My MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014, macOS Big Sur v.11.6.4) boots and runs uncharacteristically slowly despite SSD

EtreCheck version: 5.7.2 (5247)

A - This would explain the No Full Disk Access. It is either Apple Store Version or Outdated version. Current from Developer is 6.6.1

Major Issues:

Q -  Runaway process - A process is using a large percentage of your CPU.

A - This would dove-tail into the section below entitled User Login Items: There are 12 Processes or Applications set to start when the computer is started from a Cold Boot.

Minor Issues:

Q - SSD too slow - SSD is showing poor performance.

A - The computer is from 2014 or 8 Years old and SSD Drive do have a life expectancy before that start to slow their age - not performing as expected.

Q - Clean up - There are orphan files that could be removed.

A - Self Explanatory and needs the user  to review and action this 

Q -  Unsigned files - There are unsigned software files installed. Apple has said that unsigned software will not run by default in a future version of the operating system.

A - Self Explanatory and needs the user  to review and action this 

Q - System modifications - There are a large number of system modifications running in the background.

A - Running with many System Modifications has unintended consequences including what the computer  is experiencing now

Drives:

Q -   disk0 - APPLE SSD SM0512F 500.28 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes) 

450.00 GB (Shared - 306.46 GB used, 140.59 GB available, 120.80 GB free)

A - it is suggested to keep at least 15%  to 20% of the Drive Total Capacity as Empty Space for good operations of the computer. The more time the computer spend searching for Empty Space the lower the overall performance will be.

System Software:

Q - macOS Big Sur 11.6.4 (20G417)  Time since boot: Less than an hour

A - The current version of Big Sur is 11.6.7 and needs to be installed 

Q - Plugin: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin

Q- Plugin: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/RealPlayer Plugin.plugin

Q Plugin: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin

A - All the above are obsolete and need to be removed.

System Extensions:

Q - [Not Loaded] Surfshark Antivirus - version 4.2.1 (SURFSHARK LTD - 2022-06-17)

A - There are no known Windows-like Viruses in the wild that self replicate and affect macOS, because of the underling UNIX  Foundation and Permission Limitation. 

Additionally, and specific to Big Sur macOS 11 and Monterey macOS 12, the Operating System resides in a Sealed and Read Only Volume that can not be opened by the User or “ Bad Actor “ Software.

The Only thing this Antivirus software is protecting is the Bank Account of the Developers and for zero return to the User aside from the problems this software creates.

The The Built in Security  is all that is required to protect the computer.

Q - [Running] Surfshark. WireGuard - version 4.2.1 (SURFSHARK LTD - 2022-06-17)

A - Same as above  

Kernel Extensions:

Q -  /Applications/ExpressVPN.app

    ExpressVPNSplitTunnel.kext - com.expressvpn.splittunnel (1.0.2 - SDK 10.14)

A - Commercial VPNs   should only be used if Mandated by Corporate Head Office for working remotely. Otherwise - ones Privacy and Security touted by the VPN is suspect. 

 Q - User Login Items:

 1 -  [Running] CIJSUAgent (Canon Inc. - installed 2017-11-30)

 2 -   [Not Loaded] ETBLauncher (Belight Software, ltd - installed 2021-06-15)

  3 -  [Not Loaded] ExpressVPN Launcher (ExprsVPN LLC - installed 2021-07-12)

  4 -  [Not Loaded] GOG Galaxy Auto Launch Helper (GOG Sp. z o.o. - installed 2021-09-09)

   5 -  [Not Loaded] LaunchService (LG Electronics - installed 2022-05-04)

   6 - [Not Loaded] Launcher Disabler (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2022-07-09)

    7 -  [Not Loaded] OneDrive Launcher (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2022-07-09)

    8 -   [Not Loaded] FSMenuAppLoginItemHelper (Paragon Software GmbH - installed 2017-10-31)

    9 - [Not Loaded] SpeedTestHelper (App Store - installed 2022-05-04)

   10 - [Not Loaded] Surfshark (SURFSHARK LTD - installed 2022-06-17)

 11-   [Not Loaded] HP Device Monitor (HP Inc. - installed 2019-04-04)

  12 - [Not Loaded] HP Product Research (HP Inc. - installed 2019-04-04)

A - Covered Earlier above and suggest evaluation what is Required and What is Not

Internet Plug-ins:

Q - Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: 2.2.1.11  (? - installed 2008-08-15)

Q - OVSHelper: 1.0 (? - installed 2010-12-10)

Q -  SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.0.0 (? - installed 2010-08-25)

Q -  RealPlayer Plugin:  (?)

