When i am doing normal work, sometimes my MacBook Air will just randomly freeze. This freezing comes in "phases".
Phase 1: Things stop loading.
Phase 2: App freezes
Phase 3: Can't click anywhere
Phase 4: Clock stops, nothing works except my mouse cursor. Usually when I get to this step, I force shutdown and restart. I have tried using Apple Diagnostics, which showed nothing wrong. Please help!
MacBook Air
Check out this Apple Knowledgebase article which explains how to start the computer in Apple Hardware Test mode. Run the extended test to see if anything is found. If not you can't entirely rule out a hardware issue but it is less likely.
Try safe mode if you find no hardware issues. Restart and hold the shift key until the Apple icon appears. Safe mode only loads a subset of drivers and is useful in diagnosing software related problems. You may not be able to do everything in safe mode but try using the computer normally and see if it still crashes. If it doesn't, it would be worth backing up and reinstalling the OS. You have a lot of stuff installed, before migrating it back I'd use it with just the built in software and see if it behaves.
Check out this Apple Knowledgebase article which explains how to start the computer in Apple Hardware Test mode. Run the extended test to see if anything is found. If not you can't entirely rule out a hardware issue but it is less likely.
Try safe mode if you find no hardware issues. Restart and hold the shift key until the Apple icon appears. Safe mode only loads a subset of drivers and is useful in diagnosing software related problems. You may not be able to do everything in safe mode but try using the computer normally and see if it still crashes. If it doesn't, it would be worth backing up and reinstalling the OS. You have a lot of stuff installed, before migrating it back I'd use it with just the built in software and see if it behaves.
This can be hard to diagnose without sitting in front o f the computer. A fellow ASC member has written a program called EtreCheck which you can download from the AppleStore - I've added a link to it. The program is the next best thing to having the computer on the desk in front of us. Download the program and run it. When it is finished running, copy the results and come back here. And paste the results. Click on the icon I've circled in red to paste the results so the entire document gets posted here.
You have 2 different anti-malware programs: malwarebytes (okay to keep) and CleanMyMac - uninstall according to the vendor’s instructions. This program has the potential to be harmful. CleanApp isn’t really useful either.
EtreCheck indicates a runaway process which may be your problem. Open Activity Monitor, select the CPU tab and click on the %CPU column so the list is sorted by highest to lowest. Pay attention to the top 2 or 3 processes running at the top. With a runaway app the top one often remains at the top.
Having identified the top 3 (or top 1 if it is consistently at the top) restart the computer, immediately open Activity Monitor again, and see if the same app is the top CPU user. Just to give you an idea, I have a lot of apps running in the background and my top apps bounce up and down, no single one taking more than 15% before dropping lower and another coming to the top. for the most part, except the occasional spikes, no process is above 10% and are mostly in the 5-6% range.
I uninstalled CleanMyMac and CleanApp.
The top 3 CPU users are usually kernel_task, and Google Chrome but sometimes it switches to other processes, like system_profiler and WindowServer being high up.
after these, freezing still continues
MacBook Air random freezing
