Show All button within System Preferences doesn't work

[xli_ne]

Received a 15in 2017 model MacBook Pro for work and loving it. Besides this one little quirk. When attempting to use the "Show All" button within System Preferences it doesn't appear to work at all. Doesn't go back to the main menu when within different settings.

Is there a fix for this? I can't seem to find anything on this.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Not seen that, but could be a corrupt preference.

You might try making a new test user account, log in, and see if it behaves the same. If yes, it is a global/system issue. If no, it is a user account issue.

Not sure off the top of my head which pref you would trash to reset this....but I see this as possible candidate:

For user account: /Users/[account name]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist

I don't see a similar pref in /Library, which would be a global (all users) preference, so assuming this is the right pref, there may be no global equivalent.

 

[xli_ne]

Created a new user and did the same thing. Sigh...

 

[hobowankenobi]

OK, well at least it appears to be a global issue. That should rule out everything user specific, which is a big list.

If the app itself has an issue, it may take either a Combo Update, or perhaps Recovery mode to resolve it. Which OS?

I don't think any recent OS will let you swap out the executable, but I wonder if you could swap contents? If you had another Mac of the same OS without the issue, it might be possible to grab the contents of the Sys Pref app. This assumes that the app is the issue....which we don't know yet.


UPDATE: Yes, you can swap contents with an admin account.

 

[chown33]

Reboot into Safe Mode. Then try System Preferences in the new user account.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

 

[xli_ne]

Sierra 10.12.6 is the OS. Called Apple Support and they recommended a re-install of the OS, so that will be my project tonight.

Don't have another similar Mac to attempt the swap out method.