MacBook Unusably Slow

Question

Level 1

8 points

MacBook Unusably Slow

Hi everyone. All of a sudden, my MacBook running Catalina has become incredibly slow.

After clicking on any element (buttons, menus, right-clicking), it takes literally minutes to get a reaction, only showing the beachball rolling. Opening any app takes very long (even Terminal or System Preferences). Opening a System Preference pane takes a few minutes. In Finder, switching directories or right-clicking takes minutes to respond. Clicking on the Apple in the menu also becomes unresponsive. As well as clicking on any menu, waiting for the menu to open takes 1-2 minutes. In Terminal, completing file name takes forever, or even a straight-up "ls".

So you get the idea, I have to wait a few minutes after every single input from the mouse or the keyboard, which makes the Mac unusable and is even making it very hard to backup the information.

My MacBook is old (2013), but was running decently until a couple of days ago. It has a 2.2 GB Intel 5 QuadCore, 8 GB of memory and 450 GB of free disk space.

I have checked using the Activity Monitor, and the CPU is hardly busy (95% idle), and there is plenty of memory left, as I only have the Finder and the System Preferences open.

I have booted in Safe Mode, but it is still the same. Another symptom is that some System Preferences return an error code "Preferences Error: Could not load Security and Privacy pane", and some system dropdowns show empty or with a "?" symbol in them.

Thank you very much for any help!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jul 16, 2021 11:50 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

PRP_53

Level 10

85,075 points

Jul 28, 2021 1:53 PM in response to areynaldos

Are there any AntiVirus, Disk Cleaner, Optimizers, Un-installers, etc installed which should be removed as per Developers Instructions. They are useless, unneeded, cause havoc and interfere with the normal operation of the OS and may even Corrupt the OS requiring a Reinstallation. The Built-in Security of Big Sur is all that is required.

Any Third Party Applications that will interfere with the normal operation of the OS, alter, modify, remove or delete or attempt to do so is an invitation for disaster and may require a Reinstallation of the OS.

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 16, 2021 3:10 PM in response to areynaldos

Hello, areynaldos.

Maybe we can figure out what’s going on with your Mac. It could be anything from a simple malware installation to a hardware failure. Some things are fairly easy to fix.

You should start with an EtreCheck evaluation of your Mac.

EtreCheck is a diagnostic app that gathers and reports important debugging information about your Macintosh. It is very highly regarded and meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help others help you troubleshoot and resolve your Mac problems.

Please navigate to EtreCheck.com and download the free version of EtreCheck. Once you’ve run the app and created your report please post it with your reply to this message.

You must upload the full report. For instructions on how to attach your EtreCheck report to your reply, please click How to use Add Text when posting…

We can use the EtreCheck report to look for the more obvious things that may be causing your problem and advise how to correct them.

Reply

Answer 3

areynaldos Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 16, 2021 7:35 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thank you! I really appreciate the help!

I just spent the day copying 400MB of files to back up the most important things, and it has taken 1 hour to download the EtreCheck zip. I will run it during the week and report back! I cannot open the Privacy & Security panel in the Preferences, so there is a chance I won't be able to grant Full Disk access permissions to EtreCheck.

Reply

Answer 4

areynaldos Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 21, 2021 9:04 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thanks for the help D.I. Johnson .

Unfortunately, EtreCheck was not helpful. I left it running all day long on Sunday and I had to quit it after serveral hours.. I tried again yesterday and I had the same issue: it would run for 18+ hours and I had to stop it.

Reply

Answer 5

PRP_53

Level 10

85,075 points

Jul 22, 2021 3:48 AM in response to areynaldos

The issue appears to be Lack of Empty Space on the internal drive and is so very busy swapping things into and out of Memory because the drive is running out of Empty Space.

Good practice is to keep at least 15 GB of empty space on the drive at ALL TIMES. Not doing that will eventually exhibit what this computer might be experiencing. If this is correct - the computer should show a Warning Message " Disk to too Full " or Disk is " out of space ". If left not corrected - the computer will eventually Stop Booting at ALL.

Reply

Answer 6

areynaldos Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 28, 2021 9:44 AM in response to PRP_53

Thank you for the input! I agree that the symptoms do seem like I had no disk space, but I have 450 GB of free space so that is not the issue.

Currently, I am trying to make sure I have backed up all the files to the cloud so that I can reset the MacBook, but it is taking days just to start the backup, so I am being patient.

I'd be happy to try any new ideas though. :)

Reply

Answer 7

Jul 29, 2021 2:25 AM in response to areynaldos

Not much information to go on, but I suspect that your internal drive may be failing.

You could try installing a clean OS on an external drive and seeing how your mac performed.

Also: try starting your mac in Recovery and running Disk Utility to check your internal drive

Reply

MacBook Unusably Slow

Similar questions