Q - Silverlight: 5.1.40728.0 (? - installed 2015-10-28)

A - All are Obsolete and should be removed 

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Q - NTFS (Paragon Software GmbH - installed 2017-09-15)

A - really suggest checking for more Current version of this software and especially Big Sur Compatible version

Clean up:

  ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.expressvpn.ExpressVPN.update.plist

If the file system has issues, it can sometimes cause severe performance issues. Run First Aid on the Container. Doing so will also automatically run First Aid on each of the Container's APFS volumes. The trick is to click "Show Details" to see if any unfixed errors are listed since First Aid will sometimes lie regarding the summary result. In addition you can also run First Aid on the physical drive in your case listed as "Apple SSD SM0512F Media".

You can run DriveDx to check the health of the SSD. Post the complete text report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper. It also never hurts to run the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected.

You can also try an SMC Reset and PRAM Reset (hold the PRAM Reset for at least three chimes).

After a PRAM Reset you will need to reselect the default startup disk in the Startup Disk System Preferences, otherwise the system will take some time to scan for bootable devices which can take 30 seconds or more depending on how many devices are connected.

MalwareBytes is fine to use, but unnecessary unless you suspect a malware or adware infection. There is no need to run the real-time scanner. MalwareBytes has an uninstall option on the Help menu (or one of the menus).

After performing a clean install, it is best to test the Mac to see if you still have the problem. If you still have the problem, then most likely you have a hardware issue of some sort. Make sure all external devices are disconnected as well. Test before installing any third party apps and before migrating/restoring from a backup. Of course if everything is fine at this point, then you have to decide how you want to proceed. You can attempt to restore from the recent backup, but most likely you will still have the same problem. Another option is to restore from an older backup, hopefully before the issue first started.

I can't comment on what some other tool might say. Sometime people like to run those tools to print out detailed, low-level statistics about drives and then make some kind of pronouncement about their health. But all of that data is proprietary. The tools are reverse-engineered by people who have no actual knowledge of the hardware.

Your EtreCheck report shows that your internal SSD is about half as fast as the SSD is on most other identical computers. I don't know if that difference in performance is due to a hardware fault or a software fault.

You do have a couple of unusual configurations, as well as quite a bit of unusual system modifications. There is no way to tell what the impact of any one of those, let alone your unique combination of all them, might be.

Here are the items that I would recommend fixing:

1) You have your boot disk partitioned with a DOS volume on it. Is that from Boot Camp or something? Is that causing the problem? The only way to tell is to get rid of it.

2) You have an old USB 2.0 drive connected. It says it is USB 3, but it connected via a USB 2 hub or something. The drive doesn't appear to be mounted. I recommend fixing the configuration so that you get USB 3 speeds and, ideally, leaving it disconnected entirely until you figure out what the problem is.

3) Beyond that, you have a bunch of 3rd party system modifications installed. Some of them are obviously doing low-level file system and disk things. What is the end result of all that? No way to tell.

I think the best course of action would be to wipe that hard drive and start over with default settings and configurations. If you need any compatibility for other systems, use a VM or maybe an external drive (with the correct connections). But before loading it up with any kind of system modifications, run performance tests to give you an idea of what a factory-fresh configuration should look like. You can keep running those performance tests as you make changes. That way, you can easily tell what the impact of any given change happens to be.

Ey3God wrote:

1) Should I copy all critical data to an external drive first, and then wipe?

Can't hurt.

) Can I just use my most recent, up to date Time Machine to draw the data from (without restoring from the TM, just by accessing the files)?

Yes, but you have to do something special. If you just restore everything, it will restore all of the 3rd party system modifications. You will have wasted your time. Instead, you can restore only your user account and user data. Do not restore any software or "other files". You will have to manually reinstall any software that you really need.

