System Data not calculating

Russ4668 wrote:

• I recently upgraded my M1 MacBook Pro and M2 MacBook Air to macOS Ventura 13.1 and it shows that the system data under storage and general in system settings does not calculate the system data. In fact it will continue to calculate endlessly for hours and days until I manually stop it. I have shared information with Apple engineering and to date they have not offered a solution. Initially it was thought that the issue may have had to to with my data and applications however I troubleshot the following steps this morning:

MacBook 2021 M1 Pro running MacOS 13.1 Ventura

• Went into Disk Utility erased McIntosh HD drive, did full factory reset and erase of computer

• Installed MacOS Monterrey 12.6.2

• System Data was resolved (was calculating in a matter of seconds)

• The restored from Time machine backup using Migration Assistant to MacOS Monterrey 12.6.2

• System Data was resolved (was calculating in a matter of seconds)

• Upgraded to MacOS Ventura 13.1

• System Data not calculating

• Suggests issue not with user data or application but rather MacOS Ventura 13.1

I have tried re-indexing the Macintosh HD drive as well.

Any thoughts or solutions?

To be proactive you can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

or wait for the next point update and see if the issue gets resolved..

In the mean time if you are trying to drill down on the details— from the Terminal.app you can copy and paste these command-lines:

General Volume size, you can see, copy & paste:

diskutil list internal

For itemized details:

File size— list the items in the home folder with the sizes, including invisible items, copy & paste:

sudo du -h -d 1 ~/

File size—will list the items in root with the sizes, including invisible items, copy & paste:

sudo du -h -d 1 /

Same problem, different solution for me

Hello, I have the same issue. Mac air M1 2020, 240SSD. I have reinstalled the drive and operating system 4x times and it is always the same think. Wipe the drive, instal Monterey, check the storage and in less than 2 minutes the system data is calculated. Now I upgrade to Ventura and calculation of system data never ends. 

PS: The solution for me was simple. I have a Hub-C connected my Mac and that has a wired ethernet connection ad wired mouse. When I disconnected the Hub from my PC and calculated the storage again, the System data displayed 13GB in less than a minute. I don’t know why but it worked on my system.

Thank you at Milan354 for your USB-C suggestion. Mac Pro M1 2020 here. I had a twist on your solution that worked for me. I don't have music but I have many DLSR camera files on cards plugged into my USB-C hub. I opened the "about>storage>storage settings" with my USB-C hub removed. While the app was still "pinwheeling" endlessly, I plugged in my USB-C hub (with two camera cards each with RAW, jpg, AVI files). I ejected the mounted cards. Then I removed the USB-C hub, closed the settings application and then reopened the settings > "storage" tab again. This time the storage count total for my internal Mac drive was instantaneous! My guess is that the "storage" app is trying to enumerate a "phantom" storage device (in my case two camera memory cards). I always eject externally mounted memory cards when I am finished with them in my work flow, but I am going to try and take note of what changes with use of my USB-C hub.

Read this article from a person that has been writing about Mac's since the 80's. It might answer your question. https://eclecticlight.co/2022/12/30/free-space-on-an-apfs-volume-is-an-illusion/