How to find out why finder hangs when “as List” / “as Columns” / “as Cover Flow” on Yosemite

Question

After a while, View -> as List and View -> as Columns and View -> as Cover Flow stop working: the Finder window will not update at all, or - for the Cover Flow the "selection" part will not show a selection but the Cover Flow itself will follow selection changes.

A temporary workaround is the solution at Finder doesn't work since Yosemite

But after a while, the issue starts to appear again.

Obviously something is interfering with Finder, but I've no idea where and how to get started, so:

How can I narrow this down to a cause?

I run a late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro with Yosemite (10.9.5) and a truckload of stuff including:

• SwitchResX (I've disabled the extensions: no change in behaviour)
• DropBox
• Google Drive
• brew
• gfxCardStatus
• TunnelBlick

Answer 1

The problem is/was Google Drive. As of early October they silently released a new version 1.32 that might have solved the problem but since that one hasn't reached my system yet I will get back to it later has solved the problem. All the versions since then work fine, including the new "Backup and Sync".

Version 1.31 intermittently fails only on Mac OS X Mavericks (10.9.5) but disabling the visual notifications solves it; upgrading to a newer version also solves the problem.

Some references:

• others having the same issue: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/TeXBYS4qH0g and https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/rzdrkYWlgGc
• solving on Mavericks: https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-google-drive-crashing-finder-in-mavericks/
• version 1.32: http://www.macworld.co.uk/download/internet-tools/google-drive-13233635836-3328202/