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User profile for user: Pastor S.
Pastor S. Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Glacial slow response on iMac and "applications not responding" after major security update on Mojave.

Even Finder and System Preferences are unstable after major security update - help! My iMac barely boots up. Isn't there an emergency boot mode (is it called "recovery mode.") Maybe I need to boot from an external clone drive I made a month or two ago. Then I would copy files that need to be saved. I do have a recent Time Machine backup. Perhaps need to wipe and reinstall. Praying the CPU is intact. Tech Tool and Checkmate have been running in the background and gave no red flags. Any advice out there?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Oct 3, 2020 12:34 PM

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User profile for user: Rafael Scheid
Rafael Scheid
User level: Level 5
5,334 points

Posted on Oct 3, 2020 1:13 PM

The option you see I think would be the best solution.


Let's first try something

Reset SMC https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

Reset NVRAM https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Turn on your Mac and immediately hold Shift so it boots in Safe Mode. It's a bit longer boot because macOS will do some maintenance under the hood and can fix some problems just like the one you have.

Once up, restart normally and see if macOS got back in track.


If it doesn't work, then yes, try a clean install. By clean install I mean wipe the entire disk and install it from zero.

As you have and external clone drive, you don't need a bootable USB installer. Boot from your clone, copy your personal that from the Mac drive, download the macOS installer, run it and choose to install on the internal drive.

Erase the Mac disk https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496 (make sure to select the correct drive to wipe, I know it's kinda obvious, but I saw people make some mistakes in time, so just be sure, OK)


About TM, I'd say for you not to recover from it

Make the clean install of macOS, let it update everything it asks for, install your favorite apps... and then activate the TM

But here some very important steps

Turn off automatic backup just for now

Set your old TM drive as your TM again

Note that the backup file on the TM disk has a name, for exemple, "pastor s.backupbundle"

Go to System Prefs > Sharing and name your Mac as pastor s (that was the name of your Mac when you created the TM you have).

Now back to the TM, if you open it, you'll see your Mac recognizes it as if it was your current TM, so you can open it with that particular TM interface, with a timeline on the right.

Now copy back your personal data from there.


Once it's done, you can redo your TM, start a new TM backup bundle file and also your clone drive, so they all will be in line with your new installation.


Yes, bit of a hard work, but this will allow you to have a clean install, free from old debris and maybe corrupted files and configs from previous system and updates that could affect the perfomance of your Mac.

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User profile for user: Rafael Scheid
Rafael Scheid
User level: Level 5
5,334 points

Oct 3, 2020 1:13 PM in response to Pastor S.

The option you see I think would be the best solution.


Let's first try something

Reset SMC https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

Reset NVRAM https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Turn on your Mac and immediately hold Shift so it boots in Safe Mode. It's a bit longer boot because macOS will do some maintenance under the hood and can fix some problems just like the one you have.

Once up, restart normally and see if macOS got back in track.


If it doesn't work, then yes, try a clean install. By clean install I mean wipe the entire disk and install it from zero.

As you have and external clone drive, you don't need a bootable USB installer. Boot from your clone, copy your personal that from the Mac drive, download the macOS installer, run it and choose to install on the internal drive.

Erase the Mac disk https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496 (make sure to select the correct drive to wipe, I know it's kinda obvious, but I saw people make some mistakes in time, so just be sure, OK)


About TM, I'd say for you not to recover from it

Make the clean install of macOS, let it update everything it asks for, install your favorite apps... and then activate the TM

But here some very important steps

Turn off automatic backup just for now

Set your old TM drive as your TM again

Note that the backup file on the TM disk has a name, for exemple, "pastor s.backupbundle"

Go to System Prefs > Sharing and name your Mac as pastor s (that was the name of your Mac when you created the TM you have).

Now back to the TM, if you open it, you'll see your Mac recognizes it as if it was your current TM, so you can open it with that particular TM interface, with a timeline on the right.

Now copy back your personal data from there.


Once it's done, you can redo your TM, start a new TM backup bundle file and also your clone drive, so they all will be in line with your new installation.


Yes, bit of a hard work, but this will allow you to have a clean install, free from old debris and maybe corrupted files and configs from previous system and updates that could affect the perfomance of your Mac.

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User profile for user: rkaufmann87
rkaufmann87
User level: Level 10
140,856 points

Oct 3, 2020 12:50 PM in response to Pastor S.

You can save you and us a lot of time and effort of playing 20 questions if you do the following:


Please navigate to the Mac App Store or navigate to www.Etrecheck.com and download the free version of EtreCheck. Once you have you downloaded the app and installed it, please run the report and save it. This report will help us get a good idea what has been installed on your system and help us be able to diagnose what may be wrong.


