Ventura Issues
General
- If a Save panel opens showing the most recently used folder, clicking Save will instead save to the Documents folder unless I specifically navigate to the already displayed folder manually.
- Throughout Finder, apps, and the Dock, documents are shown with generic icons.
- Apple Watch login now fails most of the time for me. [Even after resetting it.]
- Various operations, such as
rsyncover SSH, sometimes get really slow, perhaps related to high CPU use insecd.
Finder
- Revealing files in Finder (either from the title bar menu or a command in another app) sometimes doesn’t work, revealing an ancestor folder instead of the actual file, or sometimes doing nothing at all.
- Finder sometimes loses all of its sidebar items.
- Finder sometimes forgets which sidebar sections are expanded.
- Sometimes mounted drives disappear from the Computer view, even though they are still mounted and in use.
- Finder windows sometimes don’t get focus when I click on them, even though Finder does become the frontmost app.
- Finder sometimes shows very stale folder contents, e.g. showing files in their previous folder long after they’ve been moved. Or not showing new files long after they’ve finished being saved. Or showing Safari download progress files long after the download has completed.
- Other times the entire contents of a folder disappear for 30 seconds or so, making it look like my files have been deleted even though they were not actually touched.
- Renaming the boot volume does not change it throughout the system (startup manager, etc.).
- Files that I add to iCloud Drive on my phone sometimes take many hours to show up on my Mac, even though both devices are on Wi-Fi and the files show up on my iPad right away.
- Mail now loses the mailbox selection when you start a search, instead changing the selection to All Mailboxes, which is rarely the scope that I want.
- Mail sometimes continues to show the × button in the search field when no search is in effect.
- Arrow-keying through messages in Mail is slower, seemingly because secondary metadata is now lazily fetched from the database
- Initially loading a mailbox when clicking on it is slower, seemingly because the sorting is now done in-memory rather than using a database index.
- When composing a message, Mail sometimes mixes in rich text (e.g. different pasted fonts) when it’s in plain text mode.
- Indentation is stripped from text when pasting.
- Replying to a message in plain text mode sometimes inserts raw CSS code at the top of the quoted text.
- Mail sort indicators still don’t match the direction (or sometimes even the column) that it’s actually sorting by.
- The Mail rule editor sheet still has layout glitches when you add lots of criteria and can take over a minute to open.
- Mail still sometimes freezes for several seconds when switching to it or doesn’t display the selected message (showing No Message Selected) until I click on another one and then back, or sometimes until I wait a minute or so.
- Mail sometimes hangs when trying to access the content of a message via AppleScript.
Storage
- External drives still take minutes to mount or sometimes never mount automatically. Sometimes I can manually mount them from Disk Utility. Other times I need to reboot or disconnect other drives first.
- While a drive is in the process of mounting, various other apps beachball when trying to open or save a file (even if on the internal SSD that’s already mounted).
- After mounting, a drive may show up in Finder twice.
- Finder often shows a drive as ejected before it is actually unmounted, so that if I turn it off or disconnect it when the icon disappears I get a Disk Not Ejected Properly notification about unexpectedly disconnecting the drive.
- Finder often shows a drive as still mounted even after I’ve ejected it and it’s spun down and gone from /Volumes.
- Sometimes encrypted drives prompt for the passphrase even though it’s in the keychain (a longstanding issue across several macOS releases).
- Regularly connected drives don’t always mount at login before restoring apps, so apps can’t restore state that depends on those drives.
- Apps hang for long periods of time when saving a file while it waits on Spotlight.
- My spinning Time Machine drives are active all day compacting the Spotlight index, even after resetting it to make sure it wasn’t damaged. There remains no way to turn off indexing of APFS Time Machine drives.
System Settings
- System Settings doesn’t show available software updates, even though they show up with
softwareupdate --list. [Update (2023-02-20): This happened again updating to macOS 13.2.1. I had to install usingsoftwareupdate -i -r -Rbecause without the-Reven the command-line tool would get stuck and not proceed with the installation.] - System Settings shows Software Update Available in the sidebar when there’s no update if there’s an error contacting the update server.
