unexpected "freezes" in Catalina

Question

unexpected "freezes" in Catalina

the transition to Catalina has been surprising - some aspects that I expected to be troublesome were actually very smooth - and vice-versa!

since the upgrade, I have had a problem with "freezes" - as opposed to "crashes" - with a crash, the whole system has to be restarted and there's nothing you can do. But with a freeze, the system freezes for a while but it's only temporary - sometimes it takes as long as 20 minutes or more, but it eventually unfreezes.

I can't figure out what the conditions are for this to happen - except that it's only started happening after the Catalina upgrade. And that it seems to happen when I'm using VLC, but then I use VLC incredibly frequently, almost all the time, so I'm not sure if that's a factor.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'd be grateful for any feedback. This is getting so annoying that I would almost consider downgrading back to Sierra!

straighten up & fly right, and thanks!

w

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 20, 2019 8:57 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Old Toad

Level 10

207,463 points

Oct 20, 2019 10:33 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

Log into another user account and see if the problem persists there in Photos. (This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide). If the problem goes away then run

Etrecheck as described below.

Next, boot into Safe Mode and run for a while to see if the problem persists. (This tells us if there is any 3rd party software that is causing the problem as no 3rd party software is allowed to run.)

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.

Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what's causing the problem..

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

207,463 points

Dec 2, 2019 1:46 PM in response to WillFriedwald2

Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what's causing the problem..

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Answer 3

Nov 9, 2019 10:10 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

all right, I the second report literally took two seconds to generate, while the first took about 30-40 minutes.

going to repost both of them here:

MRCLEAN account (#2) ETRE REPORT 2019-11-09

REGULAR account (#1) ETRE REPORT 2019-11-09

hopefully there is a helpful clue contained herein!

thanks again for any assistance!

w

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Answer 4

Oct 20, 2019 10:15 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

update to my own question: I just experimented with NOT having VLC on for a few hours - this morning, the system was on for about three hours when the first freeze happened. VLC was NOT on at the time, so possibly that rules out the VLC program as a possible cause for the problem.

thanks for any feedback!

w

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Answer 5

Oct 29, 2019 11:16 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

oh boy!

I used a SAFE boot, and that seemed to help. Less frequent freezes and crashes.

setting up a new "clean" account is a ton of work - virtually every piece of software I use for work has to be re-licensed, etc. (I guess I should get a password - license App, been saying that I should do that for years now!). Anyhow, so I wasn't able to do that (set up a new "clean" account), alas.

So, this morning I had the worst freeze - it totally froze for about an hour.

Then I shut down, and restarted from the Repair partition, and ran disk utility / first aid on the startup drive.

Then I restarted SAFE one more time, and then restarted again as normal.

Not sure if that did any good, I got a minor freeze again within a half hour or so ... again on the VLC app (the freezes do occur when VLC is NOT running, but VLC almost always freezes after I run it for 30-40 minutes or so.)

Anyhow, am generating an ETRE report now, which I will post according to your instructions. thanks!

W

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Answer 6

Oct 30, 2019 8:00 AM in response to Old Toad

oh rats! is there anything else you can recommend.

I guess the long slow method is to create a completely new clean user account - but as I say, gradually working out all those software licenses is going to take a long time.

also: the problem is NOT restricted to occasions when I am using VLC, however, when I am using VLC, the problem shows up there first. So maybe I should experiment with non-VLC media players?

(Can anyone recommend a good free media player to try? I’m about to try 5K PLAYER now…)

thanks for any suggestions!

w

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Answer 7

Oct 30, 2019 12:40 PM in response to WillFriedwald2

Ah! second or third try, I got 5KPLAYER to work … maybe will see if it’s less prone to crashes & freezes than VLC has been … but let me say that I ADORE VLC, I use it all the time everyday, and I advocate for it to everyone!

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Answer 8

Nov 8, 2019 7:48 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

first question: should I continue the thread from several weeks, ago? (Old Toad?) Or start a new one?

Anyhow, I have been slowly working more and more in the new user account, named “Mr. Clean."

I notice that I have crashes / freezes / troubles related to VLC in the regular account.

But I can run VLC anytime I want in the Clean account with no trouble. Have not had any kind of crash or freeze there.

You’ve seen the ETRECHECK report of the regular account, but I guess that doesn’t offer any clues.

I have DEFAULT FOLDER (a great program) and NTFS FOR MAC (also fairly essential) both running continually in the background of the regular account (not yet installed in the Clean account) - I do not imagine that either one of those could be causing the trouble, but who knows?

If I were to generate an ETRE report in the regular account and another one in the CLEAN account, could you possibly compare the two and see if there’s any difference? any kind of a smoking gun?

thanks again for any feedback - as always!

w

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Answer 9

Nov 8, 2019 2:45 PM in response to Old Toad

you know you’re in trouble when ETRE won’t even start! I keep turning it on, but it will not launch.

so I will log out, then log back in again, and try to start ETRE - will get one report in each of the accounts.

yes! thanks!

w

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Answer 10

Dec 2, 2019 4:23 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

Same here all of a sudden - all that works is the mouse, spinning beach ball. Varies from a few seconds to a few minutes, then back to normal, but the frequency is increasing - up to one every few minutes, which is painful.

Also a VLC user. Deinstalled it, no difference, so reinstalled it. Mail and Finder windows seem to be an issue, with more than one of either open it happens more.

Missing Yosemite all of a sudden....

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