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not yet ... it seems that any "system-dialog" which is related to file-actions causes that kind of freeze. e.g. in gpx-plugin: on opening "select files".

This problem seems to be linked to folder refresh in opening dialogues. If we have list view enabled and use the small arrow to expand folders, the problem disappears. If we have to open folders, QGIS will freeze in each opening for some seconds (sometimes more than 10). So, for now, to deal with this problem before a definitive solution, use list view in opening dialogues.
Cheers

list view is enabled by default on my mac. using the "small arrows" somehow really bypasses the problem in certain situations !

but it doesn't help for instance when you try to open data sources in "data source manager" (cmd + L). even if the default file/folder view is set to list, opening any file-related dialog triggers the (up to 15 sec) break and it freezes the whole system (which is pretty strange !).
since the data source manager still is the appropriate way to import f.i. csv-data properly (see https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/89269/how-to-change-a-csv-layer-attribute-value-from-text-to-number-once-again) this is a substantial issue.

Yes, robert, using the small arrows is only a way to circunvent this problem in certain situations. The bug must be corrected because there are more situations that it can occur than the ones where we can use small tricks to avoid it. This is now one of the only bugs that keep me from migrating to this new version.

We can minimize this problem for now by using the Browser Panel. Not the most desirable solution but still funcional. I've right clicked "Favorites" and created a few folders with my projects or layer sources. Browsing files with this option does not suffer from the lag that the system dialog boxes show.
Cheers

the faforites workaround is exactly the way i did it ;)
recent version 3.4.1 unfortunately doesn't solve the problem - do you know where i can download a 3.3 version for mac ?

... by the way: /Volumes entry in Browser Panel doesn't work either. workaround via Favorites is ok for this issue as well - but you have to be patient on opening the file-manager for specifying the favorites-entry ... 10 sec break.

This problem seems to be linked to William´s compilation being built against QT 5.11.1. If we compile directly from OSGeo4, for instance using the formula "brew install osgeo/osgeo4mac/qgis3" in the terminal, the resulting version is built against QT 5.11.2 and does not show this problem. However, unfortunately, SAGA modules are not mounted correctly in this version. William's compilation is more complete and functional to MacOS when compared to OSGeo4 one. The latest 3.4.1-4 version does not have any lag in High Sierra (10.13.6). This seems to be linked to the OS version.

I noted this same issue with Bug report #20323. Initially after installing via homebew using the osgeo formula everything worked well. Unfortunately, as of today its back to the same problem. Whenever I go to open a file dialog it will freeze the entire QGIS for 10 seconds for almost every action I click on in the file browser dialog. I do not have my Mac to automatically install updates so I don't think anything in Mojave changed. Very frustrating - especially since I thought I had remedied the problem.

it's frustrating indeed. in particular because there seems to be a lack on pre release testing for mac for quite a while. offering ressorces about two years ago didn't catch any attention and thus it's kind of a groundhog day sitiation on every release ...

robert kalasek wrote:

offering ressorces about two years ago didn't catch any attention

in the users mailing list? developers?

in bug report list and in gis.stackexchange.com

hi, same problem here and seems nothing has changed with the new version (3.4.2-1) on mojave 10.14.1 .

it's very frustrating... someone can do something to help us?

someone can do something to help us?

us who? macos users? your company/institution?

in my personal case "us" is academic teacher ... giving an introductory course to GIS for about 120 students a year and i am really interested in drawing attention to non commercial software.
on stackexchange somebody suggested to spend money for fixing that issue. i am sorry teachers usually aren't that prosperous so the only thing i can do is what i have done already ... offering pre release testing.
that could potentially help to release stable versions on all platforms. and propably that is what anybody expects - at least when it comes to LTR-releases.

Giovanni Manghi wrote:

someone can do something to help us?

us who? macos users? your company/institution?

is that really important?

Hi, confirming the same issue, 3.4.1-Madeira built with QT 5.11.1 on OSX Mojave (10.14.1) installed from the package that was published at https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html.

3.4.2-Madeira is now available there, built against QT 5.11.2. The issue still exists in this build.

As an aside, I've attempted install from brew to see if the problem exists there, but it fails to build:

==> cmake --build . --target all -- -j 4
Last 15 lines from /Users/hamish/Library/Logs/Homebrew/qgis3/31.cmake:
      QgsPythonUtilsImpl::PyObjectToQString(_object*) in qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp.o
  "_Py_Finalize", referenced from:
      QgsPythonUtilsImpl::exitPython() in qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp.o
  "_Py_Initialize", referenced from:
      QgsPythonUtilsImpl::init() in qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp.o
  "__Py_NoneStruct", referenced from:
      QgsPythonUtilsImpl::getTraceback() in qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp.o
      QgsPythonUtilsImpl::PyObjectToQString(_object*) in qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp.o
      QgsPythonUtilsImpl::getError(QString&, QString&) in qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp.o
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture x86_64
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

Hm, have rolled back to 3.2.3 and I'm still seeing the issue.

