Storage amount way off, endless system data calculating

[brinkeguthrie]

2024 M3 MBA, running latest Sequoia. I noticed storage amount dropped from about 97GB to what it shows now? So I wiped the entire thing, reinstalled. Still shows that. And System Data will not stop calculating?

Also, notice Disk Utility- that DOES seem to show the right amount of space taken up.

What’s the story here?

 

[Fishrrman]

I concluded years ago that attempts to use Apple's "storage" window (as shown above) to see how your drive space was being used were... pointless.

Just... didn't work.

I don't even bother with it any more.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

it went from 13 or so to 77 and back to 13 again.

 

[ChadGippidy]

Actually, the same thing just happened to me.
Could it be a Sequoia bug?
I'm using a Mac Mini m4.
Here, check this out. Negative storage with endless System Data stuck on "Calculating"! It's driving me nuts.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

2024 M3 MBA, current Sequoia. Music alone is 27GB. I've done -every- test that Apple has requested of me- they've had other reports as well. System data never concludes calculating. iPad does the same thing- the endless calculating.

 

[ChadGippidy]

2024 M3 MBA, current Sequoia. Music alone is 27GB. I've done -every- test that Apple has requested of me- they've had other reports as well. System data never concludes calculating. iPad does the same thing- the endless calculating.
View attachment 2480695

It seems like this is a super rare bug since I can't find much online.
But in what little I found someone mentioned that Music might be the culript.
It is very curious that this happens both on your iPad and Mac.

I have a few megabytes of music inside a symlink folder. I'll see if deleting it fixes the issue.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

I've reinstalled Sequoia. I've deleted my music library multiple times and reinstalled. Same behavior. My MBA, iPhone and iPad all have 3617 songs synched. It's been a long slog to get those numbers in balance.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

PS please copy/paste where it mentions Music be the culprit. in Music it shows 27.21, just like the graph above- so I doubt it's Music as those match. Apple says:

I have not received any updates from our engineers yet as the issue is still under investigation.

 

[ChadGippidy]

PS please copy/paste where it mentions Music be the culprit. in Music it shows 27.21, just like the graph above- so I doubt it's Music as those match. Apple says:

I have not received any updates from our engineers yet as the issue is still under investigation.

Can't find it anymore but it wasn't any useful.
Tried full maintenance with Onyx but it did not solve the issue.
I'll try to update the software (I hate to do that).

You are reinstalling and restoring right? There's probably a ghost file somewhere causing the calculation to be endless

 

[ChadGippidy]

Yeah not even a system update fixed this. No clue what to do at this point. Reinstalling everything will take days.

 

[ChadGippidy]

This is really funny. I opened Daisy Disk.
I started deleting some random files within "User". The purple ones.
I deleted the .cache files (users/admin/.cache) for a Python package manager called "uv" and the cache files for "huggingface".
After doing that the system data immediately appearead.
I do not know if this will persist or if the bug will reappear.

 

[ChadGippidy]

This is really funny. I opened Daisy Disk.
I started deleting some random files within "User". The purple ones.
I deleted the .cache files (users/admin/.cache) for a Python package manager called "uv" and the cache files for "huggingface".
After doing that the system data immediately appearead.
I do not know if this will persist or if the bug will reappear.

Update: Bug reappeared and deleting the same stuff does not seem to fix it.

 

[MauVia]

2024 M3 MBA, running latest Sequoia. I noticed storage amount dropped from about 97GB to what it shows now? So I wiped the entire thing, reinstalled. Still shows that. And System Data will not stop calculating?

Also, notice Disk Utility- that DOES seem to show the right amount of space taken up.

What’s the story here?

View attachment 2473559

View attachment 2473560

Same issue. MY contribution is that if I log out of my Apple account the problem disappears. When I log in again it comes back. So it seems related with that. Don't know more.

 

[Fishrrman]

As I wrote above, the information revealed in the "storage" pane above... well... sometimes it's just not accurate.

I NEVER use that pane for other than personal entertainment...

 

[ChadGippidy]

One interesting thing to note is that DaisyDisk tells me that I have "94,6gb of purgeable space", which is roughly the capacity I am using.
It says that purgeable space is made of Time Machine temporary backups and system caches.

I never enabled Time Machine so I suppose that this bug might be because of system caches.

 

[ChadGippidy]

As I wrote above, the information revealed in the "storage" pane above... well... sometimes it's just not accurate.

I NEVER use that pane for other than personal entertainment...

the issue with this bug is that it messes up any app that relies on storage infos

 

[brinkeguthrie]

As I wrote above, the information revealed in the "storage" pane above... well... sometimes it's just not accurate.

I NEVER use that pane for other than personal entertainment...

So is it safe to assume 96gb is what I've truly used up, according to this? And not the GENERAL / STORAGE pane?

 

[ChadGippidy]

So is it safe to assume 96gb is what I've truly used up, according to this? And not the GENERAL / STORAGE pane?

View attachment 2481349

Roughly. There's likely a few GBs of cache files there that could be deleted but can't - because of the bug.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

seems to me this started (at least for me) when I deleted a bunch of old Time Machine backups. Why keep old ones- you only need the most recent, right? How long will this take to get fixed you think?

 

[ChadGippidy]

seems to me this started (at least for me) when I deleted a bunch of old Time Machine backups. Why keep old ones- you only need the most recent, right? How long will this take to get fixed you think?

I see people reporting this issue from years ago. It's quite the rare bug so it may never get fixed.
It's not related to Time Machine specifically (sadly).

 

[brinkeguthrie]

you mean this same thing has gone on for years? how does it all of a sudden happen?

 

[ChadGippidy]

you mean this same thing has gone on for years? how does it all of a sudden happen?

How long should System Data Calculating .… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/175kglm/never_ending_calculating_for_photos_and_system

Infinite calculation of Photos and System Data on MBP Air M2(16/256) Ventura

I have inifinite calculation of Photos and System Data in system setting. Dont know what to do with that. I don't have any photos on this laptop, so it looks like bug in the system. Maybe someone ...

apple.stackexchange.com

It has been going on for a while and it can happen for several reasons.
Personally, I will try clearing my system of anything that synchronizes. Sadly I cannot spend my days trying to bugfix MacOS. These things simply shouldn't be happening.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

so this doesn't compromise the computer, right? IE; I can just live with it the way it is and it won't fail on me, right?

 

[Macbookey]

Chiming in to say same here. The system data never fully calculates, and as a result I got quite the scare seeing used storage decline heavily. Obviously this is a bug or actual used storage is now excluding the system cache. I have not experienced anything that makes me think there is file corruption of any kind, and I am not worried about it. All my critical data has numerous backups just in case anyways. This began after updating to 15.3. and is the same in 15.3.1.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

Chiming in to say same here. The system data never fully calculates, and as a result I got quite the scare seeing used storage decline heavily. Obviously this is a bug or actual used storage is now excluding the system cache. I have not experienced anything that makes me think there is file corruption of any kind, and I am not worried about it. All my critical data has numerous backups just in case anyways. This began after updating to 15.3. and is the same in 15.3.1.

So my MBA M3 is OK then? See screenshots- is this your deal as well?