- Sometimes all the System Settings panes are blank.
- Sometimes searching in System Settings doesn’t show any search results; it just continues showing the full list of panes.
- I get notifications for new login items that haven’t actually changed. For example, checking a box in app A that adds a login item sometimes triggers a notification for app B (which hasn’t changed) and no notification for app A. I also get notifications for app B when deleting the plist file for app A. Sometimes I even get multiple notifications for app B (the wrong app) all at once.
- The information in Login Items ‣ Allow in Background is inconsistent and unreliable. Sometimes, using AssociatedBundleIdentifiers works to display the name of the app instead of the name on the signing certificate; sometimes it doesn’t; and sometimes it reverts to (part of) the name of the plist file even though nothing has changed. Some items change back and forth from verified to from an unidentified developer seemingly for no reason.
Other
- Safari sometimes gets really slow or stops responding entirely, so that some pages are only fully scrollable if I disable JavaScript.
- QuickTime Player videos that I pause sometimes can’t be resumed until I quit and relaunch the app.
- Git Tower no longer remembers the width of the file list pane in the Working Copy view.
See also: Fixes and flaws in Ventura 13.0.
Previously:
- Disabling AWDL to Work Around Ventura Wi-Fi Issues
- macOS 13.1
- Long App Hangs Due to Spotlight
- Blank File Icons in Ventura
- Little Annoyances in macOS 12.0.1
- Ventura Notifies User of New Login Items
- System Settings
- WWDC 2022 Wish Lists
- Remaining Issues in Big Sur
- Remaining Issues New in Catalina
- You Can’t Turn Off Spotlight on Your Time Machine Backup
Update (2022-12-28): See also: Hacker News.
Update (2022-12-29): Two other Mail issues I’m seeing:
- The View ‣ Highlight Conversations command doesn’t work.
- Messages sometimes lose their colors when moved between IMAP mailboxes.
See also: Rui Carmo.
Update (2022-12-30): Adam Overholtzer:
Third-party widgets don’t load (
killall NotificationCenterwill fix)
I’m more surprised by the nature of many of these issues, by how ridiculous they are compared with the sheer age and supposed maturity of a 20+ year-old operating system.
I’ve also heard from a consultant who says he’s seen three isolated cases where Ventura turned on FileVault by itself, without permission or offering a recovery key.
Update (2023-01-05): See also: Reddit and Reynard Jenning.
Update (2023-01-12): Collin Donnell:
Has anyone else been getting this macOS bug where the Apple ID pane in System Settings is blank or entirely unresponsive and there is a “Daemon connection invalidated!” message in Console many times a second?
See also: Overclockers.
Update (2023-01-18): Jesse Squires:
Generally, the built-in Mac Catalyst apps continue to be a major annoyance and extremely cumbersome to use. They do not behave like native AppKit apps and omit very basic features and functionality that typical users expect.
[…]
My biggest complaint is the new System Settings (née System Preferences) redesign, which is absolutely terrible. It is so slow and glitchy.
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How depressing it is to see a list like that. Apple software quality and design just keeps getting worse.
that losing the mailbox selection on search in Mail is so frustrating! especially maddening as I have 30 years of mail I'm searching through. (maybe it's finally time for EagleFiler)
For the the widgets disappear from the sidebar. I set up Find My, Stocks, etc. And after a while they are gone.
Imagine doing like Apple employees are always telling us: file a radar. How long would it take Michael to enter all those? And for what? 90% will be ignored. Depressing.
To add a few more (some have been around since before Ventura I’m sure):
-If a sandboxed app writes an alias of a directory, Finder rejects drag and drop on the alias.
-If a sandboxed app changes any attributes on an alias of a directory via NSURL methods like setResourceValue:forKey: Finder then rejects drag and drop on the alias.
