Finder not responding

[mikemac]

Finder not responding

iMac (late 2013) Intel Core i5
OS Catalina 10.15.6
SSD 1TB. 759.58 GB available

I've restarted & rebooted as per the various instructions on the Net.
I've applied the remedies in Terminal & Activity Monitor.
Reinstalled OS twice.
Please help!

P.S. I'm unable to attach the Finder "error report".png. Here's part of it.

Process: Finder [32196]
Path: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder
Identifier: Finder
Version: 10.15.8 (1298.8.1)
Build Info: Finder_FE-1298008001000000~1
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: Finder [32196]
User ID: 501

Date/Time: 2026-06-24 14:38:45.586 +1000
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.15.8 (19H2036)
Report Version: 12
Anonymous UUID: 2AEBBD1D-4724-3972-FF41-9CDE0E711FD2


Time Awake Since Boot: 10000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 5 Dispatch queue: TagsSharedListQueue

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process: exc handler [32196]

VM Regions Near 0:

 

[TonyAguila]

Have you tried doing a regular macOS software update? Since it looks like you are able to run Terminal, go ahead and launch it. Enter the following command:

softwareupdate -l --include-config-data

and press return. Terminal should list software updates available to you, and it might show not just the macOS update but also items like Gatekeeper and XProtect. I didn’t check the newest macOS version that your iMac will run, so go ahead and check the list of macOS versions available to you. Enter,

softwareupdate --list-full-installers

and press return. The first entry on the list should be the newest version available to you. For me, I’m getting,

* Title: macOS Golden Gate Beta, Version: 27.0, Size: 16579414KiB, Build: 26A5368g, Deferred: NO

Look for the number after “Version: ” and make a note of it. In my case, it would be “27.0” Then enter the following:

sudo softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version ##.#.#

filling in the version number for you. Press return, enter your password, and it should start the download process. When done, the macOS installer file should be inside your Applications folder. Make a copy to a safe location, for future use. Reboot. You may want to reboot in Safe Mode to minimize conflicts, launch the installer file in your Applications folder and proceed with the installation. Good luck!

 

[mikemac]

Hi Tony, I'm back.

1. From "about this mac" software update shows "up to date Catalina 10.15.8"

Shall I update as per your instructions anyway?

1. Presently the Applications folder, etc are not accessible since Finder is not functioning and Desktop is blank.
2. I can run Apps from Launchpad icon.
3. Shall I run Apple Diagnostics?

 

[mikemac]

4. Looks like RAM is affected because of some slowing down of actions.

 

[mikemac]

I forgot to say that other Users: Finder works fine!

 

[mikemac]

So I printed the instructions and entered in Terminal. Version: .... did not appear.
I went ahead and entered: sudo softwareupdate etc ... and entered version 10.15.8 and password
No download followed. I get this message:

MikeValComputer:~ mikevallis$ sudo softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 10.15.8

Downloading and installing 10.15.8 installer

tromboneSUPreferenceManager: Failed to set object of class: __NSCFConstantString for key: LastRecommendedMajorOSBundleIdentifier with error: Error Domain=SUPreferenceManagerErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"

Install failed with error: Update not found

MikeValComputer:~ mikevallis$ trombone

 

[TonyAguila]

Sorry, Mike. I also had some crises here with my Mac. It got so bad that I decided to bite the bullet and install the latest beta version of macOS on my Mac, which is Tahoe 27.0 Beta (26A5378n). I don’t normally install beta versions on my main drive, and I have three other external installations for non-current versions. In short, I took a chance to see if Tahoe will fare better on my internal SSD. Happily, it works! Much better than Sequoia, which is the oldest version that my Mac Studio will run.

See if Terminal will allow you to install the latest macOS version for your Mac. At the prompt, enter…

softwareupdate -l --include-config-data

See if it will offer you the prompt to reinstall the latest version for your Mac. I’m just wondering why the “full installers” list did not include the version pertinent to your machine. Try giving it another try, this time. Or you might want to simply let Terminal determine the software version by going ahead with the software update command,

sudo softwareupdate -i -a -R

Good luck.

 

[mikemac]

I took the faulty iMac (Catalina) to a local AASP (tech specialist) who fixed the problem. Quote: I created a new user account and manually migrated everything from the ‘Home Folder' (Desktop, Documents, Photos, etc…) EXCEPT the old corrupt 'Library folder’.

Thanks for the assistance.

 

[mikemac]

I took the faulty iMac (Catalina) to a local AASP (tech specialist) who fixed the problem. Quote: I created a new user account and manually migrated everything from the ‘Home Folder' (Desktop, Documents, Photos, etc…) EXCEPT the old corrupt 'Library folder’.

Thanks for the assistance.