So, ever since the 26.2 update, whether the timing is coincidental or not, my Macs have been having these odd and intermittent behaviors and I can’t pin down why or which app (if not macOS) is causing this to happen. While Tahoe is buggy, this just feels like something else is going on here.
Basically, it starts with what looks like a quick flash of white light across the desktop as if a screenshot of the entire desktop is being taken on its own as it’s the same exact kind of light flash (with no screenshot sound). That’s usually the first sign (and I do not have any Accessibility features turned on that uses the screen-shot light flash).
From there, the audio stops working, the volume and brightness keys do nothing when pressed, and some apps, when clicked, in both the dock and menubar are either slow to respond or don’t respond at all, and show up as ‘force-quit-able’ highlighted in red in Activity Monitor or the Force Quit window.
A few moments later, the entire keyboard is unresponsive (this doesn’t always happen), and there is no choice but to restart the Mac. Sometimes trying to restart from the Apple Menu is also unresponsive, as if I didn’t even click restart even though I can select both the Apple Menu and Restart, so I have to press and hold the power button to force a shutdown. I genuinely can't remember the last time I've had to force shutdown one of my Macs.
I’ve never had anything like this happen in all my years (decades) of using Macs and macOS. Is anyone else having this issue? It seems to happen every few days or couple of weeks, no real pattern, and it’s happening on both my MacBooks running Tahoe 26.2. It kind of feels like malware, but I have no experience with it as I never had any malware or viruses on any of my Macs before, and I am running Malwarebytes on all my Macs, and it is not detecting anything (I know, many find that app useless).
I also have Little Snitch running and while I am not an expert in deciphering what is a legit or questionable connection, I do not see anything odd. Both M4 MacBooks have 32GB of ram so there is minimal swapping and good memory pressure (when this happens).
I am at a loss!
Basically, it starts with what looks like a quick flash of white light across the desktop as if a screenshot of the entire desktop is being taken on its own as it’s the same exact kind of light flash (with no screenshot sound). That’s usually the first sign (and I do not have any Accessibility features turned on that uses the screen-shot light flash).
From there, the audio stops working, the volume and brightness keys do nothing when pressed, and some apps, when clicked, in both the dock and menubar are either slow to respond or don’t respond at all, and show up as ‘force-quit-able’ highlighted in red in Activity Monitor or the Force Quit window.
A few moments later, the entire keyboard is unresponsive (this doesn’t always happen), and there is no choice but to restart the Mac. Sometimes trying to restart from the Apple Menu is also unresponsive, as if I didn’t even click restart even though I can select both the Apple Menu and Restart, so I have to press and hold the power button to force a shutdown. I genuinely can't remember the last time I've had to force shutdown one of my Macs.
I’ve never had anything like this happen in all my years (decades) of using Macs and macOS. Is anyone else having this issue? It seems to happen every few days or couple of weeks, no real pattern, and it’s happening on both my MacBooks running Tahoe 26.2. It kind of feels like malware, but I have no experience with it as I never had any malware or viruses on any of my Macs before, and I am running Malwarebytes on all my Macs, and it is not detecting anything (I know, many find that app useless).
I also have Little Snitch running and while I am not an expert in deciphering what is a legit or questionable connection, I do not see anything odd. Both M4 MacBooks have 32GB of ram so there is minimal swapping and good memory pressure (when this happens).
I am at a loss!
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