Weird Big Sur Goings On...

Why, when I have a very fast WiFi connection, and plenty of available RAM, am I experiencing jittery movements (such as when trying to open apps from the Dock), and other odd behavior, like having all the dropdown menus bounce back, when I click to open them? I click on File or View, or Window, and the list won't stay open long enough to select one of the items, but immediately snaps shut. This happens almost all the time, and is very frustrating.

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 11.6

Posted on Nov 4, 2021 4:29 AM

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Posted on Nov 5, 2021 3:56 PM

I think this is the reason it's happening:


WindowServer is using 141% of CPU, and nearly 4GBs of RAM


For comparison: on this machine those numbers are around 20% and 1.2 respectively.


Window Server is the process that draws the items you see on the screen. The question is, what's causing yours to run so hot?


Quit every app, one at a time. After quitting an app see if there is a significant reduction in WS activity. Should there be a significant drop off after a particular app, then that's the likely culprit. If there isn't, and you still end up with WS running hot then I would suspect one of the various hack apps you've installed.

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Nov 5, 2021 3:56 PM in response to Saxman

I think this is the reason it's happening:


WindowServer is using 141% of CPU, and nearly 4GBs of RAM


For comparison: on this machine those numbers are around 20% and 1.2 respectively.


Window Server is the process that draws the items you see on the screen. The question is, what's causing yours to run so hot?


Quit every app, one at a time. After quitting an app see if there is a significant reduction in WS activity. Should there be a significant drop off after a particular app, then that's the likely culprit. If there isn't, and you still end up with WS running hot then I would suspect one of the various hack apps you've installed.

Nov 5, 2021 1:02 AM in response to Saxman

Under User Login Items you have an incredible amount, I didn't bother counting too many.

Do you really need all these apps opening when you start your mac up, no didn't think so.

All they are doing is using up your macs resources.


System Preferences> Users & Groups> Login Items

Highlight the apps you do not want opening at launch and click the minus button.


You have installed Memory Clean, your mac does not need this app to manage your RAM memory

the mac does a better job of memory management than any app, remove it immediately.

Never install anything on your mac that claims to speed up, optimise or clean your mac.

The mac looks itself.


Restart your mac in Safe Mode as directed earlier

as it restarts in Safe mode the mac will carry out any repairs and clear out caches.

Restart back to normal mode and see if your mac behaves better.

Nov 13, 2021 1:00 PM in response to Saxman

You've posted a litany of woes, but since this is a user to user forum (not user to Apple), the best approach is to post with one specific issue and see if the thousands of users here have seen that before and how they resolved it, sort of crowd sourcing your query or problem. It's sort of hard for other users to try to address your many other complaints ranging from Macs to iPads to Apple support contact issues, or something about a Genius Bar person you did not like.


I think you got some good suggestions from experienced people here about ridding your computer of extra "system management tools" you may have installed. Items do load that are not listed in your login section. Many typically have extensions loading and operating even when the app is closed. On both Macs and PC, the OS has come leaps and bounds over the old days when little utilities could tune things up or improve them and they now mostly do not help and can do harm. Especially with the latest MacOS like Big Sur or Monterey, definitely would not "tweak" those; many of those utilities or hacks were written years ago and don't interact well with the modern memory or disk management built in features of the MacOS. I would remove them all and see how things go. I usually start with Occam's Razor which says the simplest solutions are mostly likely to be the ones to try first. I see many stock machines in Apple Stores running very fast and responsively. Why not try to restore the OS back to something close to how it came from Apple and see if the issues go away.


Facebook can be insidious and you might explore your settings carefully to see what you have allowed there. Depending on what you do on Facebook, there could be background videos trying to play constantly through your connections. Other web sites can cause great slowdowns differently on various browsers, some on Safari, some on Firefox, some on Chrome.


Several other items I noticed:


(1) You appear to have a fusion drive from 2017. Those fusion drives have sometimes proved to be problematic, in part because they mostly depend on a slower mechanical (rotating) drive. If Disk Utility can check the file system on that drive, I would do that, and/or use a tool like DriveDx (extended, long test) for its hardware.


