macos – “App is not open anymore” / “App not responding” intermittent (72 hours) issue opening apps on Mac mini M4 in Sequoia

I’m experiencing an issue similar to the one Gary describes here: Sometimes, I am not able to launch any apps on my Mac

WHAT HAPPENS:

Rather frequently (seems to be approximately every 72 hours), my Mac no longer allows me open apps. Apps that are open continue to function just fine, but if I try to open anything else this happens (in order):

• Icon bounces in dock indefinitely.

• If I click the icon while it’s bouncing, it disappears entirely

• If I wait, it stops bouncing. The icon remains (even if I don’t ordinarily keep it in the dock)

• If I try to reopen it, I get a message the “[App name] is not open anymore”, which is strange, as I expect it to not be open and intend to open it.

Sometimes, more rarely, I get the “You can’t open the application [App name] because it not responding” or no message at all (literally nothing happens – no icon bounce, nothing)

*Note that this happens with ANY/ALL APPS, so it doesn’t appear to be related to any single app pref file or anything like that. It’s a deeper OS issue. Something – an orphaned kext file, a haywire global pref file, etc… – is causing it.
**There is a variation on this pattern where open apps go haywire (won’t maximize from the dock), but new apps can be open by typing their names into the Spotlight search bar. In those instances, newly opened apps do not appear on the dock as expected…

WHAT WORKS:

The only thing that makes this issue go away is a reboot. Works every time, in fact. It’s just not practical to reboot this often. The workaround I’d used on my iMac was to simply schedule an automatic reboot via Terminal. Not ideal. I’d really prefer to keep my computer on and reboot on my own terms.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK:

I’ve tried lots of other solutions based on similar posts, none of which have any effect:

• Resetting SMC

• Booting in Safe Mode to clear the cache

• Re-installing the OS entirely (and even MIGRATING to a newer machine with a newer version of the OS)

• Deleting antivirus scanner according to manufacturer’s directions

• No longer running Chrome in case some weird auto update thing was happening

• Meticulously going through unsigned apps, outdated pref and kext files, etc. and removing them all painstakingly with frequent reboots.

WHAT I CAN’T (EASILY) DO:

• Can’t force quit the app via the apple icon as the app isn’t technically running and therefore doesn’t appear in the list

• Can’t attempt to open the app via Terminal as I can’t open Terminal

• Can’t attempt to see what background processes might be causing issues as I can’t open Activity Monitor

Really really REALLY reluctant to nuke the whole computer and start fresh as I have lots of intricate settings (old POP mail apps that I use for reference with unorthodox folder structures that can’t be easily backed up and replicated, etc.). It’s important to me that I find the culprit and leave the rest of the system intact.

• On those occasions where I’ve had the foresight to have Terminal and Activity Monitor open ahead of time, I’ve noticed the following:

• Associated processes appear in Activity Monitor but appear “stuck” (no processor power or RAM is devoted to them).

• If I attempt to open from Terminal while Activity Monitor still shows a process, I get the usual “app is not open anymore” or “app not responding” message. If I force quit the process in AM and try to open in terminal, nothing happens at all on screen and I get a message indicating a “-600” error that would usually indicate some sort of corruption in the app itself, but – again – this applies to ALL APPS and they all go back to normal on reboot, so there must be something else going on.

A FEW MORE NOTES:

• I do sometimes use AppCleaner to uninstall apps as I don’t want to have to manually search for leftover pref files or extensions or application support files, etc., but I do not and have never used questionable “Mac Cleaner” apps.

• I have VPN software installed, but it’s discreet and rarely if ever used (though I do use it in certain instances and am reluctant to remove it). It’s never running during this phenomenon.

• I had Anydesk installed (remote access software), but removed it (and all remnants of it). 72 hours have not passed since then.

• No crontabs involved at all.

• This all started on my old iMac (which was running Ventura at the time). Had been using it for YEARS with no issues when this suddenly popped up. Nothing had changed about my system – no new apps installed or new peripherals, no change to my usage habits or methods, etc. There was likely a Ventura update near that time, but I can’t think of anything else that could have triggered this.

