MacBook Pro M5 slow, beach balling, EtreCheck too long

martyler wrote:

MacBook Pro M5 slow and beach balling.

To trouble shoot further you can:

—A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

This test will tell you if third party interference; most extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.

—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

*** (if you are using a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries— connect the charging cable, this will make the wired keyboard successful Safe Boot your Mac.)

unplug all non-essential peripherals when testing

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

martyler wrote:

<Etrecheck report.log>

re: Description: System Extension enables Surfshark app to provide antivirus features.

[Running] Surfshark. WireGuard - version 4.26.1 (SURFSHARK LTD - installed 2026-03-02)

System Extensions:

[Removed after restart] Surfshark Antivirus - version 4.26.1 (SURFSHARK LTD - installed 2026-03-02)

Description: System Extension enables Surfshark app to provide antivirus features.

[Running] Surfshark. WireGuard - version 4.26.1 (SURFSHARK LTD - installed 2026-03-02)

Application: Not found!

Description: System Extension enables Surfshark app to connect using WireGuard protocol.

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

Third party AntiVirus is not recommended— it typically does nothing but add issues to the macOS and competes directly with Apple’s own built in security.

For your third party app.extension/etc—

if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/official in-app uninstaller...

in some case if you deleted the app, you will need to reinstall it to get to the official uninstaller— I have no idea

do your due diligence ref:

https://support.surfshark.com/hc/en-us/articles/9397754999570-How-to-delete-the-Surfshark-app-on-macOS

• Surfshark is still running. Try a restart and see if it is still showing as an Extension.
• Remove MalwareBytes. The only thing it is good for is the free one time scan and I don't recommend having it installed to run constantly on your computer.
• If you are experiencing the beach balling while using a browser, I would look closer at your Adobe install including the 6 year old Internet Plug-Ins and the Safari Extensions that you can try turning off.
• With the last restart being 10 days ago, it would not hurt to restart, which should remove the 1 pending SurfShark extension and to do some housekeeping.
• As leroydouglas mentioned, the Safe Boot is also a good troubleshooting step to clear additional caches and test. Just restart again normally to exit Safe Mode.

At the bottom of this window:

You can attach links, additional text, pictures, and YouTube video

ONLY the "Shared" version of the report is laundered of all personally-identifiable data and properly spaced to be read easily on the forums.

then start a reply on the forums, click the 'additional text; icon and PASTE

When it's slowing down, could you please open Activity Monitor app (pre-installed) and screenshotting the CPU and Memory (or RAM) tabs?

It looks like part of Surfshark is still installed. After restarting, go to System Settings > Login Items & Extensions.

Scroll down and look for the WireGuard extension. Click the "..." button to manually remove it. Then restart again.

Hopefully that should fix it. Your EtreCheck report is showing excellent performance. So if you're seeing beachballs, then the problem is limited to some user-facing logic. The computer itself is running great.

martyler wrote:

One other note.....I thought I had uninstalled Malwarebytes. I cannot find it anywhere to uninstall. Open to suggestions.

MalwareBytes includes an "uninstall" option on one of its menus. I think it is under the "Help" menu, but if not, then check each of the other menus in the MalwareBytes app.