Small windows problem

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I spoke too soon, Jake!

This morning, small windows.

First, my hard drive. Cured by relaunching Finder.
Second, my Spiralbound notes. Cured by forcing quit and relaunching.

I'll leave it a day or more, and then if it gets worse, I'll resort to the killall system, but obviously whatever killall cures, it creeps back fairly quickly. Puzzled.

Allen.
 
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Do you have any third party add on utility software that "enhances" Finder in any way? The only thing I can think of is that the com.apple.finder.plist is being edited by something other than Finder. That file is where Finder stores things like window location and size. What killall does is to stop all Finder processes, after which the system restarts Finder and reads the plist again to set the defaults for Finder fresh. So if some third party software is changing the plist, then when Finder launches, it reads the wrong settings from the plist.
 
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Thanks Jake. Now I start to show my ignorance of these things.

Although I've been operating Macs since the 1980s, there are some aspects that are still mysteries to me. Finder Extensions are one of them.

I don't think I've got any such things, but is there somewhere on my MacMini where I can go and check? (MacMini late 2014, 2.8Ghz, High Sierra 10.13.6, with SSD).

I have lots of programs (all the obvious ones, plus many tiddlers for odds and ends) - could one of these be screwing things up? Puzzling though, as the Small Windows seemed to come on all of a sudden, i.e. no link to any new programs - but I often update such programs (AudioHiJack, Capco, that sort of thing)...

Any pointers very welcomed.

Allen.
 
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Well, one place to look is in System Preferences>Users & Groups>your account and look at what's in the Login Items list for your account. Those things start when you log in, so one of them may be a suspect. Generally, anything that claims to add functions to Finder is a potential suspect as well, including things like Commander One, that adds panes to Finder. If the problem were consistent, you could try booting in Safe Mode, but given that it is not predictable, that may or may not help. Another way to get at it is to think about what you were doing just before the problem first occurred, or just before it came back. Have/had you installed anything new? Run some program? Computers generally don't change on their own, something triggered it, you just have to figure out what the trigger is. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I can't see your system, so the search for the culprit is up to you to do. One thought might be to get Etrecheck, run it and then post the results here. That way we can see what is loading at boot and what extensions are installed to see if there are any candidates in that listing.
 
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Thanks Jake.

There are a LOT of items in Log In list, half of which I don't recognise. One or two I do, which I will leave alone.

What (if any) damage can I do by deleting items there? Will they come back if they're vital? Any tips welcomed.

Allen.
 
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Without knowing what's there, I can't tell you what will happen. A lot of software installs to launch at login under the assumption that you want it available immediately. Whether or not that's true is up to you. Etrecheck, if you run it, will list all of those things, plus any others that launch at boot instead of login. The culprit could be in either or both of those lists.
 
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Thanks Jake.

There are a LOT of items in Log In list, half of which I don't recognise. One or two I do, which I will leave alone.

What (if any) damage can I do by deleting items there? Will they come back if they're vital? Any tips welcomed.

Allen.
Can you post, 1 or 2 screen shots, that list all the items?
 
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Bob, Jake.

Easier typing them:
iskysoft helper
keyboard maestro helper
wondershare helper
adobe resourcessynchronizer
simbl agent
itunes helper
spiralboundpro
spiralbound
imapcalendarinspector.nib
audio hijack 3 schedule helper
dropbox
android file transfer agent

I must say I'm inclined to delete the obvious unused ones (wondershare for example), and carry on, and if any program gets upset and demands to know where its helper file is, I'll redownload.

Allen

(Might have to disappear and cook now, as it's my turn. I'll be back later!).


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(Might have to disappear and cook now, as it's my turn. I'll be back later!).

A


Hmmm... kippers with Marmite on toast for breakfast perhaps??? :Mischievous:

Opps, just realized this would be more like suppertime time for you UK folks.


BTW: Do you have anything like "TotalFinder" or similar running??

And from your screenshot in post #1, "spiralbound" would sure be one of my suspects.









