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second display and high Sierra - split second delays

Hello


My Mac was working perfectly fine but since connecting a second display through a thunderbolt (display port) to DVI adapter the Mac almost immediately began to experience intermittent (half second) delays. The delays manifest as a spinning beachball. It will appear as I click on menu items or typing gets buffered and then outputs to the screen as the buffer is released. Photoshop is no longer a smooth experience with some tools (like brushes) stalling until I click somewhere on the art work.


High Sierra Version 10.13.6 (17G7024)

Eizo display (DVI) - model EV2316W - it has D-Sub that I can try but haven't yet.


Not in order, I did the following

  • I ran Disk Utility
  • All maintenance operation in Onyx (exceptions were made to Spotlight Index, Mail's mailboxes, Disk position on the desktop),
  • Removed all my user account Preferences files ~/Library/Preferences out so that new plist files were forced to spawn in default configs
  • started in safe mode
  • even reset PRAM, SMC
  • reinstalled Mac OS (not an erase and install) in recovery mode
  • Manually removed all ~/Library/Cache files
  • New user account created and logged into but the issue is reproducible.


Is there an update that I am missing? Some software that can fix this or could it be the DisplayPort dongle? I need a solid solution or I simply can't use the display, the lags have an unacceptable performance hit. If I need to buy the Apple DisplayPort to DVI dongle I will do it if it solves the problem.


I've used this dongle on my MacBook Air to a Sharp 1080 TV (via DVI) and there was no such issue. I only mention this to demonstrate that the dongle works.


For those of you who might be expert enough, I have included a Google Drive link to the EtreCheck report in the hopes you see something that I was not able to.


Kind regards and thank you for considering the issue and any steps that I might be able to take.



EDIT: It appears the link tool in the toolbar doesn't work so here is the link for the report. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1waOXjuER15-ZtIrc4-3lMvuYgng_mQJC/view?usp=sharing

iMac 27", macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 12, 2019 12:14 PM

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16 replies

Jun 12, 2019 2:25 PM in response to MrHoffman

Dear MrHoffman


Firstly, after an hour of use, the issue appears completely resolved. So far so good (fingers crossed).


Thank you for your reply. I greatly appreciate your contributions and comments. I will respond to them in order and my comments will be in the context of how I use my machine.


The install was performed by going into recovery mode and opting for a Mac OS Install. As you know this does not disturb what was previously installed by the user, in short it is not an erase and install.


Yes there is a lot installed on this Mac but as you know not everything is running at once. It should also be noted, something I omitted from my bullet points list, I ran a manual deletion of software from the Applications folder. If it wasn't used for a year I would drag and drop it over AppCleaner. Some of the items were not removed by AppCleaner but I after going to places like Application Support and where kext files live I discovered pieces of what I had deleted. They are now gone to the best of my ability. In general, yes I have a lot of software on this Mac, it's an old machine, lots comes and goes through this box.


Spotlight although an amazing idea is a pile of (fill in the blank), it is a constant struggle to tame. It gets old to have to keep purging the index and have it just reindex. This is somewhat out of my control, one of those love, hate relationships. Wish Apple could get it to work properly but that's just spotlight.


I am using DVI, I don't believe it relies on HDCP, does it? Isn't HDCP something that relies on a HDMI connection? In any event, this monitor is made to work with a basic video signal. On cabling and such I agree on the perspective for sure.


Agreed on the clean install on a scratch disk, good call! I should have a clean install on some partition for such cases. I will consider this as just a common sense arsenal of tools to have around. Nice one!


I had all other external hardware removed before the etrecheck test and there was no difference. I had tested numerous times to be sure. The Etrecheck was performed with 4 externals USB drives connected.


This machine can hack another display. I have a CTO with the best config 2GB video card available at the time


https://support.apple.com/kb/SP689?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US

Video Support and Camera

  • FaceTime HD camera
  • Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to a 30-inch display (2560 by 1600 pixels) on an external display
  • Support for extended desktop and video mirroring modes


I am running the second display at only 1920x1080.


Thanks for all your points, good stuff!


----


As an FYI and reminder the issue appears resolved, I believe it was a kext file that was putting some strain somewhere. I can't mark your answer as the resolution but it had so many good points to try that I do consider it helpful and with that I do thank you. Lots of common sense approaches. As soon as I get some time, the next TODO is a partition with a clean and up to date installation of High Sierra, of course without any other cruft, just a pristine install that I can use to isolate issues.

