How to fix Messages app closing after macOS Sequoia 15.4 update?

AdminVDS1 wrote:

Since updating to 15.4 my messages ap and Podcast app on my mac just shut down. They don't appear to crash since I don't receive a pop up stating the app has crashed. I don't appear to be having issues with any other apps. Suggestions on how to repair or fix?

Couple things— you can try launching the app while holding the Shift key down, and compare your results...

no change try a SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support to sort anomalies

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

15.4.1 did not fix this

This happened to me, too, on June 6. I have an iPhone and two Macs (both using iMessage in iCloud). My iPhone was fine, but iMessage on both of my Macs was stuck and non-responsive, even after multiple force quits and SAFE mode restarts.

After reading this thread, I noticed a mention of a sticker. The last message I had received was from an old thread that included a Thanksgiving Peanuts sticker. I could delete this message on my iPhone and M2 MacBook Air without any problems, but my M1 iMac was stuck and wouldn’t let me delete the message or get iMessage stable.

What finally worked was:

1. Restarting the computer.
2. Turning off iMessage syncing in iCloud.
3. Restarting the computer again.
4. Deleting the iMessage databases in the Library folder.
5. Restarting the computer a third time.
6. Opening iMessage.

After these steps, iMessage was empty but stable. I then reenabled iMessage syncing in iCloud, and iMessage synced all my messages (except the one with the sticker that caused the issue). It has remained stable since.

I'm seeing exactly the same issue since I upgraded to 15.4. Podcasts app just closes randomly, no crash message, nothing in Console logs.

I'd add the Overcast and Kindle apps are also "quietly" closing/crashing since 15.4 was installed.

I'm experiencing on my M4 MBP, so this annoying bug isn't isolated to the M1 and M2.

As I've been assessing this bug Apple introduced with MacOS 15.4, I'm noticing that whenever a new message is received, it crashes/closes the Messages app on my Mac Studio M1.

Safe mode reboot doesn't help

No magic

FWIW, and just in case this info is helpful to anyone, I've determined that the Messages app being closed does not prevent messages that are set to be sent later from going out.

Same problem here, after updating to 15.4 on Macbook Air M1

Same issue. iMessage is crashing every 5 minutes. Brand new Macbook Air M4 with 24GB RAM. Crazy.

Same problem for me on both 15.4 and 15.4.1 on a M4 Mac Mini.

According to whom? What is the root cause which Apple introduced?