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Files with complex characters in filename not opening on double-click or drag-and-drop until edited

Asking here as a last-ditch before wiping and restoring, partly because that's a huge hassle and partly because this is such a weird and consistent problem I'm REALLY curious what's going on.


MacBook Pro M1 Max, all was well until I installed the macOS 13.3 update. Now I'm having an absolutely bizarre problem: Files whose filenames contain most (but not all) Japanese kanji characters won't open in the associated program when double clicked unless I edit the filename. This is true for both for files that existed at the time of the upgrade and files that are newly created by software (an auto-downloader specifically) without user interaction.


For the problem files, when I double-click on it in the Finder, the Finder does the open animation and the associated app opens, but the file does not. The app just sits there like I hadn't clicked anything. Dragging the file to the app's icon does the same thing--it accepts the drop but nothing opens. If I manually open the file from within the application (via an "Open" dialogue), it opens fine.


If, however, I edit the filename, it behaves normally and continues to do so through reboots. I don't even have to change the filename--just selecting the file, hitting return to put the filename into edit, then hitting return again without touching anything will restore normal behavior.


Weirdly, this only happens with most filenames that have two-byte characters in them, specifically Japanese Kanji. Long non-Japanese filenames are fine. Filenames that contain only Japanese hiragana, and a handful of ones with only very simple kanji, also are fine. Short filenames with more than one or two simple kanji are not fine.


Things that don't help:


  • Rebooting
  • Moving the file or its parent folder
  • Renaming the parent folder
  • Modifying the default "open with" program for the individual file or all files of its type
  • Opening a problem file from another user account
  • Installing 13.3.1 update
  • Running First Aid on the drive


Regarding that last one, figuring directory corruption, I rebooted in Recovery Mode and ran Disk Utility's First Aid on the Data volume and got a bunch of "warning: inode (...): dir-stats key xf does not exist, despite internal_flags (0x8412)" messages, which apparently repaired successfully and it now checks without throwing any errors or warnings... but the behavior remains, including on newly-created files.


Ideas? I've been using macOS since System 6 (the black-and-white one), and have never had something this odd happen with the Finder, so I'm pretty curious about what's going on.


Possibly related: After doing that update, all of the Touch ID fingerprints (all users) also disappeared. I was able to recreate new ones without issue, but have never had that happen before.

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Apr 11, 2023 10:48 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 12, 2023 5:41 AM

Similar stuff reported here.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254748658



Let Apple know via


Product Feedback - Apple


Include a link to this discussion.





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3 replies

May 8, 2023 6:29 AM in response to Marc Marshall

Files with accented characters ARE NOT opening after updating to macOS Ventura 13.3.1 (a).


The same behavior occurs to me, but after some tests I did, it's not clear if it's just accented characters.


For example:


I downloaded a file from Chrome with this filename "Termo_de_Aceitação-1045.PDF" that doesn't open. After I rename it to "aceitacao.pdf", it opens. However, it also opens if I rename it to "aceitação.pdf". So, I realized that it opens after any rename action.


I have already filed a bug report.

Files with complex characters in filename not opening on double-click or drag-and-drop until edited

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