Jun 12, 2019 1:16 PM in response to BDAqua

By the way, I took a very careful look at the report by etrecheck and got inspired. I removed some application support and accompanying apps like virtual box and soundlfower and bunch of other non-apple kexts. Restarted in safe boot and removed another persistent item called littleflocker from application support and littleflocker.kext. For now photoshop appears to be working as expected.


I will keep you posted but if you have something quick I can try incase I missed something let me know. I will report back in one hour, should be plenty of time because the issue, although intermittent occurs a few times a minute.

Jun 12, 2019 1:20 PM in response to BDAqua

After 5 minutes of work, things are looking good. Likely a .kext file or some other system wide extension. In an hour I will report my final conclusions.


For the curious, this caption from the EtreCheck report garnered the most interest from me; it gave me the most clues.


Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.crushftp.CrushFTP.plist

Executable: /Applications/CrushFTP9_OSX/CrushFTP9.app/Contents/MacOS/CrushFTP.command -d

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.startup.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh restart

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.crushftp.CrushFTPUpdate.plist

Executable: /Applications/CrushFTP9_OSX/CrushFTP9.app/Contents/Resources/Java/daemonUpdate.sh

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/SwitchBoard/SwitchBoard.app/Contents/MacOS/launch.switchboard

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.versioncueCS3.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Version Cue CS3/Server/bin/VersionCueCS3d

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.linotype.FontExplorerX.securityhelper.plist

Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.linotype.FontExplorerX.securityhelper

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK



Kernel Extensions:

/Applications/DiskWarrior.app

[Not Loaded] DiskWarriorPreview.kext (Alsoft, Inc, 5.1 - SDK 10.5)


/Applications/Toast 17 Titanium/Live Screen Capture.app

[Loaded] Soundflower.kext (1.6.7 - SDK 10.7)


/Applications/Toast 17 Titanium/Toast Titanium.app

[Not Loaded] TDIXController64.kext (Corel Inc., 2.0)


/Library/Application Support/VirtualBox

[Loaded] VBoxDrv.kext (Oracle America, Inc., 5.2.18)

[Loaded] VBoxNetAdp.kext (Oracle America, Inc., 5.2.18)

[Loaded] VBoxNetFlt.kext (Oracle America, Inc., 5.2.18)

[Loaded] VBoxUSB.kext (Oracle America, Inc., 5.2.18)


/Library/Extensions

[Loaded] LittleSnitch.kext (Objective Development Software GmbH, 3.8.2 - SDK 10.11)

[Loaded] LittleFlocker.kext (Jonathan Zdziarski, 1.4.8 - SDK 10.12)


/System/Library/Extensions

[Not Loaded] 360Controller.kext (Drew Mills, 0.16.10 - SDK 10.10)

[Not Loaded] macsfancontrol.kext (1.0 - SDK 10.7)

Jun 12, 2019 1:24 PM in response to LostAccount

Great, first delete all the .plists after Clean up: & restart.

/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.wireshark.ChmodBPF.plist

/Library/Application Support/Wireshark/ChmodBPF/ChmodBPF

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.github.dnscrypt-osxclient.DNSCryptControlChange.plist

/Library/PreferencePanes/DNSCrypt.prefPane/Contents/Resources/usr/scripts/handle-control-change.sh

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.github.dnscrypt-osxclient.DNSCryptAfterboot.plist

/Library/PreferencePanes/DNSCrypt.prefPane/Contents/Resources/usr/scripts/afterboot.sh

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.github.dnscrypt-osxclient.DNSCryptNetworkChange.plist

/Library/PreferencePanes/DNSCrypt.prefPane/Contents/Resources/usr/scripts/handle-network-change.sh

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.github.dnscrypt-osxclient.DNSCryptMenuBar.plist

/Applications/DNSCrypt Menubar.app/Contents/MacOS/DNSCrypt Menubar

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.github.dnscrypt-osxclient.DNSCryptConsoleChange.plist

/Library/PreferencePanes/DNSCrypt.prefPane/Contents/Resources/usr/scripts/handle-console-change.sh

Executable not found


Can you reduce any of those login items?


