Screenshots fail after upgrade from Sonoma to Sequoia 15.1 plus other related issues on MBP M1

Ok, I’ve run and reviewed the report and posted it here. For those who might also review it, I updated from Sonoma to Sequoia on Nov 14

- Security updates disabled and Apple security disabled: This is because I do not have Auto Update turned on. I always do them manually. Just to verify, I turned on Auto update and ran the report again and the security updates were gone.

- Kernel panics: 

* Some could be due to me pressing and holding the power button to shut it down when it doesn’t seem to want to shut down on its own after clicking the Apple logo and then Shut Down. I have had to shut it down or restart it in order to get the screenshots working again

* You can also see the Finder hangup that I observed today (11/17). 

* After a reboot, sometimes a third party app won’t load, like Photoshop or Microsoft Excel for example but I have always had this intermittent issue on this M1 MBP no matter which MacOS version I’m running. A reboot solves it and it will stay running till the next reboot or shutdown and then maybe it will run, maybe not. I pretty much wrote that off due to some sort in incompatibility or race condition between Adobe/Microsoft (3rd party apps) and the M1 MBP running Rosetta. 

* Crashes and High CPU use: No clue. Apps that run all the time are: Surveillance cams live view, Apple Music streaming from my NAS, Apple Messages, Apple Mail, Safari. I do not have any apps in Login Items

* Unsigned files:  These two files have been on my system since I bought this M1 MBP (well, even before on my former Mac)

* Software installs (past 60 days):  All these were app updates from the App Store

* I do get random disconnects with my two USB & Fire Wire connected backup drives but I believe this is due to the old Apple Thunderbolt Display I have connected to the MBP. My wife also has this same display connected to her MBAir and it does the same thing but her two backup drives are both USB. Plugging them into the MBP directly resolves the issue so I discount this issue in the report. I run my MBP with its cover closed and it feeds the Thunderbolt 27” display as well as a Dell display.

In terms of Clean up: Looks like there’s a fragment from Adobe with its update utility and not being able to find the exec file. The report lists 2 crashes of Adobe Elements 2022 Organizer but I don’t use that app and have not tried opening it on Nov 17, 2024 at 12:06:26. In fact, since I don’t use it, I forgot what it was and just now opened it to see what it was at 13:24 so no clue why the report said it crashed at 12:06. I have no use for it and will check to see if I can uninstall it. It probably came with Photoshop, which I do use.

Not sure but the Time Machine crashes could be related to the backup drive disconnects. If it tried accessing one of the backup drives that was disconnected, maybe it caused a crash but the only notice I ever get is it chewing me out for not ejecting the back up drive before disconnecting it. Well, it all happens by itself for some unknown reason.

Overall system performance: Since upgrading to Sequoia, my entire system seems laggy, I don’t mean when doing anything that involves the internet (I’m on Ethernet by the way) but just everything in general from the time it takes apps to startup after clicking them in the Dock (Mail, Photos, Music, System Preferences, etc) to the execution of commands. So far, going to Sequoia has been a step backwards.

I’ve just run Disk Utility on the internal SSD volume and data and both passed and ran it on both back up drives (painful since it reads each and every backup :-) but they both passed.

My concern lies in the crashes and kernel panics but also know that if you interrogate any computer, you will see these even if there are no symptoms.

Ok, anyone see a smoking gun?

Thanks for reviewing this PRP_53. I have removed the DuckDuckGo extensions and VPN app and have verified they are gone. As for OpenVPN, I use this to connect to my home network when on travel and have been using it since I installed it without issue. Running out of space is a constant maintenance item, I offload large files to free up space and will take another look to see what I can offload now since its just the right thing to do but I don't believe its the cause of this issue.

My plan of action going forward:

• Verify Finder and screenshot is working properly - they are as of this writing
• Put the MBP to sleep
• Upon wake up, check Finder and screenshot for proper functionality. If working ok, do what I have to do on it and then put the MPB back to sleep and repeat that process for a couple of days, which is plenty long enough to know if the removal of the DuckDuckGo ext and VPN had a positive impact.
• If the issue persists I will remove all peripherals (displays, backup drives, Ethernet, kybd, mouse, etc) and repeat the above steps with the MBP isolated from anything else except its built in WiFi.

I'm more of the opinion that it's a sleep/wake issue now which is why I will do the above. However, I welcome anyones input.

Hi jeffreythefrog and thanks for your reply. I see you cannot reproduce my issue, well after I do a reboot all is well on my MBP, that is, until it isn't. It will work fine for hours or a day before all of a sudden it doesn't. So I'm not surprised you couldn't reproduce the issue I'm having in such a short period of time.

I do not have anti virus or cleaning apps installed, I don't believe in them. In terms of using EtreChek, while I can do that, I don't think it's going to produce the desired root cause results. Why? .. because the one and only thing I did was to upgrade to Sequoia. Nothing else, no new software, no tweaks, no hardware changes, nada, nothing, zilch, just the Sequoia upgrade.

