SLOWDOWN after Big Sur installation Macbook Air 2014

Hi Highroad001!

Can you confirm that is mostly with Chrome? Or all apps?

I can think of a number of causes, mostly outdated/incompatible software that won’t work with Big Sur. But likewise permissions issues, a connected external drive or monitor, a formatting issue with the internal drive.

Can you remove everything in System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login Items, by pressing the “-“ after highlighting them. Restart and test?

These files, when enabled try to launch every time you login to your Mac, so this won’t delete them, just prevent from opening automatically.

Likewise Safe Mode is a good way to rule out unruly third party, non-Apple software and/or file system corruption and is sometimes an effective solution on its own:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/start-up-your-mac-in-safe-mode-mh21245/mac

You can test in safe mode, but sometimes just booting to safe mode/restarting may resolve an issue like this.

Resetting the SMC is sometimes also a good step to take, which only takes a minute to do:

https://kb.indwes.edu/Computers_and_Devices/HardwareDevices/Apple_SMC_Reset

Likewise, old kernel Extensions/Kexts may need to be removed, working in safe mode maybe a good indicator of this.

Also, in case it’s just a conflict with your user profile, sometimes testing in a new admin user is a good idea. This will reveal if this is an issue that affects the whole system, or just your user profile, and in the end, save you some troubleshooting time.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-up-other-users-on-your-mac-mtusr001/mac

Let me know how it goes!

Hey again!

Yes I see several possible conflicts:

Cleanup Installer

Proton VPN

Old Adobe files

32 bit-incompatible software

And login/startup items possibly a cause.

I’d probably try the steps I mentioned earlier:

First, keep a backup.

Remove login items.

Remove those kernel Extensions, Launch Agents, Launch Daemons as in the report.

Although Internet Plug-ins didn’t have disk access, I’d save/remove them as well.

I’d also remove anything in /Startup Items, /Scripting Additions, and /Input Methods.

Most of these files can be found in:

Finder > Go > Computer > Macintosh HD (Usually) > Library.

And especially the files in Extensions, although I’d be more careful with these.

As for these “Unsigned Extensions” in the report, you can find them by:

Apple Logo > About This MAC > System Report.

Under the Software section, select Extensions.

They May take a while to load, once they do, click on “Obtained From” on the top right just once, then scroll to the bottom of the list.

Most of them will say “Apple” but on the bottom, you’ll see the third party installed Extensions.

In particular you’re looking for ones that say “Unsigned” or “Unknown”.If you click on each you’ll see the file path that leads to it, most likely in the /Extensions folder mentioned earlier.

I’d definitely save if needed / delete them.

Hope that helps, that usually does it for me, although I keep backups consistently, if not, I typically save a copy of these files by highlighting them and clicking File > New folder with selection, to de activate the file, while saving a copy, otherwise, I FB you have the data already backed up, shouldn’t be an issue deleting them.

Just be sure to delete the contents of the folders and not the folders themselves, restart when all is done then test, good luck!

Sounds good, good luck!

Oh and to answer your question about testing in a new user:

Yes, many times behavior like this, when tested in the new user, works just fine, this will just tell you which route to take as far as a resolution goes, and save you time, as to not do more steps than you have to do, and that wouldn’t work anyway.

For instance, you wouldn’t need to reinstall the whole OS, if something works fine in a new user, which tells you the OS is probably working normally.

But if the same were to happen in the test user, and safe boot, a reinstall of the whole OS might make more sense.

One if the locations that can affect an issue in just your user profile, are the login items I mentioned before, (Just one example).

As when you login to your user profile, this app or process opens automatically, running in the background, maybe causing an issue.

Where as in a clean/new user profile, there wouldn’t be any login items to launch at all.

But something specific to your user profile that’s causing an issue could be many things that ONLY affect your user profile, such as:

A locked file in your documents that is trying to backup, but jamming up the system.

A permissions conflict, such as when your home folder name doesn’t match the name in the home directory.

A specific account added such as Gmail or Outlook, etc. that’s running a muck.

A custom network configuration, or even a single corrupt file installed that came packaged with an app that was downloaded that’s stored in your own user library.

Those really are great steps to at least start to narrow down a possible cause. Thanks!