Since no one else is mentioning it so far, I decided to make this a separate post rather than a comment under your SpamSieve 3.1.2 topic. Two unexpected behaviors started immediately after updating:
In version 3.1.1 and earlier, clicking on an Uncertain Spam notification would automatically open the SS log, take me directly to that log entry, and auto-dismiss the notification. Now in 3.1.2, clicking on an Uncertain Spam score alert causes SS Settings to open.
When SpamSieve settings opens, the dock icon now appears even though Show Dock Icon is unchecked under Advanced Settings. The dock icon remains even after closing the Settings window. I tried checking and unchecking Show Dock icon and quitting/restarting SS, but the dock icon still reappears. The only way I’ve found that does remove it is to close and reopen Apple Mail. I have “Quit when mail client quits” selected and this finally forces SS to respect the fact that Show Dock Icon is not checked—even though quitting/restarting SS by itself is now failing to respect this setting.
Did you update SpamSieve before or after updating to macOS 15.4.
Looking at the code history, I don’t think anything related to this has changed since before 3.1.1, and it’s still working as expected for me. Does the Log window still open or only the Settings window?
Apps don’t have full control over whether they’re displayed in the Dock. Please see here for how you can tell macOS that you want it removed.
Did you update SpamSieve before or after updating to macOS 15.4.
I updated SpamSieve before updating to macOS 15.4. Now that you mention it, this issue may have appeared NOT after updating to SpamSieve 3.1.2, but only after updating to macOS 15.4!
Does the Log window still open or only the Settings window?
Only the Settings window. I have to open the Log window manually.
Apps don’t have full control over whether they’re displayed in the Dock. Please see here for how you can tell macOS that you want it removed.
I clicked on “To hide SpamSieve’s Dock icon, click this link.” more than a year ago and it had been working ever since. I just tried clicking on it again and restarting Apple Mail/SpamSieve, but unfortunately the issue is still happening.
I’ve already done a full macOS restart several times, but I’ll try it again. If that doesn’t resolve it, I’ll see if I can think of any other reasons why (as far as we know at this time) this issue is only happening to me…
…this issue may have appeared NOT after updating to SpamSieve 3.1.2, but only after updating to macOS 15.4!
I’m not totally sure though… It’s possible I just didn’t interact with any Uncertain Spam alerts until after upgrading to macOS 15.4, so it’s hard to say.
Is it possible that the SpamSieve app is not actually running before you click the notification?
SpamSieve is definitely running when I click the notification. I see it in the menu bar. Even if I open the log manually, then click the alert, it opens settings instead of navigating to that spam item.
I just went back to this page to try the other suggestions:
Remove from Dock does not appear in my menu, but I did see and unchecked Keep in Dock. However, the icon remains—even after closing the Settings window!
Dragging the SpamSieve icon off the dock shows a Remove tooltip while dragging. Yet when I let go of it far away from the Dock, it just snaps back to the Dock—again even after making sure all visible SS windows are closed.
The SS icon is not in the recent applications section. It’s in the main Dock.
The only thing that works is restarting Apple Mail and letting it restart SpamSieve. Then the SS icon is gone from the dock.
I finally decided to search for the spam appearing in this Uncertain Spam score alert by email address. I found it in the log and it had already been manually marked as spam. So it appears at least that part of clicking on the alert still works. At this point I manually deleted the alert in case there’s a bug specifically with this alert. I’ll wait for the next Uncertain Spam notification and let you know how it goes.
OK, it’s unclear what’s happening here, then. I will need to add some debug logging to trace what’s happening on your Mac. I don’t think there’s a path from clicking the notification to SpamSieve opening the Settings window unless, for some reason, macOS is just telling SpamSieve to open instead of sending it the notification info.
It sounds like you didn’t first quit SpamSieve, as those instructions said.
Did you try hiding that section, anyway?
I don’t understand what you mean here. Clicking on the notification doesn’t train it as spam.
What do you mean by “deleted the alert”? Don’t notifications already disappear when you click on them?
It sounds like you didn’t first quit SpamSieve, as those instructions said.
Correct. That’s because if I quit SpamSieve, there wouldn’t be any Dock icon to right-click on as I’ve always kept “Show suggested and recent apps in Dock” disabled.
Did you try hiding that section, anyway?
I’ve always kept it hidden. (See above.) BTW, I know it can be difficult to troubleshoot a system without any visual information, so thanks for being so thorough as usual.
I don’t understand what you mean here. Clicking on the notification doesn’t train it as spam.
My mistake. Yes, I remember that we have to manually click Train as Spam or Train as Good once the target email is selected.
What do you mean by “deleted the alert”? Don’t notifications already disappear when you click on them?
Yes, these notifications normally disappear immediately after I click on them, but that’s another facet of this anomaly. Despite clicking on it numerous times, this one never disappeared. I finally closed it manually earlier today.
I’ll let you know how it goes next time I get an Uncertain Spam notification.
OK, this is very strange, and I have no idea what’s going on. It sounds like you’re saying that the Dock icon is hidden with SpamSieve quit (good, indicates it’s not manually in the Dock or shown as a recent item), and that it’s hidden right after launch (good, indicates that SpamSieve is reading and applying the preference), but that at some time after launch it appears in the Dock? The only code in the app that ever shows the Dock icon is when you click the special link in the documentation.
It sounds like there must be an OS issue here. The notifications are not under control of the app at all.
I’ll work on adding some debug logging to further investigate both issues.
I have some good news! I received two Uncertain Spam notifications today and everything is back to normal. I click a notification, it opens the SpamSieve log and selects that item in the log. The other anomalies (opening SpamSieve settings window instead of the log, displaying the SpamSieve icon on the Dock despite being set to not do that, and the notification having to be manually closed) have all ceased. All is working as expected again.
BTW, the icon wasn’t suddenly appearing at some random time. It appeared as soon as the notification was clicked and the SpamSieve settings window opened (for some reason).
Even though it would have been ideal to figure out why all this was occurring, I’m glad it’s over. I agree this was almost certainly a macOS 15.4 glitch activated by factors specific to that particular notification. It even persisted across macOS restarts!
In any case, hopefully this news arrives before you spend time creating custom debug logging. I really appreciate your legendary dedication to troubleshooting customer issues. But I can imagine there are tons other things awaiting your attention! Thanks again.
P.S. It just occurred to me that I may have been running macOS in Safe Mode when the troublesome Uncertain Spam notification appeared. I was troubleshooting some macOS Messages issues.
After restarts, I was back in normal mode. However, for that notification maybe the damage had already been done. I have no idea if or how Safe Mode could be related to what happened, but it might be a useful hint for someone with deeper knowledge of macOS, notifications, and SpamSieve.
If there is a connection, it could make this issue repeatable, although I would prefer to avoid spending any more time on this—at least until taxes are done.
