open-with no longer works with applications on external volumes

[jtkboston]

Having just updated to macOS Sonoma 14.5 (intel mac Mini 2018), I find that my file associations are lost. Due to size of my internal boot drive (128GB), I have many applications stored on an external drive volume. I had set these applications as the default applications to open certain file types. For example, I set LibreOffice to open .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx files, etc.

Now these file types open in Pages or Numbers. When I do a 'get info' on one such file, and attempt to set it to use LibreOffice (/Volumes/<external-drive>/Applications/LibreOffice.app), and click "continue" to proceed, the setting in the "get info" window reverts to the first application in the list of eligible applications, rather than sticking with my specified application. And even then, if that app is also on an external volume, what really gets used when opening such a file is the standard macOS application.



Anybody else able to get their applications on an external drive to work to open up designated file types in 14.5?

 

[jtkboston]

This seems to be related to the volume I'm using for my external drive. It was previously a boot drive on a previous machine, and I used it as the source for Migration Assistant move to the current machine.

When I make a new volume on the drive, and put applications there, then the open-with settings seem to work normally to select such applications.

It doesn't work to just rename the folder containing the applications, nor to make a new folder on the existing volume and use that.