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My MUSIC APP has become so slow to respond?

Just in the past week my Music App has become increasingly slow to respond. With just about every move like going to a playlist or clicking Get Info on a song, etc. - I get the spinning beachball for up to ten seconds before responding. Even to close the Music app just now the beachball spun for about 20 seconds before it closed. My iMac is now just over three years old so Apply Care has expired so does anyone know what might be going on. Of course I have done a restart and even a complete shutdown but it's still the same. I'm running macOS Catalina Version 10.15.4 and all updates have been done.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 23, 2020 11:15 AM

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9 replies

Apr 25, 2020 7:43 PM in response to Cosmic Rocker

Thanks for the update, Cosmic Rocker. First, please open the Activity Monitor app on your Mac when working in the Music app and see if you can see what could be causing the slowdown you are experiencing and here are some Apple resources on this:



See how apps affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity

How to use Activity Monitor on your Mac



Next, use safe mode to start up your Mac as it does the following things:



  • Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed
  • Loads only required kernel extensions
  • Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically
  • Disables user-installed fonts
  • Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files



Log in to your user account and test the issue while in safe mode, but keep in mind in safe mode the speakers are temporarily disabled, so if you try to play a song you may not get audio from the built in speakers.



How to use safe mode on your Mac

Graphics performance limited in macOS Recovery, safe mode, or Guest User mode



Since you have a large library, you can also try reindexing the Spotlight index to help with this, so please follow the steps in this Apple resource:



How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac



Cheers!

Apr 27, 2020 12:46 PM in response to sterling r

I appreciate all the suggestions that have been offered to help with my problem with the Music App. However NOTHING has helped so far - it stills just drags between every movement with the spinning beachball and seems to be getting worse - now when I try to close the Music App - it also spins and sometimes never quits unless I do a FORCE QUIT. I have done Disc Utility, changed to another USER acct. and it did the same, restarted in SAFE MODE - it did the same. I opened the Activity Monitor and here are the results which I could not tell anything wrong:

CPU Tab MUSIC varied between 4.8 to 9.9 - 3:00. MEMORY Tab - 985.5 MB, 19 Threads, 77o ports. ENERGY Tab Imputes 1.0 to 3.0, 12 hour power 3.00. DISK Tab -Bytes written 9.68 KB, Bytes read 3.7 to 194. NETWORK TAB - 0 Bytes sent or received.

The only suggestion I have not done is rebuild the Spotlight index - only because I don't understand what to do from the statement, "Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Or click the add button (+) and select the folder or disk to add."

So is it time to re-download the music app and how would that work? I repeat that it just seems like something is running in the background to slow it down when i try to navigate between playlists and info, etc. I'm puzzled.

Apr 24, 2020 1:02 PM in response to Cosmic Rocker

Hello Cosmic Rocker,



Thanks for that info and for choosing the Apple Support Communities. If I understand correctly, you are having an issue with the Music app on your Mac slowing down unexpectedly. First, try running First Aid on your hard drive with the built in Disk Utility tool, as this can correct simple issues like you're experiencing.



Disk Utility for Mac: Repair a disk using Disk Utility



You can figure out if unexpected behavior is related to a user file or setting by trying to reproduce the issue from another user account. This process includes creating a new user account, logging in to it, and testing for the issue.



How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac



Cheers!

Apr 25, 2020 6:19 AM in response to Cosmic Rocker

Thanks for replying, Cosmic Rocker, and that additional info, it really helps! The good news is running First Aid on any of them would be fine, and based on your description running First Aid on the Fusion Drive and the APFS Volume, as these would contain the system files, and the Macintosh HD - Data volume has your personal data, and here is an Apple resource with more info:



About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina



Have a great day and thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!

Apr 24, 2020 5:47 PM in response to Chris_D13

Hi Chris - thank you for replying. I have never used the Disk Utility so I have a few questions> When I click VIEW - under Internal there is listed FUSION DRIVE. When you pull it down there is CONTAINER DISK 2. When I pull it down there are two Macintosh HD disks: the first one says APFS Volume, the second one says Macintosh HD - Data. So Chris do I run it on the whole Fusion Drive which will do everything or just the Data one? Just don't want to do the wrong thing.

Apr 25, 2020 5:58 PM in response to rose_10

Well Guys I still need help. I have run the Disc Utility on all my drives now, it found no problems but I still have the same issue with my MUSUC APPP. It seems to be dragging even more - for instance I drag a song over to a playlist and I get the spinning beachball, I then try to add some tags to the song - I get the beachball, I try to scroll up or down in my Playlists - I get the beachball - it's maddening. It's like there is something unseen going on in the background but it's never done this before and it just started a week or so ago, not just after I upgraded to Catalina. Anymore ideas please? I have a huge library - 81,000 + songs that use 489.52 GB of my 2 TB hard drive . But this is just not normal.

My MUSIC APP has become so slow to respond?

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