Intermittent freezes in macOS v6.0.21 when opening PDF files

alexcr87 · February 14, 2023

I have set Zotero to open PDF files using system default, yet when I click on an item, 1 time out of 100 Zotero will freeze for several seconds (anywhere between 5 and 60 seconds). During the freeze, the mouse pointer is shown as a spinning globe and the kernel_task process takes up a lot of CPU %. Then, the file finally opens.

I haven’t changed anything recently in e.g. plugins or external PDF reader. No other app freezes on my system, it’s working fine otherwise.

dstillman · February 14, 2023

Something like that would most likely be a problem with Launch Services (or some other system component) on your Mac, not a problem in Zotero itself. Zotero just opens the file via the system, and kernel_task is the system itself.

alexcr87 · February 15, 2023

Yeah I think you’re right. I just happened to use Zotero *a lot* in the past few days and the problem started at that moment, but I’ve noticed today that it also happened with other apps. Seems like a system issue indeed, and unrelated to Zotero.