Etrecheck report link below.

I see similar questions pop up on this site and others but have never seen someone post a solution (users simply dropped out of the conversation before confirming any fixes)…

NEW INFO

• When I was able to try to open the app via Terminal, this is the message I got:
  The application /System/Applications/QuickTime Player.app cannot be opened for an unexpected reason, error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-600 “procNot Found: no eligible process with specified descriptor” UserInfo={_LSLine=388, _LSFunction=_LSAnnotateAndSendAppleEventWithOptions}

• You can find my Etrecheck report at the bottom of this post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255933572?login=true&sortBy=rank&answerId=261109299022

• After running “{kmutil showloaded; ls -l /Library/LaunchDaemons;} | grep -v com.apple” in Terminal, I get the following:

{kmutil showloaded; ls -l /Library/LaunchDaemons;} | grep -v com.apple

No variant specified, falling back to release

Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) UUID

total 56

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 474 Dec 4 16:31 com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 486 Dec 4 16:31 com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 794 Oct 16 10:26 com.google.GoogleUpdater.wake.system.plist

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 181 Dec 7 2023 com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 428 Jan 10 09:08 com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 568 Aug 25 2010 com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 103 Jan 10 2013 com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist -> /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 622 Apr 5 2024 us.zoom.ZoomDaemon.plist

In the above, I see some things I most certainly don’t need (Microsoft auto updater is 15 years old and doesn’t apply to my current Office install from the App Store). Is it possible that one of these daemons is running some sort of update routine every 72 hours and that’s causing issues? It would certainly explain why it seems to happen on a schedule… Also can’t imagine why I’d need a java helper in this day and age. Also happy to ditch Adobe entirely and rely on Mac’s native Preview app for pdfs if that could be the cause…

UPDATES (1/23/25):

After returning from a business trip during which the computer ran for the usual 72 hours, the issue raised its head yet again. This time I managed to capture some errors in Terminal that I hope will shed some light on things.

I also noticed this time that, while this phenomenon was happening, the desktop itself was behaving oddly – I was unable to click on or move desktop icons. I could not dismiss the error messages (could move them but the “OK” button was not working). I could open multiple Finder windows but I could not close, minimize, or maximize them.

Here’s a more detailed summary of of the whole issue:

Opening app (whether by clicking on the icon or opening via Spotlight or Terminal) results in same phenomenon (this time, I used Maps and Safari to test):

• App bounces in the dock indefinitely

• Process appears on Activity Monitor, but app does not actually open

• Clicking icon again makes it stop bouncing (stays put if ordinarily in my dock, vanishes if not – ordinary behavior you’d expect from closing an app)

• If I try to open again after force quitting (via Terminal or Activity Monitor), I get “The application “Maps” is not open anymore.” or “You can’t open the application “Maps” because it is not responding.” (usually on subsequent tries)

• If I click the icon again while process is going, I also get either of the above messages (seemingly at random)

• This behavior persists if I “killall Dock” or relaunch Finder. Only a reboot will get things going normally again.

• At no point do these apps I attempt to open show up as running in the “Force Quit Applications” menu accessed from the apple menu. They’re just not present in the list.

Error messages when opening the App via terminal:

• If the process has been quit or isn’t running to begin with, I get no message at all from Terminal. Just same behavior as if I click the icon in the dock – process starts in Activity Monitor, Icon bounces, etc.
• If the process is still running in Activity Monitor, I get:

_LSOpenURLsWithCompletionHandler() failed for the application /System/Applications/Maps.app with error -600.

Or occasionally:

_LSOpenURLsWithCompletionHandler() failed for the application /System/Applications/Maps.app with error -1712.

Another variant:

_LSOpenURLsWithCompletionHandler() failed for the application /System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/App/System/Applications/Safari.app with error -1712.
(I guess the difference is because Safari lives in a different folder than other apps?)

Do these error messages mean anything to folks here?

Here is a current list of running processes on my machine sorted by number of threads. Facebook Messenger appears potentially suspect: