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Finder Runs SLOW, hangs. AKA "Persistent Pinwheel of Perdition"

Microsoft has its "Blue Screen of Death". I offer, for your consideration, the moniker "Persistent Pinwheel of Perdition" for Apple's prettier version. I had the Finder issue this past week, Catalina 10.15.7. . In a nutshell, I ended up having to reinstall OS from the Command-R repair mode reboot.

I had tried the "plist" clearing, Disk Utility, Hard Reboot, Safe Mode, and multiple other techniques over about 3 days, found here and via other gurus. Also downloaded a "Combo" version of OS, which then could not install!

BTW, the plist preferences remind me an awful lot of the "Windows Registry"- I found an awful lot of "junk" lines from long-removed hardware and software.

Finally, the Finder glitch "disappeared" some important files I was working on this week. Also from backup disk! Thank heavens I had just last week copied recent versions to an external SSD, once I started noticing Mac problems...

Posted on Jul 1, 2021 10:03 AM

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Posted on Jul 2, 2021 10:05 AM

The keystone agents or daemons are running all the time in the background even if Chrome is not (and, I suppose, even if Chrome has been deleted). At times they can cause a spike in processor use and make the system crawl.


Here is what I recommend:


Make sure your Time Machine is fully updated.

Create a Catalina installer:

Using Safari, download the installer from here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683

[if the installer starts automatically, quit it now]

Follow the instruction here to create an installer disk on a usb thumb drive: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


After being sure that you have the Time Machine accessible and that everything you had on that SSD was copied off somewhere else:


Restart holding down the Option key and select the installer drive you have just created.

Using Disk Utility from the installer drive, completely erase the SSD (the whole drive not just some volumes in it), choosing APFS with GUID partition table.


Install Catalina on the SSD.


When asked about migrating, you can point to the Time Machine backup as the source.

IMPORTANT: check only the user accounts, and NOT applications, settings or other files.


When finished you will experience a new mac :-)

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Jul 2, 2021 10:05 AM in response to SpockNard

The keystone agents or daemons are running all the time in the background even if Chrome is not (and, I suppose, even if Chrome has been deleted). At times they can cause a spike in processor use and make the system crawl.


Here is what I recommend:


Make sure your Time Machine is fully updated.

Create a Catalina installer:

Using Safari, download the installer from here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683

[if the installer starts automatically, quit it now]

Follow the instruction here to create an installer disk on a usb thumb drive: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


After being sure that you have the Time Machine accessible and that everything you had on that SSD was copied off somewhere else:


Restart holding down the Option key and select the installer drive you have just created.

Using Disk Utility from the installer drive, completely erase the SSD (the whole drive not just some volumes in it), choosing APFS with GUID partition table.


Install Catalina on the SSD.


When asked about migrating, you can point to the Time Machine backup as the source.

IMPORTANT: check only the user accounts, and NOT applications, settings or other files.


When finished you will experience a new mac :-)

Jul 1, 2021 12:19 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Luis- thanks for the response. I'm sorry if I was not clear enough- my system seems to be working again after reinstalling the OS, but not 100%, and App Store the latest glitch, esp searching, reviewing Apple updates. No doubt you are right. Had iMac since 2013, my first non-PC, and this is only the second time I've had problems. The prior one was due to a McAfee antivirus that Cox internet had recommended for years. That was a slowdown, this is major. Here is the report. -Larry


Jul 2, 2021 9:36 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Luis- also see 9:04 and 9:06 posts. To respond further, no, I have been finding Motorola junk here & there for years, long after dragging ancient Motorola app to the bin. I had never had to learn about plist or kernels or orphan drivers until now, so no, lots of that old junk is just that. I was under impression that dragging app to the bin was, as a rule, how to remove it, and so must please Mac ignorance, after decades of wrestling with MSDOS-Windows. I am in the middle of relocating all the image/video files etc. from the one SSD to the HD. I can do another full Time Machine BU after that, do I NOT include system files this time?

Is Google Keystone separable from Chrome? Here is my App folder list. I keep a few years of HRBlock installed for quick reference, not an oversight.


Jul 3, 2021 12:39 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Zounds! Luis, I am very, very thankful for all your advice and links. While it took some time, especially a (surprisingly few) re-downloads of necessary, daily use apps, the bootup is faster than I've seen it for years, and the finder searches work like a charm, and fast, too. I have not done a post-install time machine backup yet, but will tomorrow. All these years, I haven't been using my SSD's to their best potential, too. Live and learn... Attached is a follow up etrecheck. I can't ditch Google chrome yet (my wife not ready to give it up), but I did read up on the Keystone agents, so they are staying for now. Thanks again, sir!


Jul 2, 2021 1:15 AM in response to SpockNard

Several problems that I can see from the report. I will list some of them below.


Your mac has a rotating hard drive. HD are much slower than SSD, and with newer OS versions that difference is ever more noticeable. You also apparently have an external SSD. That may give you a good solution going forward, I will write about it in another post.


You have several kernel extensions, some quite old:


Kernel Extensions:
  /Library/Extensions
    [Not Loaded] FTDIKext.kext - com.FTDI.driver.D2XXHelper (1.0 - SDK 10.14)
    [Not Loaded] FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext - com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver (2.3 - SDK 10.9)
    [Not Loaded] hp_fax_io.kext - com.hp.kext.hp-fax-io (5.11.0 - SDK 10.8)
    [Not Loaded] hp_io_enabler_compound.kext - com.hp.kext.io.enabler.compound (3.2.0)
    [Not Loaded] hp_Inkjet9_io_enabler.kext - com.hp.print.hpio.Inkjet9.kext (2.3.1 - SDK 10.8)
    [Not Loaded] MotMobileUSB.kext - com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileUSB (1.2.2 - SDK 10.5)
    [Not Loaded] kudshawking.kext - hk.uds.netusb.controller (1.59)


Note that one that says SDK 10.5? 10.8?

Do you still need a driver for a Motorola device from ten years ago?


Under Launch Agents, you also have a few:


Launch Agents:
  [Not Loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (? ffb65062  - installed 2018-07-14)
  [Other] com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a23d420d.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2021-02-10)
  [Not Loaded] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-07-14)
  [Loaded] com.adobe.ElementsAutoCreator-17.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-11-17)
  [Running] com.adobe.GC.AGM.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2021-04-16)
  [Not Loaded] com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2021-04-16)
  [Other] com.brother.LOGINserver.plist (? a1772de2  - installed 2015-03-12)
  [Loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2021-03-04)
  [Loaded] com.google.keystone.xpcservice.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2021-03-04)
  [Other] com.mcafee.McAfeeSafariHost.plist (? 0  - installed 2018-10-22)


Notably, you have still remnants of mcafee. The google keystone stuff are known hog resources.


I am not familiar with this "pcshow" software, but it installs several agents and daemons. It may be just fine, I am just not familiar with it.

Jul 2, 2021 1:20 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

As I suspected, you have been successively upgrading the software on this mac, perhaps since 2013.

While that is very convenient, at times it is best to start fresh. Fortunately this no longer as hard as it used to be.


You have an internal 3TB drive, but not much space on it is used. In fact the contents would fit comfortably in one 256GB SSD.


I recommend a full backup, followed by an erase and install.

That alone should help, but since you have apparently two SSD, it will be even better if you install the OS and one of them, and just use the internal HD to store extra data.


If you consider doing this, let me know and I will provide detailed instructions.



Jul 2, 2021 9:04 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi again, Luis. I just did a full backup yesterday, in fact- I use one SSD just for Time Machine, the other has originals and/or backups of many of my photo and video files, projects, etc. I'm interested in doing the erase and fresh install, as you suggest. I am unsure about installing on a peripheral SSD- used to have to worry about "BUS" speeds. Not to abuse your expertise, but if you can refer me to pros/cons of this, I can make an informed choice. Not sure why you say "even better". Thanks again! Larry

Finder Runs SLOW, hangs. AKA "Persistent Pinwheel of Perdition"

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