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Open and Save Dialogs Slow to Open and Populate

In all of my apps, the Open and Save dialogs have become very slow to open and populate since installing Snow Leopard, when the machine is connected to a Windows server. Disconnecting from the server solves the problem; reconnecting causes it to reappear.

This only happens on some of my machines, and not others

Any thoughts on what this could be. The delay is significant (about 10 seconds in all).

iMac 24" 3.06GHz 4GB 1TB ● MacBook Pro 15" 2.33GHz 3GB 160MB ● iPhone 3G |, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 16, 2009 3:01 PM

Reply
93 replies

Dec 19, 2009 6:53 PM in response to John Allen2

I have noticed on my Mac Pro ( original 2006 model ) 6Gb Ram with two external firewire drives ( One a Drobo ) that over 24 hours and especially overnight the Save As dialogues get slower and slower. Once the files are selected file operations seem to run at normal speed it is getting the dialogues in the first place takes ages. A reboot restores previously fast access. Thus it seems to be something that builds up over time.

Dec 20, 2009 3:50 AM in response to gadget_aussie_man

I also have a Drobo connected via firewire 800. Did anyone try disconnetcing tha Drobo to find out if it is the cause to our problems?
I have a Mac Pro 2008, 8 core, 8 GB ram and I have to restart it every day to get the open/save dialogs to work normally. Before updating to Snow Leopard I had my Mac Pro running for several weeks without restarting.

Dec 20, 2009 11:38 AM in response to Roy Levien

Wow. Very interesting. Do all of us have Drobo's?? I have a drobo and its exactly as everyone else describes. Everything is fine for a day or two, but after that, everything slows down. Menus, Open & Save dialogs, etc. I thought removing smart folders fixed it, but it didn't. Must have just provided temporary relief of some sort.

Am thinking this must be a drobo issue.

JP

Dec 30, 2009 6:24 AM in response to hvg

Still no solution for this problem?!?
I have also noticed that, when the open/save dialogs issue is present it also affects mounting .dmg images in Finder, which also takes much longer than usually. Also Boxee and VMware Fusion begin to behave strangely, when the problem starts.

To help narrow down this issue I'm posting some more details of my Mac Pro system:

Potential issue causing hardware:
- I have a Time Capsule (1st gen., 500 GB)
- I have a Drobo connected via FireWire 800
- Apple Cinema 30" + 2 other LCD displays
- 2 graphic cards installed (1x GeForce 8800, 1x Radeon HD 2600)
- Canon USB scanner
- Canon color laser printer
- Logitech USB hub
- Logitech MX revolution mouse
- Apple wireless keyboard
- Wacom Intous4 graphic tablet

If anyone notices some similarities, please post and help to narrow the problem down.

Other issued applications, when the dialog boxes problem is present:
- in VMware Fusion 3.01 under Windows XP I get "Limited or no connectivity", so my virtual Windows machine is not connected to the internet. Only solution is to restart the whole system (Mac OS), just restarting Windows virtual machine doesn't help.
- Boxee (home cinema player) gets really slow and unresponsive. Only Mac OS restart helps.

Once restarted, everything work fine for some time. After 8h - 24 hours of uptime the problems begin to show again.
I'm really tired of restarting my Mac Pro 2-3 times a day because of this lame issue. Before Snow Leopard I had an uptime of multiple weeks.

Jan 7, 2010 3:24 PM in response to Hersco

I have the problem with several different machine configurations. I've tried several permutations of network, external drives, running applications, etc. on several machines. The only constant is the machine itself: some machines have the problem, some don't, independent of the presence or absence of external drives, etc. Those that have it, have it right out of the box.

Open and Save Dialogs Slow to Open and Populate

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