-If a sandboxed app writes a webarchive file Safari won’t open it saying it was created from an unidentified developer even though this is not true. This is despite the fact that WKWebView provides API for writing a webarchive.
-Notification Center steals keyboard focus from the active app when receiving a phone call/Facetime.
-Using Interface Builder with Stage Manager is impossible because Stage Manager throws you out of Interface Builder when you open the Object Library.
I lost resolution scaling on my LG ultra wide display, made it completely unusable after upgrade to Ventura. So did many many people across the online forums complaining about this. Apple apparently have known of this issue but did not fix it after beta testing.
There is a fix by using third party tool to enable HiDPI: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay
But a normal mac user would never be able to know and use this fix.
@b Yes, the storage problems occur with multiple drives in multiple enclosures, and I’ve tried a variety of different USB and Thunderbolt hubs, so I’m pretty sure the problem is software.
I was using a 7~ year old Panasonic TV for a monitor, and after updating to Ventura the monitor is no longer detected. I tried every solution in the forums and support articles, but ending up having to buy a new monitor.
Similar to Greg, this was an issue with others on Mac forums but it was apparently ignored.
I did a Feedback case on "Login item shows my name instead of app name" end of July. I did a DTS on this issue end of October and got a workaround. 2 months later there still is no change in the behaviour.
I still get "Follow up" emails in Mail every week or so. §$%& Apple decided that this is in my imagination.
I'm still not able to empty my trash in Finder. But I need to update from my early 13.1. beta.
In all Ventura is even worse than BS. We all make bugs but bugs need to be fixed in a timely manner. A friend of mine got a panicked email from the Super Duper guy who is affected by the login item name bug. It sound like he had lots of fun because of the bug.
What is the problem with Apple?
Since the upgrade to 13.1 it seems like the "speed bump" when moving a window next to another window is gone, making it much harder to quickly place windows next to each other without overlapping 1-2 px.
Is Apple listening? The fact is that we are working with BETA macOS versions all the time, and when macOS is becoming ALMOST stable, then a new macOS versions arises. And then the previous macOS remains like it was (not updated) for ever with some bugs.
One example is macOS 10.15 19H2026 (Catalina), with broken File Sharing (you cannot turn it on or off, being stuck as it was before). And some Macs cannot be further upgraded beyond some particular macOS version, so they remain with the bugs for ever. Really awful.
Since this yearly upgrade (forced by iOS yearly upgrades) has shown to be deficient, as described above, Apple should change macOS two a two-year upgrade model. Is Apple listening?
-when selecting then hitting space to preview an image, I sometimes get a big nice preview of the image, sometimes a thumbnail icon with focus on the filename etc
Restarting the Mac helps for a while.
Regarding the login items issues, it seems to be in the same area as these bugs described in the Developer forums: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/720468 .
This doesn't even include the countless issues in Music.app.
... I wish there was a public issue tracker, or one that at least Apple Developer members can access.
All of my current workstations are still running macOS Mojave. I intend to stick with it as long as I reasonably can. I consider it to be the last good version of macOS (though I also consider it to be worse than 10.13).
Some day I'll probably have to update past it. I am also committed to not updating past Monterey. I have a single work computer running Monterey for those times where I need it, and I feel like I could manage its annoyances, though make no mistake, it's far more buggy and aggravating to use than Mojave. But my experience with Ventura is gobsmacking. It's so shitty. I never want to use it.
Apple's software quality is in a tail spin. I see no signs that it will get better, much less achieve the heights it had ten years ago.
My next computer will probably run Linux. It will be less refined and consistent and harder to manage and it won't be a joy to use like a mac was in 2010, but at least the damn thing will work properly, keep working, and actually be under *my* control, after I spend the requisite number of aggravating hours setting it up.
[…] features of their latest macOS have taken presitence over the bugs abd they are numerous. Read this blog to find out […]
I had 'fun' this morning trying to generate a new Apple ID Recovery Key on my Mac running Ventura 13.1. Despite multiple attempts, I couldn't enter the new Recovery Key on the final dialog box — the field wasn't accessible by any means, keyboard or mouse. Trying to save the Recovery Key document as a PDF caused System Settings to freak out, breaking the Save dialog box and leaving an empty non-modal box floating around.