Jun 12, 2019 1:37 PM in response to LostAccount

I'm going to assume that the wholesale-reinstall test was performed without all the add-on software shown in the report.


Between the add-on kexts including fan control, the add-on security and the monitoring tools including dnscrypt and Malware Bytes and Little Snitch, and the Adobe software and the rest of what's installed, there's a lot installed on this iMac 27" Mid 2011.


Spotlight is also pretty busy for some reason, and consuming a whole lot of memory.


If the wholesale-reinstall did involve adding software before performing the display tests, try another install on an external scratch device and boot that and don't install all of what's here before running some testing.


Try a different cable and a different display I/O connection path and a different display, and see whether and where the problem might change. I might also specifically try a display that's not HDCP-capable, too.


When you test again, test without external add-on hardware beyond a wired keyboard and mouse if you're using that, and with only the display connected. Add-on USB devices and hubs and cabling can sometimes cause issues.


But this is potentially headed toward a discussion directly with the Apple Support folks or the local Apple Store folks. (I don't know how much additional graphics performance is available with your AMD Radeon HD 6970M VRAM: 2048 MB controller, past the internal display.)

Jun 12, 2019 3:06 PM in response to LostAccount

Much better, you still need to remove a few plists...

Clean up:

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.github.dnscrypt-osxclient.DNSCryptMenuBar.plist

/Applications/DNSCrypt Menubar.app/Contents/MacOS/DNSCrypt Menubar

Executable not found

~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist

/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/vboxwebsrv

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft AU Daemon.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft AU Daemon

Executable not found


Those items are asking for Memory, failing to find the deleted app & crashing, then trying again & Again.


Jun 12, 2019 4:36 PM in response to LostAccount

When I'm presented with these systems and these cases, I'll usually try a clean install on an external bootable storage device. Booting that then provides a relatively expedient way to try to isolate the particular trigger; whether hardware, or macOS, something else installed locally, or—for various sorts of problems—some other external factor located elsewhere in the local configuration.


As you're aware, reloading macOS over itself preserves existing settings and apps and tooling, which really isn't the best way to figure out if this is the hardware or the software or something that's been installed. A number of these cases are something that's been installed, or some setting that's gotten clobbered.


That macOS overwrite is a good way to try to recover from a storage corruption.


But it doesn't help with complex installations, and particularly those involving add-on kernel-mode tools around.


We're apparently headed toward a time when many of these kernel add-ons will not even be permitted to load.

Jun 13, 2019 1:26 AM in response to MrHoffman

I absolutely agree without question on what was declared in your first paragraph. This is a very quick way of getting down to some fundamental questions like those you cited, is it hardware or software. No doubt, it's a perfect fallback for isolating issues to system s.w. and or h.w components.


Agreed on the second statement, I would not ordinarily go down this path nor recommend it, I mentioned it but didn't expect traction on this variable — I chose to do it as I had other ongoings around the house that weren't computer related so it was a process that I chose to run in the small hopes that it would yield some fruits. So yes, I do agree on your point rather emphatically that a reinstall will not fix things due to other non-Apple s.w. components likely at play.


I am stuck on High Sierra so those kernel add-on enforcements is something that this machine's OS limitations may not necessarily enjoy due to architecture but I didn't know Apple is on this path. I welcome such a change by Apple as it keeps issues quarantined on a different perimeter, allowing the underlying OS from becoming frail due to the choices made by a developer who might not even be around to update their software as Apple updates or even upgrades the OS. It further helps by minimizing the number of places a troubleshooter has to keep in mind when probing and isolating for any particular issue.


Thanks again for the additional insights on this issue. I do appreciate the time you took out of your day to contribute to the discussion.


For anyone on the EtreCheck team who might come across this, thank you for a wonderful audit tool that is so well designed for the troubleshooter who is diagnosing an issue that requires some assistance around isolating issues. This was a fascinating learning experience and although it wasn't a surprise to see plist (startup items) and .kext files play a negative role in performance it would not have been the first place I would have checked but I do know that folks on the Apple Discussions Forum like to see an EtreCheck report because it is so helpful. In fact it was after running the report that some aha moments presented themselves.


Thank you everyone for your time and thoughts. I appreciate it very much!

second display and high Sierra - split second delays

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