Beach Balling and Terrible Performance Catalina - Revised Posting

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Level 1

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Beach Balling and Terrible Performance Catalina - Revised Posting

I have an older iMac Late 2012 - ever since installing Catalina and all the updates the OS has just gone Crazy. I have done everything, work with Apple Support and reinstalled the OS 3 times. That helps for a short while then files won't copy, Time Machine won't work, Everything is very slow, FaceBook is the slowest then quits. What do I need to do ?

I have run ErteCheckPro and number of times and worked my way through most of the problems, but nothing has helped. I cannot get the entire report on this post without exceeding the character limit. Sometimes rebooting also helps for a little while. I have restarted and reset the PRAM and everything else that Support suggested.

Thanks for any help.

Enter Report

Posted on Oct 29, 2020 1:19 PM

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Answer 1

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Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Nov 5, 2020 9:17 AM in response to Kentser

I don't see any of the usual suspects or anything unusual in the report.

Log into another vanilla admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac, and see if the problem persists. (This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide).

If the problem persists in the other user account it is system wide. In that case continue below:

Do you have a current and full backup of your boot drive? If you do boot into the Recovery volume (boot with the Command + R keys held down), select Disk Utility and run Disk First Aid on the drive. If you get any error messages rerun DFA until there is no error message. Reboot normally and see if there's any improvement.

If still no improvement boot again into the Recovery volume, erase the disk and reinstall the System. Do not migrate your user files at this time. Just created a new admin user account and see if it runs any better.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Oct 29, 2020 2:32 PM in response to Old Toad

Addemdum: There is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or security apps on your Mac. This user tip describes what you need to know and do to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community

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Answer 3

Kentser Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 4, 2020 8:12 PM in response to Kentser

UPDATED -

Things have only gotten worse no matter what I do. The latest is that everything is Very Slow - Time Machine doesn't work and won't even open, even EtreCheckPro will not open, before it just wouldn't complete scanning. I finally went into Safe Mode and at least EntrCheckPro would complete the scan. The most current report is attached. I'm going to try Time Machine to see if I can get a good backup.

The 32 bit software and data in the report is in a partitioned space on the main and backup drive. I am keeping this so I can retieve and open some old files that are important to me.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Kent

EtreCheckPro Report 11-4-20

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Oct 29, 2020 2:13 PM in response to Kentser

You have some Avast software installed; Avast Password. Avast does not have a good record with Macs. I suggest you install it and run for a while to see if there's any improvement. There are other password apps like LastPass, 1Password, etc. that are very compatible with Mac OSs.

Another file which is dangerous is Clean Duplicate File. Apps like these have been know to cripple Photos libraries and systems to some degree. Uninstall according to the developer's instructions

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Answer 5

Kentser Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 30, 2020 4:23 PM in response to Old Toad

I have read the article on 3rd party software you posted. Thanks. I have always tried to avoid 3rd party stuff especially from small or unknown developers. I have gone through and cleaned out everything you suggested. I tripled checked apps and found some I didn't recognize, have never used and I have NO idea where they came from or how they got into my apps folder. I have searched and searched for Clean Duplicate File and can't find it anywhere.

After all of this my Mac was still acting strange or not at all in some cases. I did an internet reinstall of Catalina and am now running EtreCheckPro - it is hung up on Checking Hardware and won't move past it. Even before running it I was having the same slow down problems. My Mac is really a mess and hard to get any work done. I am at a loss as to where to go from here.

I appreciate your help. I have had Apple (only) computers since my APPLE IIe since 1978 and have never had this many problems.

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Answer 6

Kentser Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 13, 2020 10:27 AM in response to Old Toad

I performed some of the tasks you recommended and things improved. I did install the Catalina Supplemental Update that came out a week or so ago. I think I heard that you are not supposed to install any updates as long as there are problems, but I took a chance and installed it anyway. Mostly to my surprise it helped a great deal. EtreCheckPro works now as does Time Machine. The only things that I have problems with are Fox News freezes immediately and FaceBook uses significant memory and is very very slow. I see it was announced today that Big Sur has been released along with updates to the basic Apple Apps. My machine is so old that it is not compatible. Do you know, will the updated Apps install ? and should I even bother with that ? I think I will wait for the new iMacs with the Apple chips to come out before get a new one, hopefully early next year ? Thanks for all of your help.

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Beach Balling and Terrible Performance Catalina - Revised Posting

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