(2) Malwarebytes -- a good program to detect malware, but some have reported that having its background checker running all the time has slowed down their system's responsiveness. Others don't seem to see that. So you could TRY simply turning off the background check function of Malwarebytes, reboot, and see if that helps. It will still check everything upon login or with scheduled or manual scans.

Nov 4, 2021 8:14 AM in response to Saxman

Saxman wrote:

Why, when I have a very fast WiFi connection, and plenty of available RAM, am I experiencing jittery movements (such as when trying to open apps from the Dock), and other odd behavior, like having all the dropdown menus bounce back, when I click to open them? I click on File or View, or Window, and the list won't stay open long enough to select one of the items, but immediately snaps shut. This happens almost all the time, and is very frustrating.


The speed and / or method of the Internet Connection has zero bearing on the behaviour, as per description provided.


To truly see how the Hardware and Software are working together and presenting the issue above >>


Suggest downloading the Application Etrecheck directly from a well Respected ASC Contributor. 


Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with nor receive compensation from the Developer.


The application is free or paid from added features. 


Run the application with Full Disc Access ( Security & Privacy - Full Disc Access ).


It will take a Snap Shot -  both the hardware and software.


The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 


Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last )


We can have a look at the report for possible issues and may have possible suggestions to resolve the issues.


The The Built in Security  is all that is required.

Nov 5, 2021 4:12 AM in response to Saxman

If I may quote @Eau Rouge " You have installed Memory Clean, your mac does not need this app to manage your RAM memory

the mac does a better job of memory management than any app, remove it immediately."


And if I remember correctly - one had this specific application installed in past versions of macOS. The same suggestion by @Eau Rouge today was suggested in the Older Version of macOS but from a different Contributor.

Nov 5, 2021 9:23 AM in response to Saxman

As others have told you, Memory Clean is not beneficial, indeed quite the opposite.

The thing is, macOS by design tries to use as much of your memory as possible. Unused memory is just there doing nothing, so when you have available memory, macOS may cache recently used files, it may compress the contents of a recently quit application and leave them in memory, which will make subsequent launches much faster, and so on. So you may see just, say, 40MB of free memory and think you are in trouble, but you're not.

Memory Clean just tries to create more "free" memory, and so it actively fights the way the OS manages the memory. Nothing good comes out of that.

Nov 5, 2021 9:36 AM in response to Saxman

To Add to@ Luis Sequeira1 point made.


It is along the same lines as some Disk Cleaners and Disk Optimizer in that they may have been around for years, even available on the Apple Apps Store and Thousands of the " Herd" claim they work - does not mean they actually do work.


Prime example is CMM which many of the " Herd " claim it does wonders which is contradicted by the testament from the first 600 posting https://discussions.apple.com/search?q=cleanmymac&page=1&content=filterDiscussions


As similar result when searching for MemoryCleaner https://discussions.apple.com/search?q=memorycleaner&page=1&content=filterDiscussions

Nov 4, 2021 8:27 AM in response to Yeet_Boy_FRESH

One thing - this specific Application is Authored by a Well Know, Respected and Reliable Long Time Contributor to the ASC Forums and somewhat of an expert.


Secondly - this Specific Application is often used by Apple Support to Trouble Shoot Apple Computer problems.


Thirdly - this application, as mentioned correctly ( good work ) , is not offered via the Apple Apps Store for several reasons none less than how Apple Cripples the Application functionality if it was offered on the Apple Store and Apple cut-of-each-sale they require.

Nov 5, 2021 8:32 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Oddly enough, when I open system preferences and go to the Login Items, there's only two apps listed (Flux, Macs Fan Control).

When I looked at the EtreCheck list of login items, I see that almost all of them aren't actually loaded (as most are connected to apps I rarely or never use). As far as apps, EtreCheck always recommends using the developers' uninstall app, to uninstall them. However, to do so for at least a couple dozen apps would be quite time-consuming, and not all apps do have uninstall apps anyway. Is it really wrong to use something like DeleteApps to round up all the extra files any app may have?

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