- Patrick
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Just about anything from Wondershare is suspect, IMHO. I just don't trust Wondershare because of some bad experiences a while ago with them. But what you would want to delete is not the "helper" but whatever you installed from Wondershare. I still think it would be better to run Etrecheck and post the results here. It lists everything that is loaded into your machine, including all the stuff that sneaks in at boot time, before you log in.

And what are your running simbl for?
 
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You know our London cuisine well it seems...

Not running simbl - it appears (appeared), so will disappear in a minute. As I say, I'll leave a few there, like DropBox, but there's nothing there that I WANT to launch at start-up. If I want Spiralbound (which I do use), then I'll do the launching!

I'll do some clearance, and report back in a while. I'll check out etrecheck, too.

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Ok thought you ll like to know what I did to stop 2 small windows from popping up ( like in picture above ) , it was the Honey Plug In, I disable and its gone, when I enable it, it comes back so again I disable it...gone... Should I deleted Honey plug in or reinstall it.

allen-uk, try to disable all your plug ins then enable one at a time til u find the fault. :)

Thanks
 
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Ok thought you ll like to know what I did to stop 2 small windows from popping up ( like in picture above ) , it was the Honey Plug In, I disable and its gone, when I enable it, it comes back so again I disable it...gone... Should I deleted Honey plug in or reinstall it.



I'd say it is your choice and it wouldn't hurt to reinstall it if you want to use it, after all, it doesn't work the way it is now!!!

You may want to read these before enabling it to make sure you're comfortable with the way it works:
What does a dollar-saving coupon plugin really cost?
https://www.androidauthority.com/honey-coupon-chrome-extension-850215/
and
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/honey-browser-extension/





- Patrick
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Right, still getting it. Relaunching Finder each time cures it. I now have nothing at all in LogIn items. Ran Etrecheck, this is what it said:

etrecheck shot.jpg

None of which looks very serious, but I'm sure you'll tell me otherwise. (Would running a DiscWarrior eliminate anything?)

Just to repeat, I have reinstalled High Sierra to try and eliminate this problem, but didn't help.

Running MacMini, High Sierra, 10.13.6.

Ta.

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Uninstall all anti virus apps. Refer to the apps site for proper directions. That is why they have been identified as a major issue. And please, start using a backup system, if you are not currently using one.
 
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The first thing that leaps off the page is that it reports you have multiple antivirus apps installed. You don't need ANY of them. There are no viruses for Macs, and the antivirus software just slows down the system and can cause other problems. And having multiple apps doing the same thing can lead to all sorts of issues. So get rid of all of the AV software. You also seem to have a lot of system modifications running in the background. System modifications can work in strange ways. I would review what that is all about and eliminate as many as you can.
 

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And there are orphan files from Clean Up apps. These should go as well.

Allen, I am the first to recognise that individuals are free to run their Macs any way they want - and that must remain the standard.

But, as a group, this Forum has a wealth of experience of Macs and when people report problems and ask for help, we are obliged to point out the obvious and allow users to make their own judgment as to their implementation.

No AV. Use Malwarebytes app to detect and remove Malware to which ALL computers are at risk and which are rarely detected by AV apps. No clean-up apps apart from the occasional use of OnyX; default settings. Ditto System Modifications.

A sound Backup (BU) strategy. Time Machine as minimum, but better to add a cloning, bootable, BU such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! as well.

People ask. We advise. Decisions always left to the users.:)

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You also seem to have a lot of system modifications running in the background. System modifications can work in strange ways. I would review what that is all about and eliminate as many as you can.


+1!!! Definitely review what it says about those!!!





- Patrick
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Fair enough. I do (of course) have back ups via SuperDuper which is run weekly to an external drive. I don’t use TimeMachine.

Kaspersky is my only known AV program. I suppose there are the remnants of others which I have tried and discarded but obviously not properly unibstalled.

I’ll have a closer look at those.

Is the general feeling of the forum that Kaspersky is unnecessary?

Allen
 

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