When you have your report, you can attach it when you reply to this message and we can then review it and help you determine what is needed to get your system running well again. 


For instructions on how to download your EtreCheck report and attach it to your reply to this message please click https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250000211


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User profile for user: Pastor S.
Pastor S. Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Oct 3, 2020 4:38 PM in response to Pastor S.

EtreCheck Report generated: 2020-10-03 15:49:10

I am so thankful for all of your helpful replies! Very comforting to know you helpful people are out there. I'm working this out slowly - decided to start with EtreCheck, since my iMac has plenty of hard drive space although (barely) still able to download and install - App Store download for EtreCheck took my iMac over 30 minutes. Here is the report. (I think I will try Rafael's Safe Mode idea next.) Here's the report, I get the idea that there is tons of background app activity slowing things down. What do you think?

(BTW - not to confuse anyone, but I'm doing these Apple Community replies on my old 2008 MacBook, not the iMac with the troubles.) OOPS I've exceeded the text limit - trying to add text which includes the report. Here goes....

Sorry, it told me to try again later with the extra text upload.

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User profile for user: Glen Doggett
Glen Doggett
User level: Level 4
2,741 points

Oct 3, 2020 1:10 PM in response to Pastor S.

Might be that after that update has installed many new files on your system, those scanning tools (TechTool and CheckMate - can you temporarily disable them?) are working a little extra hard to see what files have been changed. Also, Spotlight (mdworker process) sometimes does extra work to update the index of searchable files on your computer. You can look at what is running on your system and using CPU in real time using the utility on your system, no need to download and install anything new on an already laggy system, which if your hard drive is nearly full or on the brink could actually be the worst advice someone could give you.


/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app



you can also check for how much free RAM you have in the Memory panel. Lots of useful diagnostic info in the Activity Monitor.app.


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User profile for user: Pastor S.
Pastor S. Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Oct 22, 2020 6:55 PM in response to Pastor S.

Conclusion of problem with “Glacially slow response… Applications not Responding” after a failed Apple Security Update on my iMac


First of all many thanks to the “first responders” of my plea for help to get my iMac (14,1 late 2013) running again.


(I won’t recap, since the original problem is described above.)


Two things saved my data and applications: a HD clone (updated maybe a month or two before this) and my Time Machine backup.


Thankfully the external clone of my main hard drive had NOT been updated to this nefarious security update. That clone became my lifeline as I booted from it (Option key held down at startup) and used Migration Assistant which recovered my most recent data from Time Machine. This all came together in a second user on my cloned external drive. I gathered and reactivated Photos, MS Office apps (just needed to log in to reactivate), and my big concern was relieved when Keychain got recovered with all my passwords. Since it was several weeks after my last Time Machine backup, I was hoping an important password backup wasn’t lost. 


Using Disk Utility and Tech Tool (Micromat) I took a deep breath and wiped the defunct internal drive in my iMac, reformatted it and used a Shift-Option-⌘-R keystroke to restore the original Operating System when it was new (Maverick). Then upgraded to High Sierra, which I had saved years ago as an installer. (Check the App Store, search under "Purchased".


Next I bought an OWC (Other World Computing) Solid State Drive through their Amazon Canada outlet, which arrived in 3 days. Followed their tutorial video and did “surgery”  opening the iMac removed the (7 year old) original hard drive (High Sierra now on it) and installed the SSD 1 TB. Option key held down at startup allowed me to boot into my “lifeboat” cloned and updated user external disk. Formatted the new SSD using Disk Utility. Downloaded and installed Mojave 10.14.6 from the App Store (searched under “Purchased” in my account. (It will take a long time before I have the confidence to update my Mojave OS beyond this point.) Launched Migration Assistant from Utilities and sent over the whole kit and kaboodle from my lifeboat external clone into my newly installed internal SSD. But the Keychain Access app did not have all my passwords this time. I had to manually find, copy and rename my keychain login.db in the user library and copy it to my new user library and it worked. It just asks me for my (replaced) keychain password on login.


Hokey pic, my new Mojave system booted off the internal SSD in less than 10 seconds! User login, a few seconds more. I really like my iMac again - didn’t get this good a response even when it was new. 


End of story - I wouldn’t wish a security update disaster (or hard drive failure, etc.) on anyone, but let me tell you, a little time and effort spent doing backups on Time Machine and a cloned external hard drive can really save your bacon! Best wishes to all you out there who may be struggling with a similar issue.

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Glacial slow response on iMac and "applications not responding" after major security update on Mojave.

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