Ask HN: Why doesn't Podcasts app quit on macOS when you quit it (e.g., cmd-q)? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why doesn't Podcasts app quit on macOS when you quit it (e.g., cmd-q)?

4 pointsamichail11 comments

You can tell it is still running via Activity Monitor (probably to finish its current refresh).

Quitting it from Activity Monitor works.

What is this happening?

In Activity Monitor on macOS 12.6 I see “PodcastContentService” running but not “Podcasts” itself. Are you seeing the latter?

Side note: It appears that PodcastContentService continues to fetch data via nsurlsessiond after the Podcasts app has been quit. These outgoing requests by nsurlsessiond—to hosts such as wnyc.org—were made apparent by Little Snitch permission prompts.

Update: PodcastContentService continues to run >5 minutes after quitting Podcasts, so perhaps it's a service that is always running, and maybe is unrelated to OP's question. I haven't checked whether PodcastContentService was running before I opened the Podcasts app.

Update two: I saw the Podcasts app in Activity Monitor a few minutes later. It disappeared within a few seconds though. It seems to have started on its own.

Yes, I am seeing Podcasts itself. I'm subscribed to many podcasts so the refresh probably takes a while.

You answered your own question?

How is that? I expect an app to quit immediately via cmd-q.

No. The question was not 'how do I force the app to terminate' but 'why doesn't it terminate in the normal fashion?' A lot of tech people have a very bad habit of ignoring the question that was asked and answering one they think was meant, or a related question that they happen to have an answer to. This isn't helpful to the person asking the question.

It works as intended the dev can choose if he wants to invoke NSTerminateNow, NSTerminateCancel or NSTerminateLater if someone hits cmd+q. Writing condescending comments instead of contributing to the topic is also really helpful. bleh.

My reason for quitting Podcasts is to reduce CPU usage from the refresh.

Having to quit it from Activity Monitor after cmd-q is very annoying.

You can force close it instead of Command+q by using Option+Command+Esc.

@anigbrowl looks like the question really was how he can force close it..........

Interestingly, you don't need to force quit in Activity Monitor. After cmd-q in Podcasts, sending a normal quit signal via Activity Monitor works.

It's mainly because Activity Monitor and Force Close Apps send "terminate" instead of the "applicationShouldTerminate" from cmd+q.

Thanks for clarifying the issue!

I consider this a bug in Podcasts then since a refresh can be very CPU intensive and the user would naturally quit the app to reduce CPU usage but doing that surprisingly doesn't work.

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