Finder freezes when for saving, uploading, or searching

Hello,

we managed to track down the issue (in our case) with a few experiments. We noticed that in my wife's case she had Stage Manager turned on when the freezing occurred. If we turned off Stage Manager then the problem disappeared. So, there seems to be some interference caused by Stage Manager (could be a deadlock situation - maybe). It is reproducible (in our case). Can you turn off Stage Manager if you have it turned on?

I'm not sure how to report this as a bug to Apple though.

hope that helps, adil

After removing:

• Cleaners
• Optimizers
• Anti-Virus
• VPN

Then post the free EtreCheck report using the Additional Text option when posting. The report contains no personal information, but will show what is being launched on startup that could be causing a conflict. In addition, the report also includes recent crash reports that could provide some clues.

Using EtreCheck - Apple Community

If a simple reboot of your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode. It can take much longer to safe boot (5 min) so be patient. Follow this guidance for restarting your Mac in Safe mode:

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support 

Safe mode will often correct weird software behavior by forcing the OS to do disk repair, clear caches and other housekeeping and disables acceleration and third-party mods. When you're in safe boot, the machine won’t be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's expected.

Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and evaluate the issue again.

By far the easiest way to cause poor performance, instability, overheating and crashing is to install ANY third-party speeder-uppers, Cleaners, Optimizers, or Virus scanners, Bit Torrent, or a VPN that you installed yourself. The main reason is that they are relentless in scanning your files, non-stop, looking for virus-like patterns in Everything, or looking for files that have changed. When completed, they do it all again.

if you tell Finder to copy a bcc of stuff, and your aftermarket virus scanner stops to READ everything as it goes by, your Mac WILL become unresponsive.

Momentarily invoking Safe Mode is not the solution to ANYTHING -- it is a diagnostic tool.

While running in Safe Mode, you answer the question: "Does the problem occur when I am running in Safe Mode?

'Works in safe mode' but 'Fails in regular mode implies' "It's something you added."

Same problem.

Restarting findes solves the problem for some time.

Hello,

my wife is seeing the same on her new M3 MacBook Pro. She also started seeing it on her old MacBook Pro. It's highly unlikely to be a disk issue - more a bug in Finder.