Annoying message when I log out of my Mac

You appear to have fragments of at least three VPNs installed, and likely more.

A virtual private network, or VPN, is a private connection over the Internet from a device to a specific network.  VPN technology is widely used in corporate environments. If you need to be "present" on an institutional network, a VPN is a great tool for accomplishing this. It is generally issued and controlled by the institution.

Almost all other uses are a SCAM. There is generally no need for you to have a private (and almost always MUCH slower) connection to a VPN vendor's Network, except to make it easier for them to harvest your data to sell. If you are behind a Router you control or Trust, there is NO security advantage whatsoever in using a VPN. Your connections are already encrypted in most cases.

If VPN vendors just stopped there, it would be bad. But many of these packages also insist on scanning all your files, non-stop, -- nominally looking for viruses, but who knows for sure what data they are harvesting. Their non-stop file reading punishes your computer's performance in the process.

Some also break into your other secure connections so they can be FIRST to examine your data, often leaving your Mac MORE vulnerable to attack.

What VPN service to use?

DON'T use VPN services

https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

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simply disabling an installed VPN is seldom adequate to remove its far-ranging effects. only completely Un-Installing with the developer's un-install process is generally sufficient. 

VPNs:

    [Loaded] DuckDuckGo VPN Network Extension - /Applications/DuckDuckGo.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/DuckDuckGo VPN.app

    [Loaded] PlanetX Tunnel - /Applications/VPN Canada.app

    [Loaded] StarGuard Tunnel - /Applications/VPN Canada.app

also thís:

com.free.vpn.canada.planet.launcher (App Store - installed 2026-04-28)

    Modern Login Item

    /Applications/VPN Canada.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/Launcher.app

re:

Google image search says:

The icon you uploaded represents a custom Alfred Workflow icon (specifically resembling workflows like WHOIS Lookup) or a customized variant of a system networking layout used within Alfred for Mac.

Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network to see which applications have requested that access.

More info: Control access to your local network on Mac - Apple Support

Note that you can secondary-click (control click, right click) on an app in the list and select Show in Finder to locate the app.

That message occurs when an application explicitly requests local network capabilities through system code. Since the application is listed as 'unknown' it may be an old request triggered by components of a deleted app. It might help to download and run EtreCheck, written by a long-time forum member. The free version is fine. Post the full report using the Additional Text button. No personal information is revealed. The applications and extensions installed will be shown.

Popups continued after removing Epson and despite deleting Sonos Menu Bar controller it remained in the network access area of privacy... there is no clean way to remove that, it has no uninstaller and their own team couldn't see why there would be a problem.

I spent over 3 hours yesterday in a chat with Apple support and went through a variety of things (many I thought pointless, but what do I know?) and the conclusion was I need a telephone appointment to discuss.

They suspect VPN or some other third-party security is blocking the refresh of my profile. Again I'm very sceptical as my Mac Mini has exactly the same issue and I have no VPN installed on that. Not convinced they know what the problem is either.

One thing we did do was create a test profile and that showed no issues.

So being totally fed up with the whole thing, I took that approach on the Mac Mini and created myself new profile, ditched the old one and FIXED the issue.

It's definitely the Sonos Menu Bar Controller. Their advice was to install it, the also their Lite version to migrate my licence then delete Lite again. When I did that I then had two Network access items instead of one and the problem came back. So I removed the Sonos app again and the popup went away, as well as the network access entries. I've reported this and for now will use the Sonos web controller instead. All a bit rubbish really as that controller was really handy and the watch version (Lyd) is still working fine and is really good.

It will be interesting to see what Apple come up with on Friday when I have my call, but if it turns into another saga like yesterday, I'll just take the "new profile" approach and cut them short.

S500MON wrote: My call with Apple produced nothing. Tried a reinstall of MacOS27 and still had the problem.

Reinstalling macOS over top of itself will not fix anything these days because macOS is stored on a read-only signed & sealed system volume.