In the end, I did the procedure on my iPhone SE, typing the new Recovery Key into a text document on the Mac for safekeeping and then reading that to type it into the iPhone to confirm.
While the old System Preferences procedure was just as convoluted and involved as many different dialog boxes, at least that worked. I'm convinced now that System Settings is not just broken but perhaps possessed by malevolent spirits.
@Alan, do you use any third-party software that affects keyboard or mouse input? Like Steermouse or Karabiner? It’s been a while since I’ve personally encountered this, but macOS will prevent synthetic clicks on the “Allow [Extension]” button in System Preferences in order to prevent malware from programmatically clicking the Allow button. (Even if “synthetic” in this case is just a utility for customizing the keyboard/mouse.) Perhaps you’re encountering something similar?
In any case, even if the input-blocking behavior is intended, the system really needs to clearly indicate when it’s blocking input for security reasons.
• Mail now loses the mailbox selection when you start a search, instead changing the selection to All Mailboxes, which is rarely the scope that I want.
Yup! Very, very annoying.
• Safari sometimes gets really slow or stops responding entirely, so that some pages are only fully scrollable if I disable JavaScript.
Oh, yes? Join the club! Apple even said they'd done work to move accessibility work onto a different thread, so it's possibly the exact same issue. The workaround is the same, of course--install Chrome. Sad, but true.
@Bri I understand. In my case, s/Linux/Windows. It's true--my 2015 MBP is now my Windows testbed machine for the full, native experience. (I use Linux on my router and servers, though, of course.) It turns out that the pleasantly straightforward, straight-paper-path, task-oriented philosophy of macOS, though still very enjoyable and perfectly all right for consumption use cases, is insufficient when some degree of reliability and engineering quality is absolutely expected. One can gripe at stupid bugs introduced into Windows that are then subsequently fixed by a forced update, and for which there are often aftermarket fixes; it's far, far harder to gripe at problems endemic to macOS for which there are no alternatives and which are allowed to fester for months, years while Apple adds even more polish to an already well-polished turd. It's a real shame, because there is still a great deal to like about this particular turd, for instance, how well-rounded it is ...
To the one asking about a public issue tracker: There's openradar.me, where bug reports are copied by the people who report them. So, it only works if the dev writing the reports remember to also enter them on that website.
So it's important to remind everyone of this site and ask everyone to use it for everyone's sake. Of course, that's not working. But everyone little thing helps.
FINDER:
I recall enjoying the luxury of simply dragging a file from one finder window into another, or into messages, or an email.
Not in Ventura. This has been an issue since b1.
If I highlight the file and CTRL-C it will sometimes allow drag and drop, but even that is inconsistent.
@Kristoffer
You don't have to restart the entire computer - From my experience relaunching Finder from the Force Quit menu is enough to workaround the issue (at least on Monterey).
The music app is like a showcase of cruelty towards users. Every year they find new ways to break previously working small things, reducing usability, but without killing the entire app.
Also, in Ventura, Apple Pay is disabled when I enable booting from external drives, for "security" reasons.
And yes, I see all those Finder issues in my systems too.
It also fails to refresh automatically for a long time. I copy a file to a folder and it's not shown there until I relaunch the Finder app.
[…] Michael Tsai has compiled quite the list of issues he’s having with Ventura. While reading it, and while reading all the comments where other people […]
> I’ve also heard from a consultant who says he’s seen three isolated cases where Ventura turned on FileVault by itself, without permission or offering a recovery key.
Make that four: earlier today an acquaintance wrote me and reported this same exact issue!