Hamish Campbell wrote:

Hm, have rolled back to 3.2.3 and I'm still seeing the issue.

me too

I have not been able to rebuild from homebrew unfortunately.

I've tried new profiles, deleting existing profiles, no change.

This closed report is the same #20323

What other info would be useful to provide?

I created a new profile and everything is working again without freezing or delays. I don't understand why though? Can anyone else confirm that if they create a new profile the file dialog is buttery smooth again? This is with 3.4.2 installed from homebrew.

Interesting. Creating the new profile has sped up QGIS is so many ways. I had a large vector layer that was slow to pan and zoom in and out of. It's like it wouldn't cache it properly. Since I created the new profile its absolutely amazing. I have very speedy zooming in and out of the layer. Again, I don't know what's up with the default profile but what a difference.

Willem Buitendyk wrote:

Interesting. Creating the new profile has sped up QGIS is so many ways. I had a large vector layer that was slow to pan and zoom in and out of. It's like it wouldn't cache it properly. Since I created the new profile its absolutely amazing. I have very speedy zooming in and out of the layer. Again, I don't know what's up with the default profile but what a difference.

bad code in 3rd party plugins, legacy configs.
Can we close this issue?

Giovanni Manghi wrote:

Willem Buitendyk wrote:

Interesting. Creating the new profile has sped up QGIS is so many ways. I had a large vector layer that was slow to pan and zoom in and out of. It's like it wouldn't cache it properly. Since I created the new profile its absolutely amazing. I have very speedy zooming in and out of the layer. Again, I don't know what's up with the default profile but what a difference.

bad code in 3rd party plugins, legacy configs.
Can we close this issue?

Note that Willem was using QGIS built from homebrew. Most people are reporting that homebrew builds are unaffected, but builds downloaded from QGIS.org still have the bug and replacing profiles doesn't appear to help. In my case, I've tested 3.2,3 3.4.1, 3.4.2 with empty profiles and no extra plugins.

Question: does anyone have 3.4.2, installed from the qgis.org binaries, working properly under Mojave?

i've started with a new profile when i reported that problem at the beginning of november. and (!) the first suggestions from Saber Razmjooei 30 days ago where pointing into the same direction. so that can't be the "solution". willem's note is a bit unspecific ... "speeds up QGIS in so many ways ...". yes it does - but it is not connecte to the "freezes issue" - as far is my qgis on my mac is concerned. i am still on qgis.org version and have tried 3.4.2 (as described 11 days ago). if anybody is interested i could supplement giovanni's feedback with a homebrew install + new profile + no plugins on mojave 10.14.1 mbp 13" with intel iris graphics 550

I had the same problem but found a way to avoid it, launching the executable file of QGIS from Terminal.app as
/Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS
It seems to be working fine. Try it.

macOS Mojave 10.14.2, QGIS 3.4.2-Madeira (downloaded from qgis.org)

Robert - it was indeed connected to freeze issues for me. Prior to creating a new profile I was experiencing the 10 second full freeze when trying to open a file. That was in fact the major problem I was experiencing. It just so happened that I also noticed the program was snappier overall - remarkably so. k tatami's response is interesting. Because I installed through home-brew its default method to launch QGIS is through the terminal of which I created a shortcut. It appears he's saying if you do the same with the package supplied by QGIS.org that it will remedy this as well. As a matter of fact, my first clue to try a new profile was because I decided to launch qgis3 from terminal with sudo which worked fine.

k takami wrote:

I had the same problem but found a way to avoid it, launching the executable file of QGIS from Terminal.app as
/Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS
It seems to be working fine. Try it.

macOS Mojave 10.14.2, QGIS 3.4.2-Madeira (downloaded from qgis.org)

Ah ha, yes I can confirm this works for me using iTerm.

This made me wonder if was something to do with system security preferences since iTerm already had additional Full Disk Access and Accessibility rights. I added QGIS3 (missing the Full Disk Access rights) however it made no difference to QGIS3 launched from Launchpad.

At least its usable now, and this should be a pretty big clue as to the underlying cause.

k takami:

I had the same problem but found a way to avoid it, launching the executable file of QGIS from Terminal.app as
/Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS
It seems to be working fine. Try it.

macOS Mojave 10.14.2, QGIS 3.4.2-Madeira (downloaded from qgis.org)

Also can confirm this method is working, the new profile did not provide a solution, same freezing occurred when opening to a new profile and still persisted when default had been removed from folder, leaving only new profile.

