. I need to clear that 'command' out of the 'queue' somehow.
I believe Safe Mode will do that, i haven't got round to following the advice above yet to hopefully force the machine into Safe Mode. That may solve my problem.
I don't think there's any problem with my hardware at all. I am sure there isn't. It's just that Finder error/hang where it says "The last time you opened Finder, it was force quit while reopening windows. Do you want to reopen its windows again?"

 

[Fishrrman]

If you have a CarbonCopyCloner backup, that's a very useful item, have you tried booting from it...?

Just connect it and hold down the option key continuously after pressing the power on button to invoke the startup manager.

The idea is to bypass the problems on the internal drive and see if you can get booted from the external drive.

If you can get booted to the finder using the backup, that's a big step forward.

Since opening the finder (when booted from the internal drive) is a problem, what I'd try is DELETING all the finder ".plist" files on the internal drive (and then reboot from the internal drive again, creating new files).

Look in
home/preferences
for
com.apple.finder.plist

There are probably more than one.
I'd delete ALL of them.

See if you can empty the trash once they've been moved to the trash.
Otherwise, just reboot.

One final thought:
I don't know anything about OCLP nor how it could be affecting things here.
Never used it.

 

[FedoraTime]

If you have a CarbonCopyCloner backup, that's a very useful item, have you tried booting from it...?

Just connect it and hold down the option key continuously after pressing the power on button to invoke the startup manager.

The idea is to bypass the problems on the internal drive and see if you can get booted from the external drive.

If you can get booted to the finder using the backup, that's a big step forward.

Since opening the finder (when booted from the internal drive) is a problem, what I'd try is DELETING all the finder ".plist" files on the internal drive (and then reboot from the internal drive again, creating new files).

Look in
home/preferences
for
com.apple.finder.plist

There are probably more than one.
I'd delete ALL of them.

See if you can empty the trash once they've been moved to the trash.
Otherwise, just reboot.

One final thought:
I don't know anything about OCLP nor how it could be affecting things here.
Never used it.

I can boot from any external drive just fine, and I am certain I will be able to boot from a CCC drive too. The problem is with Finder on the logged in user (which has not been cloned since this problem started).

I used terminal to delete all the plist files, but it didn't change anything. However I didn't do it from an external booted drive, and I didn't empty trash. Do you think that may make a difference?
thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

"I didn't do it from an external booted drive, and I didn't empty trash. Do you think that may make a difference?"

Why don't you try it and see?

How RECENT is the CCC cloned backup?

Something else that you could try.
In the original post, you said you tried to create a NEW folder, and then copy all the files from photos INTO it?

In that case, what I'd try:
Again, do this while booted from the cloned backup.
Navigate to the location where that "new folder" was created (the desktop?).
Now, DELETE that folder, move it to the trash.

If the trash will empty, empty it.
If the trash WON'T empty, just reboot to the internal drive.
You should be able to empty the trash IF you can get to the finder.

The original photos should remain in the Photos library folder.

 

[FedoraTime]

The clone was taken long before any of this took place, so the folder I created won't be there.

 

[Bigwaff]

I (perhaps stupidly) decided to try to choose all images in Photos and drag and drop to a folder. I selected all in Photos, right click copy (took a while) then right click paste in finder.

Let's circle back for a moment. Your drag and drop of images from Photos app to a folder opened in Finder. Is your Photos app library located on a volume on the boot drive or a volume on a non-boot internal or external drive? Was the target folder in a volume on the boot drive or a volume on a non-boot internal or external drive? What is the file system type of the volume with the target folder?

When you boot w/ OCLP and get to the Boot Menu, press and hold <Shift>+<Enter> when selecting your Ventura drive. This should get you into Safe Mode using OCLP. You'll probably have to reinstall root patches once in Safe Mode.

While in Safe Mode...

If the copy target folder in a volume on a non-boot internal or external drive, disable Spotlight indexing on the volume.

Take a look inside the target folder. Are there greyed out or "ghost" icon files? These are placeholders for the files that did not copied but were queued. You should be able to delete these "ghost" icon files.

When you copy-paste or drag-drop from Photos app to a folder in opened in Finder, you are copying a "preview" version of the image, not the original, to the target folder. In Safe Mode, you should be able to open Photos app. Curious whether your Photos library is now corrupted.

 

[FedoraTime]

It was done very simply, no file type changes, or external drives involved.

I was logged into the Mac, no external drives connected. I created a folder on Desktop to temporarily use (hoping to move to USB stick afterwards to move to another machine). I selected all photos in Photo view in Photos app, then drag and dropped on the desktop folder. It started working, moved a few hundred or so (maybe a thousand), then hung. I had to force quit, but it wouldn't quit, so I forced a shutdown. Now on every boot it seems to be stuck in that hang or trying to resume the command (beachball) giving error:

"The last time you opened Finder, it was force quit while reopening windows. Do you want to reopen its windows again?"

