Has anybody else seen this behavior? I have a new install of acrobat reader on Sequoia 15.6.1 and this morning decided to close the app. My screens went blank and when they eventually came back I was at a "just signed in" state with only Finder loaded.
Any ideas on what to do to avoid this? Both Mac and the Adobe app are fully up-to-date.
jonfparis wrote:
Yes - both AV (Sophos 10.6.3) and CleanMyMac (5.2.8) running as a background task.
First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac. This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.
There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs. There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.
Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear. They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware. Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.
There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it. The free version is more than adequate for most users.
Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint. Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).
Additionally, a new study ("Apple Offers Apps With Ties to Chinese Military”) is specifically about VPN apps in Apple’s App Store.
That being said I recommend you uninstall Sophos and CleanMyMac according to the developers' instructions. CMM is one of the worst from our experience in these forums.
Use the shareware app Find Any File to search for the supporting files for those apps. For the software mentioned you'd do the following search(es):
1 - Name contains cleanmymac
2 - Name contains macpaw
3 - Name contains sophos
4 - Name contains av (of the Sophos app includes av in it's supporting files filenames.
Any files that are found can be Option dragged from the search results window to the Desktop to get a copy of the file.
FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.
jonfparis wrote:
Yes - both AV (Sophos 10.6.3) and CleanMyMac (5.2.8) running as a background task.
First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac. This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.
There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs. There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.
Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear. They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware. Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.
There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it. The free version is more than adequate for most users.
Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint. Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).
Additionally, a new study ("Apple Offers Apps With Ties to Chinese Military”) is specifically about VPN apps in Apple’s App Store.
That being said I recommend you uninstall Sophos and CleanMyMac according to the developers' instructions. CMM is one of the worst from our experience in these forums.
Use the shareware app Find Any File to search for the supporting files for those apps. For the software mentioned you'd do the following search(es):
1 - Name contains cleanmymac
2 - Name contains macpaw
3 - Name contains sophos
4 - Name contains av (of the Sophos app includes av in it's supporting files filenames.
Any files that are found can be Option dragged from the search results window to the Desktop to get a copy of the file.
FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.
You can single-click on the Adobe Acrobat application icon and then press Option+Cmd+i to open a Finder information panel that reveals the version number.
Apple's macOS was not written by Microsoft, and aside from the Finder interface, it is a UNIX operating system that Apple has taken great measures to secure from typical viruses that can and do infect Windows. The operating system itself is on a read-only, code-signed volume that cannot be installed into.
See Apple Platform Security - Apple Support
We never advise installing any anti-virus software or so-called cleaner applications like MacCleaner as history has shown that they adversely impact normal operating system and application functionality. You should run to remove these two products per the vendor's removal instructions.
You are running a version of macOS Sequoia (15.6.1) that is quite behind the last (15.7.1) update. Visit System Settings > General > Software Update. It will likely show Tahoe, but further down on that panel will be the ability to update only Sequoia to v15.7.1.
jonfparis wrote:
... both AV (Sophos 10.6.3) and CleanMyMac (5.2.8) running as a background task.
Others have advised to completely remove both of these but you seem hesitant. As is your right. But the kinds of issues you report are the type of problems scores of users have reported here from those utilities. CleanMyMac is especially insidious because it deletes ("cleans") files, and some are needed for normal MacOS operations. So the Mac stops operating normally. Anti-virus programs mostly slow things down but they also interfere.
Unfortunately, just turning off or disabling or normally uninstalling those programs does not always remove all their fragments, which remain to haunt the innocent user. Owl-53 has posted detailed instructions for how to "start over clean" to really eliminate all those traces. But it takes ~ hours and is fairly involved. Perhaps Owl-53 will repost those instructions here ... it is what I would do if I had this problem.
Ironically those utilities you are using might be worse than a real virus. They have crippled your Mac.
jonfparis wrote:
Ok - the Acrobat version is 25.001.20756 dated Sept 29th.
I guess your mention of Microsoft is related to AV software. I started using Sophos after a trojan got onto my system many moons ago via a "bad" link. If you are telling me that Apple has improved security so much that I no longer need it then I'm more that happy to remove it.
The principal source of viruses, trojans, and other malware are intended for Microsoft installations. If you only download software from original vendor websites, the chances of encountering any malware approaches zero. Discipline yourself to do that.
You cannot install viruses, trojans, or other malware into macOS now because of that read-only operating system volume. If you ignore the previous paragraph and download software from non-vendor sites, you can potentially install adware/snoopware into non-system locations on your Mac as it will ask for your administrator password to do that. No anti-virus software is going to protect against human behavior issues…
CleanMyMac is a different issue as I use it for a number of things and a lot of applications don't clean up properly. I'll have to think about that.
We have reported here for years that CleanMyMac is tantamount to installing a virus on your Mac. It is not a panacea for application cleanup and should be removed if you can find any removal instructions. The fact that CleanMyMac can be found in the Mac App Store is because they knew how to game around the store acceptance requirements, and is not an Apple endorsement to use it.
As to updating to 15.7.1 I was not aware of it - so thanks for that info. The Mac usually tells me and I've seen nothing. I can't update to Tahoe - my machine is about 3 months too old!
Cannot repeat this with the just installed Acrobat Reader v25.001.20813 on Tahoe 26.0.1. Always mention the explicit application version number rather than "fully up-to-date" as that doesn't help us to clarify your version with what we may have installed.
How did you go about closing Adobe Acrobat Reader? Are you running any anti-virus software or so-called "cleaning applications?" It sounds like something else may have crashed your Mac. What else was running at the time and are you also running a beta version of macOS?
I cannot find a way to check the version number without loading the app and I am loathe to do that as I have a lot of time-critical tasks for today and can't afford another blow up. It was literally the version that the Adobe updater installed the day that this happened.
I closed it via the regular Close xxxx option on the menu bar.
Yes - both AV (Sophos 10.6.3) and CleanMyMac (5.2.8) running as a background task.
No - to beta versions. I'm running a vanilla Sequoia 15.6.1 .
Nothing else actively running other than whatever Safari might have been doing in the background.
One other thing - the Mac did not completely restart. It didn't require me to sign in or anything. It is just that all apps with the exception of Finder just disappeared. It was as if I had manully closed each one in turn.
Ok - the Acrobat version is 25.001.20756 dated Sept 29th.
I guess your mention of Microsoft is related to AV software. I started using Sophos after a trojan got onto my system many moons ago via a "bad" link. If you are telling me that Apple has improved security so much that I no longer need it then I'm more that happy to remove it.
CleanMyMac is a different issue as I use it for a number of things and a lot of applications don't clean up properly. I'll have to think about that.
As to updating to 15.7.1 I was not aware of it - so thanks for that info. The Mac usually tells me and I've seen nothing. I can't update to Tahoe - my machine is about 3 months too old!
Closing Acrobat reader closes ALL apps