Lost some data (annoyed) when I wiped MacHD and started again totally from scratch. This cured the problem, I thought, so I upgraded back to MacOS27 and hey presto, the annoying popup came back. All this without installing Sonos or Epson apps…

But did you restore from a backup during this testing? If so, then you likely brought the problem back. When you erase the system it is critical to test the system thoroughly before installing any third party apps, or restoring from a backup.

If you install an older version of macOS and it worked fine. The next step would be to upgrade to macOS 27 to see how the system works.....again....all before you install any third party apps or restore from a backup.  If you do not encounter the issue under these conditions, then macOS 27 is not the problem.

You can easily get a clean macOS 27 installation by using the "Erase All Content & Settings" assuming you are currently running macOS 27 (this process is quick).  Go through initial setup and create a new macOS user account. Do not install any third party apps yet. Do not restore from a backup.  If everything is fine, then the next step would be to install one third party app at a time......making sure to test the system & especially that third party app thoroughly to see if the issue occurs. If everything is still fine, then install the next third party app....rinse & repeat until you find the culprit.   

Interestingly when I did install the Sonos controlled (after the wipe and reinstall), it remembers my license details, even though it’s not supposed to! How does that happen after wiping the HD and going back to MacOS26?

Like I suspect, you probably restored from a backup & brought the authentication back as well as bringing back the problem.  I'm assuming that the Sonos licensing is not happening because you logged into Sonos.

I have tried looking at what logs I know but they show nothing.

Ignore the system logs as they are not useful for troubleshooting these days. Only Apple has any hope of possibly finding something useful in those logs.

There is nothing funky in settings, network or otherwise.

I never thought the Networking part of System Settings had anything to do with this problem.

Some app.....most likely a third party app is suddenly requesting to access your local network for some reason.  I usually encounter this when accessing certain websites and I always deny such requests because my browsers have no reason to look at my network, much less some website.  This may even occur with Safari, although I don't recall.

It looks like you have two of some entries there in the "Local Network" Locations System Settings. Sonos and Epson don't appear to be playing very nicely with macOS there. Perhaps the old version of their app is still lingering around within macOS, or maybe these are different aspects for those items (unfortunately app developers and Apple don't make things very clear in these "Privacy & Security" System Settings....at least they all have recognizable name.

Maybe completely uninstall the Sonos & Epson software....reboot the system. Check that those apps no longer show up anywhere within the "Privacy & Security" System Settings. If clean, then reinstall those apps with their most recent versions. Make sure their software is fully compatible with macOS 27. Just manually deleting the software (aka moving it to the Trash) may not be sufficient. You need to follow the developers' instructions for actually uninstalling their apps. If remnants remain there, then you will need to contact those developers on how to completely remove themselves from macOS. Theoretically once the app is fully uninstalled & removed, then those entries should disappear (I am not certain that is actually the case).

This all assumes that the app causing your error actually ended up with an entry in the "Local Networks" Location System Settings in the first place. These two apps would be my first guess though with those double entries.

Normally if you just launched an app for the first time, it may prompt you to allow/deny certain privacy & security related options. With other apps, the app may not prompt you until you try to use a specific feature which in this case is when the app is trying to access the local network to look for other devices on your local network.

Unfortunately it may be very difficult to figure out which app is involved.

The best thing to do is select "Don't Allow". When you use an app which is unable to access other devices on your local network, then you may finally know which app this is so you will then need to go into the Privacy & Security System Settings.....selecting the "Local Network" option and manually enable/allowing the app to access the local network.

S500MON wrote:

Sorry but can you explain that in plain English as I have no idea what it means or what to check….

<< how do I find out what App this is? >>

To provide more information, I just captured the Icon in your error message and had google images "look it up".

That was its answer.

If that is not familiar, or does not move you toward a solution, just ignore it.

when presented with a problem, but no clear path to a solution, my practice has always been to remediate what you KNOW is not right, then re-evaluate. Sometimes the symptoms change enough that the solution pops out at you.

