Applications take too long to open (not responding)

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Level 1

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Applications take too long to open (not responding)

Yesterday my mac suddenly became slow and every time I try to open application (word, power point, zoom, pages, keynote, etc) the icon will bounce for a while and show the dot under it but it wont open (when I right click at the icon, it says that the application is not responding). It takes about 5 minutes or more for the app to open.

I already tried all suggestions I can find from the internet but nothing change (like running the diagnostic (it says there are no problems), run the disk utility, try to restart the SCM/NVRAM, clearing caches, etc). However, when I try to reinstall the MacOs from macOS recovery, its failed (it says that "downloading installer information to the target volume failed").

I use macbook air 2020 with macOS catalina 10.15.7, and I still have 280gb storage available

Is there anything I can do to fix this? Thankyou for your suggestions

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 5, 2020 5:27 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

60,212 points

Oct 6, 2020 8:39 AM in response to amajonn

I recall a fairly recent post where another user also mentioned turning off the WiFi restored the performance of their Mac. I don't recall what ultimate solution was.

Does the problem occur in Safe Mode?

When you reset the laptop to factory settings did you perform a clean install by first erasing the whole physical drive before reinstalling macOS? Did you try the clean install before installing any third party apps or before migrating or restoring from a backup? If you migrated or restored from a backup, then you just brought the problem back again. If a clean install works, then you can try restoring from an earlier backup made before you started having these problems.

Run EtreCheck and post the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.

Have you tried rebooting your router and waiting 5 minutes for it to finish booting, then restarting your laptop and performing another PRAM reset?

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,212 points

Oct 5, 2020 7:29 PM in response to amajonn

Did you try booting into Safe Mode?

Do you have enough free storage space on the SSD? You may need 25GB - 30GB of free storage space to download & run the macOS installer.

Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R and erasing the whole physical SSD before installing macOS or restoring from a backup made before this problem started. If you do not have a backup, then this will destroy all data on the SSD.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

You can also try creating a bootable macOS USB installer using another compatible Mac. Before being able to boot to the macOS USB installer you will first need to modify the Mac's security settings by allowing external boot devices:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

If you still have trouble reinstalling macOS, then you may need to "Restore" the T2 firmware which will destroy all data on the drive. You will need access to another Mac to perform this procedure:

https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-mac-firmware-apdebea5be51/mac

If you still have problems, then you will need to have Apple or an AASP examine the laptop.

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Answer 3

amajonn Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 6, 2020 7:21 AM in response to HWTech

I already tried to reset my MacBook to its factory settings, and the problem still occurs. But now I notice that the problem (apps take too long to open and not responding) occurs when the wifi is on. I tried to turn the wifi off and start some of the applications, and it turns out that the applications open immediately. Is it possible that my wifi is the source of the problem? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

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Applications take too long to open (not responding)

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