When you boot w/ OCLP and get to the Boot Menu, press and hold <Shift>+<Enter> when selecting your Ventura drive. This should get you into Safe Mode using OCLP. You'll probably have to reinstall root patches once in Safe Mode.

Wow, THAT could be the magic solution! I just assumed OCLP usage meant no more safe mode (although I am pretty sure this machine would refuse to go into safe mode for years before I used OCLP). I am sure the PROBLEM is not OCLP related, hence I didn't mention it, but getting to safe mode could be OCLP related.
I'll give this a whirl and report back. thanks very much

 

[FedoraTime]

When you boot w/ OCLP and get to the Boot Menu, press and hold <Shift>+<Enter> when selecting your Ventura drive. This should get you into Safe Mode using OCLP. You'll probably have to reinstall root patches once in Safe Mode.

Well that didn't help, I really thought Safe Mode would help. Your instructions for accessing safe mode worked perfectly thanks. But once it booted and logged into safe mode, the same happens, beachballing

Only other thing i can think of now, short of reinstalling OS, is to try booting from another volume, using that to delete plist files (not sure which ones to delete exactly), and then boot into safe mode again. If that doesn't work I guess it's likely I'll have to reinstall OS

Will await and ideas from smarter people than me before going ahead!

thanks to everyone above for trying to help

 

[FedoraTime]

what I'd try is DELETING all the finder ".plist" files on the internal drive (and then reboot from the internal drive again, creating new files).

Look in
home/preferences
for
com.apple.finder.plist

There are probably more than one.
I'd delete ALL of them.

Does anyone have a list of all these temp plist files I need to find to fully clear out the Finder cache?
I can boot from external for this purpose and seems last maybe a last hope at this point. (I already tried to do it from internal which didn't help but maybe from external drive will work better)

 

[bogdanw]

Did you run Onyx - maintenance?

 

[FedoraTime]

Did you run Onyx - maintenance?

I haven't yet. I am not with machine but I could try that first. I was intending on re-reading the thread once at at the machine to work through all suggestions. I'll start there as it sounds like that could save me needing to manually find temp files to delete. thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

"Does anyone have a list of all these temp plist files I need to find to fully clear out the Finder cache?
I can boot from external for this purpose and seems last maybe a last hope at this point. (I already tried to do it from internal which didn't help but maybe from external drive will work better)"

Once again:

Boot from an EXTERNAL drive. Either the CCC backup or another bootable drive (this part doesn't matter).

Look in
home/preferences
for
com.apple.finder.plist

There will be more than one file with "finder.plist" in its name.
I would DELETE ALL OF THEM.

See if you can empty the trash (once the deleted plist files are IN the trash).
If the trash won't empty, don't worry -- just shut down.

Now try a "cold reboot" from the INTERNAL drive once again.
Are you able to get to the finder?

(once again, I don't use OCLP and have no idea how it will impact this)

More thoughts:
It's not such a good idea to try to copy 37,000 files using the finder.
That's WAY too big a job.

Possible reason why:
I don't know whether Apple ever fixed it, but...
If you set the finder to copying a large number of files
and
If the finder encounters "a bad file" of some sort (corrupted, etc.)
then
The finder will abort THE ENTIRE JOB. Nothing will get copied.

However...
If you were to use CCC for this job (it's possible set up CCC to copy ONLY the files you wish)
and
if CCC encounters one (or more) "bad files"
then
CCC WILL KEEP RIGHT ON GOING with the job. It will "bypass" the bad files, and at the end of the job will give you a list of the files that WOULDN'T copy.

 

[FedoraTime]

I do hate sarcy arrogant commenters, even when their sarcasm and arrogance is lacing what is often a useful post.
Unfair? You decide...

Once again:

Boot from an EXTERNAL drive

"Once again" - denotes two things:

1. I have already said this
2. You don't listen

So let's address that implication shall we?

After typing "once again" you should have either quoted the 'once again' text, or pasted it verbatim, either way citing it exactly, if you were (as you suggest) repeating 'once again' what you had already said. But that's not what happened. In fact on the contrary, what you said the first time left enough doubt in my mind to actually ask that question (for a list of ALL plist files i might need to delete). Here's why, and here's a direct quote of what you posted earlier:

what I'd try is DELETING all the finder ".plist" files on the internal drive (and then reboot from the internal drive again, creating new files).

Look in
home/preferences
for
com.apple.finder.plist

There are probably more than one.
I'd delete ALL of them.

on the internal drive -- is underlined. You didn't say 'in that folder', you said on the entire internal drive. Which led me to think you suggested just ONE place I can find some to delete, but that there are probably others.

And in case I was in any doubt about that impression, you went on to say "There are probably more than one" - which could mean either more than one plist files (usually there are many more than one), OR more than ONE LOCATION. Adding reinforcement to my feeling that you weren't sure where they all live, how many there are, and that it was up to me to find them.

Perfectly fine, so I did, I asked if anyone knew of a definitive list of which plist files anywhere 'on the internal drive', that could be relevant to this problem.