This appears to be something related to network or local-network access.

Have you un-installed all traces of those invasive VPN's?

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one additional item I suggest is to make sure you allow Apple Discovery Protocol (formerly Bonjour Discovery Protocol) to function on your local Network, so that it can find your speakers and printers and other devices in the background.

settings > network > Wi-Fi | Ethernet > (details) > TCP/IP ...

...and set 'Configure IPv6' to "Link-Local Only" -- NOT OFF

I think I have two "orphans" here as the icons are grey, but this may be a red herring as I still get the message even after turning these off. Finder is unable to locate the Sonos one. The grey Epson one does find a file but I've never been keen on simply deleting a file without understanding the implications.

Thanks for all the comments so far!

Removing Epson is easy, the Sonos controller less so. I got all sorts of errors and ended up trying to put it back.

I don't effectively have it installed now, but still have entries (they keep growing) in the Privacy/ Network settings. Finder cannot locate any files and I still have my original error...

S500MON wrote:

Removing Epson is easy, the Sonos controller less so. I got all sorts of errors and ended up trying to put it back.

I don't effectively have it installed now, but still have entries (they keep growing) in the Privacy/ Network settings. Finder cannot locate any files and I still have my original error...

FWIW if a 3rd party System Extension is sneaked to Catalina or earlier, then it might be locked in the later upgraded sealed macOS, and the only way to get rid of it is a "clean" install.

I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that, then I'll be REALLY annoyed.

I still have numerous files associated with the Sonos app even though it's supposed to be removed...

This is getting beyond my level of experience now

I don't see any mention of Sonos in the EtreCheck report. See if the Sonos app has any "uninstall" option in the Sonos Settings/Preferences, or within any Sonos menu. Otherwise, you may just need to manually delete the Sonos app from the Applications folder. See if that makes any difference to the appearance of "Sonos" in the "Local Network" settings.

If this doesn't help, then you will most likely need to contact Sonos for support. If they are unable or unwilling to fix this problem for you, then maybe you should re-think the use of their software. I was going to get Sonos some years ago, but decided against them because I did not like how they do business (I hear things are even worse now).

Otherwise you may need to resort to the nuclear option suggested by @Matti Haveri.

Did the pop-ups stop after uninstalling the Epson software?

My call with Apple produced nothing.

Tried a reinstall of MacOS27 and still had the problem.

Lost some data (annoyed) when I wiped MacHD and started again totally from scratch.

This cured the problem, I thought, so I upgraded back to MacOS27 and hey presto, the annoying popup came back.

All this without installing Sonos or Epson apps…

Interestingly when I did install the Sonos controlled (after the wipe and reinstall), it remembers my license details, even though it’s not supposed to! How does that happen after wiping the HD and going back to MacOS26?

I have tried looking at what logs I know but they show nothing.

There is nothing funky in settings, network or otherwise.

I have ANOTHER call with Apple tomorrow, but right now I’m devoid of ideas and losing patience with it all.

Surely there must be some way to log and interrogate what the Mac is trying to grant access to?

I will see what happens then, but right now it seems like a choice between living with the annoyance, going back to MacOS26 (again) or moving back to Windows after more than a decade with a Mac…

FYI: I’m encountering exactly the same problem on an M5 MBP.

No “migration” was performed; the box is still almost “factory stock.”

I think I’ve still only installed fewer than 5x small pieces of “non-Apple-provided” software.

(All currently still in active development and all of which have been run on prior Macs for years)

Have not yet performed any of the troubleshooting and isolation steps outlined in this thread; but will in the coming days and apprise.

