Terminal slow and hangs in Snow Leopard

Question

Level 1

9 points

Terminal slow and hangs in Snow Leopard

When starting Terminal in SL it can take up to 20 seconds for the cli prompt to appear. Terminal also frequently hangs while executing remote commands via ssh.

Mac mini G4, MBP 2.5 iPhone 3G, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Sep 27, 2009 6:52 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 27, 2009 7:03 AM in response to michaelgc

HI,

Delete this file.

com.apple.terminal.plist

~/Library/Preferences. Move that file to the Trash and restart your Mac.

Also, check for available disk space.

Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure you always have a minimum of 10% to 15% free disk space at all times.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

michaelgc Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 14, 2009 5:42 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

Deleting the preferences worked for a short while, but the problem has returned and the Terminal takes roughly 10 seconds to give a prompt, even when it's the only app running. Plenty of disk space - 47 gb.

This behaviour has only started since Snow Leopard.

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Answer 3

m4rkw

Level 1

19 points

Nov 14, 2009 10:44 AM in response to michaelgc

I fixed this by deleting the (32M or so) logfiles in /private/var/log/asl/

I would recommend backing the logs up first just in case you need to refer to them.

After deleting the files in this directory I found the terminal prompt showed up instantly.

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Answer 4

michaelgc Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 14, 2009 10:52 AM in response to m4rkw

Yep, that worked - thanks!

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