Interestingly you re-worded your earlier message this time, which conveys a very different message:

Look in
home/preferences
for
com.apple.finder.plist

There will be more than one file with "finder.plist" in its name.
I would DELETE ALL OF THEM.

Going by that, I now see that you're saying to delete ALL of them IN THAT ONE FOLDER (rather than all of them 'on the internal drive').

So, there's no 'once again' crap at all. I didn't ignore it, I read it carefully and rather than me being guilty of ignoring or forgetting it, it was directly due to your words in that message which LED me to ask the question to help me know where all these plist files might be that I should delete. So, maybe you should think about your own wording more carefully before throwing snarky crap (which is unfounded and wrong on the facts) in the direction of other people.

Whilst I am sure you have a good deal of knowledge which could be useful, it repeatedly seems to only be imparted with at least a subtle dose of insulting or otherwise derogatory inuendo attached (aka 'snarkiness'). So, for me at least, please refrain from giving any further excuse for self-aggrandisement' advice.

(I see there is an 'Ignore' button, I'll hit that as my waters are telling me it will probably be necessary. No doubt you can and will still address your true audience nonetheless.)

 

[bogdanw]

Finder related files and folder, to delete them from Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
rm ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.finder.*.plist
rm -r ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState

 

[Fishrrman]

OK, I'm done with trying to help the OP in this thread.
Figure it out for yourself.
You don't seem interested when help is offered.
Adieu...!

 

[FedoraTime]

Finder related files and folder, to delete them from Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
rm ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.finder.*.plist
rm -r ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState

Very kind of you thanks

 

[FedoraTime]

Let's circle back for a moment. Your drag and drop of images from Photos app to a folder opened in Finder. Is your Photos app library located on a volume on the boot drive or a volume on a non-boot internal or external drive? Was the target folder in a volume on the boot drive or a volume on a non-boot internal or external drive? What is the file system type of the volume with the target folder?

When you boot w/ OCLP and get to the Boot Menu, press and hold <Shift>+<Enter> when selecting your Ventura drive. This should get you into Safe Mode using OCLP. You'll probably have to reinstall root patches once in Safe Mode.

While in Safe Mode...

If the copy target folder in a volume on a non-boot internal or external drive, disable Spotlight indexing on the volume.

Take a look inside the target folder. Are there greyed out or "ghost" icon files? These are placeholders for the files that did not copied but were queued. You should be able to delete these "ghost" icon files.

When you copy-paste or drag-drop from Photos app to a folder in opened in Finder, you are copying a "preview" version of the image, not the original, to the target folder. In Safe Mode, you should be able to open Photos app. Curious whether your Photos library is now corrupted.

Thanks again for this. The saga continues, not looking likely I can resolve this without reinstalling OS.
I managed to get into Safe Mode, but can't do anything in there, beach balling as before and can't even open any applications (which I can when not in safe mode). Can't even open Terminal or Onyx.

I have played for hours with Onyx. Deleted the files listed above (plists etc) using it. Ran every utility I can find. nothing is clearing it.. Sometimes after reboot I see a huge stack of file icons on desktop which is the photos (37,000 of em!) I can't select them to delete them, due to beachballing. Just can't get Finder to stop processing after every reboot, even with safe mode. After each boot, i hear the fan spinning up due to heavy use. Activity Monitor shows Finder running at 312% saying 'not responding'. That's the little swine that's ruining my life! (If I force quit it, it just restarts over and over)

Looks like I am running out of options now. If anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear them, otherwise I will probably have to go for an OS install. Thanks to everyone above either way

One last idea, which I doubt will work, is to boot from a clone. I have a Carbon Copy Clone of this machine from a while back, if I could boot from it I may be able to run first aid on the internal. trouble is, thanks to Apple's changes (according to CCC), you can't make bootable clones now (at least I couldn't, not an option), so it's a data only backup I think. if so, it won't be bootable, but nothing to lose so will see if it will boot.

EDIT: Nope, not bootable

 

[FedoraTime]

PS - Just worth a mention...

I managed to get Onyx running. In there I noticed a routine you can run to 'delete folder' or 'delete file'. I used those options to clear the plist files etc mentioned above in this thread. No change.

What's really annoying though, is when I run the 'delete file' routine, I can (for first time in months) actually SEE those thousands of IMG files on the desktop! SOOO frustrating, because it actually works if I ask it to delete one, takes a minute or so but does delete one. BUT... I can't select more than one at a time and not sure I will live long enough to do that on all 37000 files . SO CLOSE, yet so far!

 

[FedoraTime]

PPS - One very very last idea before I load my gun! ...

I have a TimeMachine backup from around 6 months ago. last good one before I used OCLP to put Ventura on. I wonder, if I can access TM utility with that drive connected (which hasn't been connected since was running Mojave), and try to roll back the DESKTOP folder to the last save on TM, maybe that might clear this current crap and the stored command to move all the files. Interested in any opinions on that. thanks again