I don't mean to turn down help but after reading all the posts on this forum, Reddit and others claiming the same or screenshot related issues once they moved to Sequoia, I'm not of the opinion that anything other than Sequoia running my my MBP is causing it.

Am I not thinking logically or?

My reasoning as to why everything worked in Safe Mode is the same as after a fresh reboot...meaning everything just works as it should. Given enough time/usage, screenshots fail.

Ok, well, until root cause is found, I really can't rule anything out even if it doesn't seem logical to me. I came here for advice so I will run EtreCheck and see what happens. If it tells me to make changes or other recommendations, it will still take a while before I will be able to tell if the issue is gone since it doesn't happen after a reboot for fresh start up so hang in there while I go through that process.

Thanks for your desire to help!

Both of those VPN's have been installed long before Sequoia and although I don't use the DuckDuckGo one, I do use Open VPN and it worked well without the screenshot issues I'm having now that I'm on Sequoia. That said I will probably remove the one from DuckDuckGo since I don't use it.

Thanks for reading through the report and my analysis of what it found. I didn't see anything that I could come to grips with except the crashes and panics.

** I just came back to the computer, woke it up from a sleep by pressing the space bar, signed in to reply here and decided to take a screenshot. I took one of your frog, I hear the double beep beep, saw the screenshot at the bottom right of my screen, waited a few seconds till it disappeared and then went to my desktop to find it but its not there, its nowhere. So I took another screenshot, I heard the double beep beep but this time there was no screenshot showing at the bottom right of the screen and there's no screen shot to be seen on my desktop, so it failed again. I am wondering if upon waking it from sleep mode, something goes wrong and it triggers the failure.

Clicking the Apple logo and then Force Quit and Finder is still running but when clicking the Trash icon in the Dock, it doesn't open and I just got the spinning beach ball. The Force Quit window was still open and I watched Finder turn red and labeled as not responding. Clicking the Apple logo again and selecting About this Mac does nothing. Well, at least whatever is wrong, its consistent:-) Guess I'll reboot in the morning :-(

Ok, I did a restart this morning after waking up the MBP so things are working again as of this writing.. ..

I understand what you're saying but that in itself is an issue not caused by the owner. I also understand that third party programs like Adobe, Microsoft, etc need to keep their updates coming to be compatible with the platforms they live on and that may take a bit of time when Apple releases a new OS.

For me, it's the Apple native stuff that is breaking.. .. screenshot, Finder, etc. I have a plan of action today to try and come to grips with this. I will certainly post what I do along with the results and will reply to PRP_53 next.

Status as of Nov 20, 2024. 3 Days after initial post for help

The three of you (jeffreythefrog, dialabrain and PRP_53) all suggested I run an Etretech report, so I did. From the report I posted, here is what I have done as of this writing.. .. 

App extensions:

- Deleted: NetworkProtectionSystemExtension - version 1.68.0 (Duck Duck Go, Inc. - installed 2023-12-12)

- Deleted: Application: /Applications/DuckDuckGo.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/DuckDuckGo VPN.app - version 1.68.0 (Duck Duck Go, Inc. - installed 2023-12-12)

Safari extension:

- Deleted: [Loaded] Privacy Dashboard - /Applications/DuckDuckGo Privacy for Safari.app

Clean up:

- Deleted: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist /Library/Application

After removing these items, I deleted the trash and did a Shut Down. Then…

* Through observation I am thinking that the issue is with Finder and its triggered by taking a screenshot after waking it from a sleep of unknown sleep time

- Powered up, did my work, made several screenshots, played around with Finder, everything worked as it should. 

- Once done working, I put it to sleep. I normally use keyboard commands for this.. . .Option-Command-Eject key combo (I use an extended kybd)

- Pressed space bar to wake it a few hours later: Everything worked as it should. Was it asleep long enough to have caused the issue or not???

- Once done working, I put it to sleep for the remainder of the day. 

Next Day - let’s call this Day 1 (after the deletions)

- Pressed space bar to wake it, Everything worked as it should. This was an overnight sleep which was long enough to historically have the issue show up, but it didn’t. I’m now a bit optimistic but keeping in mind that the issue started after the upgrade from Sonoma to Sequoia which was only six days ago so there isn’t a lot of experience with this yet.

- Once done working, I put it to sleep. 

- Pressed space bar to wake it a few hours later: Everything worked as it should. 

- Once done working, I put it to sleep. 

- Pressed space bar to wake it a few hours later: Everything worked as it should. 

- Once done working, I put it to sleep for the night

Day 2

- Pressed space bar to wake it, Everything worked as it should.

- Basically day 2 was a repeat of day 1. Some number of sleeps, wakes, working, etc and all worked as it should

Day 3 - Today

 - Today proved to be a repeat of Day 2. Certainly by now, the issue would have happened several times with subsequent reboots between each one. I am happy to report that as of this writing, after several sleep/wake periods, all is well.

Unfortunately, I did all the deletes before retesting so it's hard to know if any one of them was the root. I will now let this go for about a week or so before coming back with another update so stay tuned.. ..