The search in the Music application is the most confoundedly horrible implementation I've ever encountered. If you search when in a given view (Artists, Albums, Songs, etc.), you're stuck there. Sometimes a search won't yield results for things you *know* you have in your library, but Music instead will recommend items from the Music Store. And it's a black art to get the awkwardly placed switch that determines whether your search was to be in your library or the Music store to change. And the default red highlighting is the cherry on top of my cake of disappointment.
Animations (such as filtering a selection while typing a search string), swiping from workspace to workspace, et al often crashes WindowServer which forces you to log in and all apps with windows to restart. The "WindowServer crashed; send a report to Apple" dialogue comes up after you log in. The only way to stop this is to enable "reduce motion" in the accessibility settings.
This was partially fixed in 13.1. Still happens but less often.
FWIW I have an external LG thunderbolt display plugged into my MBA.
I waited until 13.1 to upgrade and after a couple of weeks have finally figured out how to use Stage Manager somewhat productively. Today, however, Stage Manager has gotten "stuck" and applications can't be pulled into focus. They stay in the minimized area on the left side. The issue persists after multiple reboots. I found a Reddit thread where someone else having the issue posted an example video:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/zeghxe/first_issue_i_have_experienced_with_stage_manager/
Thank you Michael for this comprehensive list.
Has anyone noticed whether the Mail app data loss bug (when moving messages to a different folder) still persists in Ventura?
Agreed that Apple needs to slow down their annual macOS update cycle.
Compare and Contrast:
One of the joys of using a personal computer is the feeling of complete control that you get ... You're in charge. You OWN it. Nothing is going to happen unless you make it happen. Your computer will do whatever you ask, whenever you ask.
@Gord I have not heard from anyone either way whether Ventura fixes the Mail data loss bug where messages disappear when moved or whether it still occurs. Apple has not replied to any of my Radars about it. One commenter is still seeing the less common bug where moving a message makes it blank (i.e. loses everything but the headers).
Starting with Monterey and continuing with Ventura 13.1, where it’s become more frequent, I encounter a problem that has 3 simultaneous symptoms that disappear after rebooting.
(1) sidebar favorites in a Finder window disappear (common complaint online)
(2) the sidebar stops accepting dragged folders and some checkbox Finder
preference attempts
(3) the Documents folder (not in iCloud) becomes inaccessible (including
not from the Sidebar; double-clicking Documents does nothing); BUT all its contents appear in Terminal.
No error message appears.
Restarting fixes all 3, but I have to drag non-standard folders back to the
sidebar (i.e., the missing sidebar favorites don't automatically reappear).
Disk Utility FirstAid hasn’t found a problem and zapping pram doesn’t help.
EtreCheck Pro doesn’t find a problem.
3rd-party programs running:
LittleSnitch, Malwarebytes Premium, BackBlaze
It just happened again yesterday but I’m trying something new: not dragging anything to the Finder window sidebar favorites.
Howard Oakley of Eclectic Light Company suspects 3rd-party app involvement and suggested logging out instead of rebooting to see what happens.
I wonder if others who’ve seen favorites disappear from a Finder window sidebar are running backblaze, malwarebytes premium or little snitch.
I'll add to the list:
Mail badges show new email in the Dock, when none exists after invoking the Mail app, and goes away (on its own!) after a few checks. Calendar notifcations are showing up a day behind (this is super frustrating), given that the computer is showing the correct date. These are Ventura specific, as the problems did not appear in earlier macOS versions. This is on an Intel Mac Mini 2018. Stage Manager still feels like an alpha at best.
Since Ventura 13.1 EPSON WF 5620 doesn't work anymore. Downloads of the newest driver versions doesn't help.
It's an unprofessional work from APPLE. Very annoying !
Also Calendar does not sync events from Exchange servers (only once after bootup) and it seems like the exchangesyncd and calaccessd are getting stuck in a loop with >25% CPU time.
Epson ET-8550 not printing anymore with original Epson drivers, background objects keep re-appearing in notification center, while Time Machine backup is running some active apps are randomly baloonballing, iCloud uploads stuck and get completed after reboot
Finder:
New files don't show up!