However, considering that icon services has crashed 6 times, that may be an icon left over from something else:

2026-09-19 10:52:07 iconservicesd Crash (6 times)

    First occurrence: 2026-09-15 17:18:18

    Executable: /System/Library/CoreServices/iconservicesd

While it is possible to run "all that stuff" including Apple intelligence in your only 8GB Real RAM, it is extremely likely to cause performance issues:

Virtual Memory Information:

Physical RAM: 8 GB

Free RAM: 83 MB

Used RAM: 6.66 GB

Cached files: 1.26 GB

Available RAM: 1.34 GB

Swap Used: 1.78 GB

the amount of Swap used suggests your Mac is spending a great deal of time and energy moving things through swap space on the boot drive.

A computer with more real RAM may be required to do all the things you want to do, in an appropriately-responsive way.

Given that I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled from scratch, unless that does do what was expected I’m struggling to understand what you are suggesting.

If email, internet surfing and a little home office work needs a massive amount of resources then I’m not sure how and standard Mac can cope.

I’m not experiencing any lags, it certainly doesn’t feel slow and that wasn’t the topic of my enquiry on here.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

S500MON wrote:

Sorry but can you explain that in plain English as I have no idea what it means or what to check….

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/d9bbfb32-b374-4b8c-892d-fa38f1e4fbab

<< how do I find out what App this is? >>

To provide more information, I just captured the Icon in your error message and had google images "look it up".

That was its answer.

If that is not familiar, or does not move you toward a solution, just ignore it.

This looks like the icon for "Local Network" in the "Privacy & Security" System Settings:

Continued...

I have ANOTHER call with Apple tomorrow, but right now I’m devoid of ideas and losing patience with it all.

Try erasing your system using the Apple link I provided in this post assuming you are still running macOS 27. This is the only way of solving the problem unless Apple gets lucky finding some reason for the issue in your system logs (assuming Apple even asked you to send your system logs to them).

Surely there must be some way to log and interrogate what the Mac is trying to grant access to?

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any thing.

I agree completely that Apple's privacy & security notices here need a lot more work because they don't clearly explain anything to their users about exactly why an app is actually requesting such access. Even highly technical users usually have no idea why an app is asking for any special privileges in many cases.  

I would really like such notices to explain exactly why the app wants access and allow the user to only grant access for this one case for this very specific event, and to ask for access for any different new event. Without more information & granular control....all of this privacy & security is a joke because we are still giving access for very broad use cases.

I will see what happens then, but right now it seems like a choice between living with the annoyance, going back to MacOS26 (again) or moving back to Windows after more than a decade with a Mac…

I had a more detailed post until the website lost everything I typed here. Long story short.......most people have no need to immediately upgrade to a new OS. Ignore all of Apple's hype & pushing for upgrades in the Software Update System Settings. Take your time to research the new OS (both its new features, existing features which may have changed or been removed, and any bugs or other issues the early adopters are having).  Plus verify all your third party apps are fully compatible with the new OS.  The longer you wait to upgrade, the more likely the upgrade will go smoothly assuming you don't have junk software installed (junk software tends to cause problems even when the user is unaware of any issues....those latent issues usually are noticed after upgrading to a new OS).

Good luck with Windows because it is a hot mess. I left Windows years ago for Linux and never looked back. I've been forced to use macOS for work for 30 years and I have seen macOS at its best & its continual decline in many areas (definitely not as user friendly and the default installation & changes is not very friendly in providing a nice visual experience to people with all the transparency junk & slimming down of icons, etc. When I have to repair a Windows computer these days, I go insane with how awful Windows has become. Microsoft may have addressed some of the big issues from back in the day, but introduced a lot more since then including forced advertisements & potential spying & selling users information. macOS definitely has issues, but for the average user I think macOS is the better choice than Windows. Even Linux has been declining in many areas as well so no OS is doing a great job.

Well that was worth all the effort….

Sorry but can you explain that in plain English as I have no idea what it means or what to check….

Ok appreciate that but is there a fix?

Obvious ignorance here, how does that stop getting the popup?

I don't know.

But I do know you had some wonky stuff installed, and I suggested what I would do:

Remove that stuff and see if the situation changes.