3) What's my best course of action? Right now I'm thinking download Big Sur to USB, boot in recovery mode and wipe the drive, then perform a clean install; that a good idea?

I don't think you'll need the USB. All you really need to do is wipe the drive and reinstall the operating system. Then restore your user data from backup.

Now that I review your original post, I think the problem could be the battery. Your EtreCheck report didn't report any battery at all. If the operating system detects foreign hardware like that, it could easily cause system throttling and various other problems.

Ey3God wrote:

<Report.log>

Please see my report attached; even though I enabled full disk access, it doesn't show that I did, and it also doesn't register my Time Machine, which is weird cos it's plugged in right now and working.

You are still running the old Mac App Store version of EtreCheck. Get rid of that and use EtreCheckPro instead.

Full Disk Access is not that important. EtreCheckPro will also ask for it, but it is really only necessary for Time Machine information and for the Storage tool.

The two biggest issues are your File System test failure and the 169% CPU usage. EtreCheckPro will do a better job of explaining where that 169% usage is coming from. But the File System test failure could be a bigger problem. It could be caused by either some low-level system modification interfering with normal hard drive operations, or a hard drive failure.

HWTech wrote:

FYI, The performance of the Apple SSD in this particular laptop is fine as it is a SATA based SSD. The NVMe based SSDs are the ones which get 1200MB/s or more transfer rates.

I ran a test from EtreCheck Insights data. The average read and write speeds for this machine are 749 and 583. But then, that data is from EtreCheck reports, where computers are already having some kind of problem. It is not unusual to see speeds over 1200 MB/s. The NVMe models get 2406 and 1566, on average. The M1 machines are faster still.

However, I was primarily looking at the file system time. The average file system time for that computer is 29 seconds. In the OP's first report, the file system test completely failed. This is one area where there is no difference between EtreCheck and EtreCheckPro. A high file system time could be caused by various 3rd party system modifications that perform lots low-level file system operations. But it could also be a hardware problem. Early MacBook Airs are statistically much more likely to fail the file system test.

Have you tried booting your mac in the safe mode to see if this problem persists?

See this link for reference How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

I know the developer of EtreCheck has said the App Store version of the app is not allowed to have "Full DisK Access" due to the rules of the App Store. Only the version downloaded directly from the developer's website can allow being assigned "Full Disk Access". Having "Full Disk Access" would provide more details especially as it would included a summary of the system logs.

I see the NVidia CUDA software was listed within the report although I think there was only one extension so it may just be remnant. I was assisting on another thread and we determined this software was likely the cause of the issues since that user didn't have very much else installed. Unfortunately the user never updated their thread for us to know if they ever did anything about that software. Are you using a BlackBerry device or is that from years ago (definitely should be uninstalled if not being used)?

I also notice you have a 50GB FAT partition on your SSD.

I'll have to leave the rest to other more knowledgeable contributors as I am not a macOS software expert.

You may want to run Disk Utility First Aid on the hidden Container of the SSD. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the hidden Container appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Even if First Aid says everything is "Ok" click "Show Details" and scroll back through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed. If there are any unfixed errors listed, then you will need to run First Aid from Internet Recovery Mode, otherwise you will need to erase the whole physical SSD before restoring from a backup or clone.

The SSD's health report looks good. I've seen lots of Apple SSDs with high "Power Cycle Counts" so it is hard to say if this is a problem or if it is normal.

You mentioned a battery dying. I double checked the EtreCheck report and don't see the battery status listed in the report which is unusual. If there is a power issue (or battery issue) with the laptop, then it can make the laptop run very slow.

Ey3God wrote:

3) What's my best course of action? Right now I'm thinking download Big Sur to USB, boot in recovery mode and wipe the drive, then perform a clean install; that a good idea?

I would recommend having the bootable USB stick so you have more options if Internet Recovery Mode does not work as expected. Many users report issues accessing Internet Recovery Mode for various reasons which can be extremely hard to troubleshoot. Plus Internet Recovery Mode may not allow you access to the most recent version of the macOS installer and will instead only boot to the oldest online installer compatible with your Mac which would be macOS 10.10.

If you wish, I can review the existing report which will be only partially accurate or you can run the Application again and try to enable Full Disk Mode and post back the Full Report.

Please advise 😀