So, to summarize, when launched with Launch Services, the bug manifests. Clearing Info.plist doesn't make a difference.

just started brew install via brew install osgeo/osgeo4mac/qgis3 ... at a glance on install process i saw something like "python 3.7.x installed in cellar" which leaves me nevous. python 3.6. was running pretty well on my mac and i once had 3.6. and 3.7. confusion with tons of trobles to get rid of them. did anybody have python-troubles after brew install ???

unfortunatly brew install didn't work on my machine. almost everything is there, but the qgis3 folder in usr/local/Cellar/ is missing.

unfortunatly brew install didn't work on my machine. almost everything is there, but the qgis3 folder in usr/local/Cellar/ is missing. the log-files from ~/Library/Logs/Homebrew/qgis3 show a huge amount of log-files, where some of the indicate that files have been added to /usr/local/Cellar/qgis3/3.4.2_1/ without errors - yet, the folder qgis3 is missing in ./Cellar at the end of the install process. homebrew's feedback in the terminal doesn't show any specific messages either....

thx to peter petrik and his post in [https://github.com/OSGeo/homebrew-osgeo4mac/issues/553] i have found a version that doesn't trigger a system freeze every time a file-related acitivity is started. most users on OSGeo suggested the homebrew-version, which didn't work for me - potenially due to a python 3.6 - 3.7 problem. homebrew removed the qgis3-install folders before finishing the install every time.
packages provided by lutraconsulting here work fine and do not cause the freeze: https://lutraconsulting.github.io/qgis-mac-packager/packages. ... so, that is no solution but a promising workaround !

that package uses python 3.7 (!) which might cause troubles - thus my next step will be to find out how to switch from 3.6.x to 3.7. without affecting anything that is doing it's job right now. any recomendation concerning this python-swich are highly appreciated !

I do confirm that version 3.4.3 is also affected by this issue.

k takami wrote:

I had the same problem but found a way to avoid it, launching the executable file of QGIS from Terminal.app as
/Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS
It seems to be working fine. Try it.

macOS Mojave 10.14.2, QGIS 3.4.2-Madeira (downloaded from qgis.org)

I'm having the same freezing issue with 3.4.3 (and had it with earlier versions - all from qgis.org). The terminal launch absolutely solves the problem. Great work around.

after removing everithing that i've been trying the last two months (from homebrew to lutraconsulting and any existing version of any existing pyhton) i started from sratch by
- installing python 3.6.8 from python.org
- installing qgis 3.4.3 from qgis.org
and tried to start via terminal with "open -n /Applications/QGIS3.app" - with a new profile.

and i still get the system freeze ... so starting from terminal is not a workaround ! - at least not for me.
opening file dialogue causes a 10 - 13sec freez and even worse any single hop within the folder hierarchy results in a 10-13sec system freeze.

(... on march 4th i am going to start a lecture/course with about 120 students - about 15 of them with mac. no idea how to handle that because none of them is able to homebrew or switch from python 3.7 back to 3.6 with massive terminal use ... and: sorry, i do not have ressources to start a funding initiative)

rk mbp 10.14.2 / 13" 2016 / 3.3 I7 / 16GB

try this instead:
open /Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS

woooo ... pretty strange: "open /Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS" works ! thx a lot

Hi @robert,
you should not open it using:

$ open -n /Applications/QGIS3.app

$ /Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS

#!/bin/bash
/Applications/QGIS3.app/Contents/MacOS/QGIS

This issue is confirmed for v 3.4.4 too. See also #21070

I am not able to replicate the issue on my computer, but I made some research on QFileDialog issues.

For the launch from terminal vs launch from Launch Services: Homebrew QGIS package uses the bash script to launch QGIS.app. Lutra's package does not use the bash script and launches QGIS directly. I assume the same for official QGIS package.

QGIS uses QFileDialog class directly, which uses native MacOS dialog. Calls to QFileDialog are simply QFileDialog::getOpenFile() with pretty much no extra options, so it is very unlikely that QGIS code causes the problems. So the problem may be in:

1) QGIS package (e.g. bash script, direct call, different Info.plist package description, environment settings for the package, linked libraries, ...)
2) QT upstream issue in QFileDialog (and there are some open issues in their tracker)
3) MacOS native file dialog issue (e.g. QGIS package(s) compiled with different XCode and supported-os/sdk flags)
4) Local issue (e.g. see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2586901)
4a) default dialog folder is set up to the directory with a lot of files
4b) disk is (almost) full or heavily fragmented
4c) connected some slow network drive
4d) some unreliable hardware (external disk, usb flash disk, ...)
4e) anti-virus

It would be beneficial for debugging to know:
- if the bug is reproducible (after restart of PC, after restart of QGIS, with the different OS user, safe-mode, ...?)
- if on the same computer it happens with all packages or just official one
- if the bug can be observed only for QGIS or also for some other (QT based) applications
- if it is reproducible from system Python installation by doing something along the lines 'from PyQt5.QtCore import *; d = QFileDialog()'.

