For the last some weeks a serious issue has emerged on my Mac Pro (trashcan) server running the current (10.15.5) and penultimate (10.15.4) versions of Catalina . This is a systemwide issue and affects all applications, so not specific to Scrivener. Nonetheless, it’s impact on Scrivener is severe. When using the OpenAndSavePanelService top open or save files the service freezes for 20–30 seconds after briefly working (~5 seconds). Eventually, whatever is blocking the service resolves itself and the file dialog works as expected. The issues affects all software that use the OpenAndSavePanelService but not software using other file open and save dialogs., eg. the GIMP and Blender. This is perhaps an Apple issue however, it impacts the usability of Scrivener. I was under the impression that Catalina 10.15.5 solved this issue, but alas, no. For what its worth, my system has a Aura Pro SSD startup disk, two Thunderbolt-connected Mercury Elite Pro dual drive enclosures (one raid, one not), a usb 3.0 backup hub, and 64G memory.
I attach a screenshot of the Activity Monitor with the frozen process. At this point the process is consuming 87.2 percent of CPU following a peak above 130%.
The evidence is right there in your screenshot. The frozen operation is in the Apple AppKit. It’s invoked by Scrivener, but it’s Apple’s code.
However, I also notice that Dropbox is consuming 130% of your CPU, which seems excessive as well. Are you attempting to open to or save from the Dropbox folder? Do you see different behavior if you temporarily disable Dropbox?
Shutting down Dropbox does not prevent an OpenAndSavePanelService freeze when opening the panel. That said, Dropbox appears to have its own issues with recent the OS upgrades when the Dropbox folder has a large number of files.
Have you tried re-installing the OS from the recovery mode? I had to do that recently when my applescripts started throwing odd errors, and the script editor wouldn’t recognize applescript as a language. Once that reinstall was done, everything went back to normal. I didn’t even have to re-do any setup or installations.
Hi, I was able to take the time to reinstall Catalina. Unfortunately, this does not correct the issue with the OpenAndSavePanelService. It continues to temporarily lock up when I attempt to sue the OpenAndSavePanelService to open or save a file in Scrivener. Sorry. This may be Apple’s bad, and I really like Scrivener, but the issue is pretty serious (not to mention supremely annoying).
