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Something autostarts on login but I cannot find what it is

M

Minipudding

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 27, 2019
64
18
Scandinavia
Short 5-second video showing it appearing/disappearing in the dock right as the desktop shows up after logging in:
https://imgur.com/ovzskhI

The icon is the same "anonymous/default" white square with rounded edges that can be seen for some processes in the Activity Monitor. It began a couple of days ago without any apparent reason. I'm on 12.6.3 since a while back. No system updates lately, and I haven't installed anything that requires admin privileges.

There's nothing in my user's "login items", nothing in /Library/StartupItems/, /Library/LaunchAgents/ or /Library/LaunchDaemons/, nor in my local ~/Library/StartupItems/.

Any locations I'm missing? Any way to find some log output or similar showing what's being executed at login?
 
~/Library/LaunchAgents (~ is your users folder)
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/StartupItems
/Library/Extensions
/System/Library/Extensions/

Here is a list of places to look. I believe you missed a couple.
 
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Weaselboy said:
~/Library/LaunchAgents (~ is your users folder)
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/StartupItems
/Library/Extensions
/System/Library/Extensions/

Here is a list of places to look. I believe you missed a couple.
Click to expand...
I don't have any per-user LaunchAgents or LaunchDaemons directories. Nothing out of the ordinary in /Library/Extensions/, and everything inside /System/Library/* is Apple's own stuff and locked down by SIP.

I'm baffled over what/where it is.
 
For a split second, it looks like an app downloading from the App Store. Do you have any apps stuck/paused from downloading?

stuck.jpg
 
bogdanw said:
For a split second, it looks like an app downloading from the App Store. Do you have any apps stuck/paused from downloading?

[image]
Click to expand...
Nope, nothing there. I have only a single application downloaded from the App Store, and it's complete and without updates or anything else waiting.

It's hard to see on the video clip because of the auto-exposure, but the icon is this one (snapped from the activity manager):

Screenshot 2023-02-25 at 23.17.27.png


It's macOS' default icon for app bundles that don't contain an icon of their own. It's present for a bunch of ordinary macOS system stuff that's launched as soon as you log in. Nothing in the activity manager offer any hints - which is to be expected, since whatever it is that's launched also quits immediately.
 
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