Thanks for any hints/observations...

surprising that you couldn't replicate ...
concering 4b to 4e i can provide information:
- disk is at about 75% of 500GB, not fragmentet
- network is gigabit and the problem exists with and without network connection
- no external hardware
- anti-virus: due to company reguation -> symantec endpoint protection 14.2.0

- bug is reproducible after restart of the MB, after restart of QGIS, just tested with MacOS 10.14.x
- just with the official one, homebrew version failt to install due to a python issue, lutraconsulting worked but uses python 3.7

hmm, I heavily suspect that this could be simple as that Qt 5.11 does not support Mojave (https://blog.qt.io/blog/2018/11/08/qt-macos-10-14-mojave/), and maybe connected with Mojave's "Core Animation (CA) layer backing is enabled for all native views". This would explain why it is not happening on Lutra's and homebrew installations, since we are already on 5.12 for some time. Also would explain why I cannot replicate, since I use Qt 5.12 for development. Can you please check in your QGIS Menu -> About dialog -> "Compiled against Qt?"

qgis verion: 3.4.3, compiled against qt 5.11.2 (running against too) ...
(just to get you right: official qgis LTR uses QT version which is not supporting current OS release ?)

That Qt blog didn't say anything specific about file dialog problems.

I don't want to make such a major change in a LTR, who knows what else may break, or what other limitations may be introduced. One limitation I do see is that the minimum macOS SDK version is now 10.13 (with a new min target 10.12) - I would have to upgrade my system to build with Qt 5.12 (currently at 10.12, and 10.13 is max for my Mac). And we would lose support for 10.11, currently in the LTR. This "fix" should wait for QGIS 3.6.

What about APFS? This new file system is optional in macOS High Sierra, but forced in Mojave for SSD drives (and with the latest update I think it also forces it on spinning drives). This could affect file dialogs, and would be likely fixed by Qt 5.12. Though I suspect Qt had this figured out already, since APFS was released with High Sierra, before Mojave and Qt 5.12. ...hmmm, I did hear about a version update for APFS, maybe that broke older Qt 5.11.

For the terminal start workaround: note that when running this way, QGIS gets the terminal environment. Normal double-click (ie Launch Services) starting gives any application an empty environment (though QGIS does get some environment). So maybe there is something in the terminal environment that helps QGIS/Qt with file dialogs. If this can be identified, adding it to the QGIS environment (QGIS Preferences-System) may be a good workaround, or solution if it's something that can be coded into QGIS.

I've checked and compared environment settings for QGIS running via terminal vs open and I can't find any differences that change the behaviour.

One observation: as well as stalling on opening file dialogs, it will stall very early in the boot process. Since I assume QGIS isn't silently called out to `QFileDialog` during the boot process, it seems like the root cause is something deeper. What could be happening in boot that also happens when the file dialog is opened?

based on https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey December 2018 results, 50% of Mac users already use 10.14.x , 30% 10.13.x and only 20% 10.12.x. Not sure what is the QGIS user base distribution.

(Um, that survey is for STEAM, a game platform)

just was able to verify yaroslav vasyunin's approach. it worked (!!!)
but for some reasons it seemed suspicious to me - i have reactivated the privacy/accessibility for QGIS 3.4.3 - and it still works. even after restart oft the machine -> no freezes.
summary: i still don't have the system-freezes even though the original settings are applied again.
strange it is.

Interesting. QGIS does not show up in the Security-Accessibility app list on Sierra, and I don’t know why QGIS would explicitly want to be able to control the computer, so I wonder if Mojave saw something in Qt that is not used by QGIS that it thinks is an Accessibility function.

One thing to try - remove QGIS from the accessibility app list. Does QGIS file dialog problem return? Is QGIS added back to the list (and is it checked or not), or does QGIS ask about accessibility?

If this workaround can be verified, I’ll add it to the readme.

just tested with the latest release 3.4.4 from qgis org - download 2019-02-05, 18:30 (version is compiled against QT 5.11.2).
- removed qgis3 from the accessibility app list
- reactivated qgis3 on the accessibility app list again

the freeze doesn't show up again. qgis doesn't ask for anything no matter if activated or deactivated. and qgis3 seems to work with both settings without any problems so far.

and i just try to remember an issue i had some time ago with the privacy/accessibility settings. i think it was something about using trackpad on mac - but i am not sure and i couln't find something related to that topic via google !

Heh, seems I got so so close to a workaround earlier :D

https://issues.qgis.org/issues/20381#note-33
Hamish Campbell wrote:

This made me wonder if was something to do with system security preferences since iTerm already had additional Full Disk Access and Accessibility rights. I added QGIS3 (missing the Full Disk Access rights) however it made no difference to QGIS3 launched from Launchpad.

At least its usable now, and this should be a pretty big clue as to the underlying cause.

Can confirm that the work around works for me too.