Happens almost on a daily basis for me with macOS Ventura or Monterey across all of my Macs... super-annoying.
Terminal > ls or any open file dialog *always* shows the file as being present.
Worked 100% all of the time in Classic Mac OS 7!
@Michael: Are most of these issues new to Ventura, or are they present in Monterey as well already? I.e. can I "safely" upgrade if I'm already on Monterey?
Beatrix: "I'm still not able to empty my trash in Finder. But I need to update from my early 13.1. beta."
Same happens to me, on two separate Macs, both on fully patched Ventura systems. I have to drag the files to the Terminal and delete them with rm. Grrr!
(And for bonus points, do a web search and go through the pages of spam sites advertising the same "fixes" regarding permissions!)
Just updating to 13.2: In Calendar, all yearly repeating events are now repeating daily without any clue, which day would be the correct one, when switching back to yearly events.
RE: comment above on January 4, 2023 @ 10:38 am,
The problem of the Documents folder becoming inaccessible in Finder (but ok in Terminal) reoccurred even after not dragging any folder the Finder's sidebar after the last time this happened.
This time, I tried Howard Oakley of Eclectic Light Company's suggestion of logging out instead of restarting. This restored functionality, implying a 3rd-party process caused the glitch.
I'll have have to exclude 3rd-party processes and see what happens. With it only rearing its head every few weeks, it'll be a drag to exclude a 3rd-party process then wait a month. I'll try another approach I haven't thought of yet.
Backing up over Wifi to a Time Capsule puts macos into a 20min hiatus because the disks/filesystem is blocked for that long after finishing the backup. I dont know why, I assume it is connected with the disk mount/unmount beachball issues.
(All disk related syscalls are blocked: try use df -h or some other stuff using statfs)
I am on 13.2 and back up over a wired 1Gbe network to a 2012 Mac Mini running 10.15.7, a 2TB 5th Gen Time Capsule, an 8TB 5th Gen Airport Time Capsule, a Synology NAS, a FreeNAS server and a TrueNAS Scale server and I do not see this issue. Just a couple of extra data points.
Preview: All images open in one window despite preferences set to one window per image. So annoying.
[…] Software Quality: 1 Most things feel kind of buggy, and the Mac is in a particularly bad state, with a large number of small bugs (many persisting for years) and some debilitating larger ones. I’ve documented some of them here. […]
[…] much others MacOS Ventura issues remain unresolved, including recently reported issues with Universal Control […]
[…] many other MacOS Ventura issues remain unresolved, including freshly reported problems with Universal Control […]
[…] many different MacOS Ventura points stay unresolved, all Ventura customers can admire realizing a freshly […]
My Jan 4th, 2023 10:38 am posting about missing sidebar items in Finder continues with Ventura 13.3.1.
My new info is that I finally worked on another Ventura (13.2.1) Mac with the same problem.
The common major background apps are Backblaze online backup and Malwarebytes Premium Antivirus, both with Full Disk Access.
My Mac and this other person's Mac both run Backblaze and Malwarebytes Premium.
Does anyone else here experiencing flaky sidebar and flaky folder access described in my post on My Jan 4th, 2023 10:38 am also use Backblaze and/or Malwarebytes Premium?
I have found many of the same issue as Michael, most irritating is the inability of the OS to handle multiple tasks. I operate a 6 year old iMac (26" mid-2017) with 64Gb additional memory on mother board and an 8tb drive. Monterey was slower to load than previous OS, but tolerable. Now boot time is way too long and when the boot is done, the mouse freezes when one turns on the wifi (or tries to open any app). This is due to the screen appearing ready to run when, in fact, the OS is still loading. I've been using Macs since the 1990s and have watched the operating system upgrades reflect Steve Jobs' illness and death. Now there the entire company is run by the marketing dept people who, clearly, could care less about the operability of the product as long as units are moving out the door. We bought the farm and have Apple phones and TV--which also, more and more, suck big time. I will never, never buy another Apple product or recommend them to anyone.
