Why is Lion so slow?

Same for me.

Problem has returned.

Reports that a clean install still doesn't fix the problem makes me wonder whether it's worth going through all the trouble to do this.

I didn't have very much LaunchDaemons and LaunchAgents that wasn't part of software I use regularly. But I took out Trustee (sw my online banking requested I install) and CS4 (since I already have CS5 in there) and will see if it makes a difference.

emptying launchdeamons and agents did nothing for me, that doesn't appear to be the main problem. I'm still betting on bad handling for sata drives cause with snow leopard I restored a copy of the files related to the sata support with copy from previous version of snow leopard and problem went away. lion I haven't been able to do so since I no longer have the older version files.

Understood -- FYI, I have four SATA drives in my machine and no problems like you describe. Not sure what that would mean

Removing just the ones you aren't using might not be enough of a test. It's possible that software you are using regularly nonetheless does not play well with Lion, and it's also possible (in fact I think likely) that their launch daemons are not needed in order to use them. It's easy to remove and easy to put back -- give it a shot.

Here are the ones I moved into the "disabled" folder FWIW:

/Volumes/The Main Event/Library/LaunchAgents/disabled:

at.obdev.LittleSnitchNetworkMonitor.plist

at.obdev.LittleSnitchUIAgent.plist

com.micromat.TechToolProAgent.plist

com.parallels.desktop.launch.plist

com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy.plist

com.redstonesoftware.VineServer.plist

net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist

/Volumes/The Main Event/Library/LaunchDaemons/disabled:

Folding@home.plist

at.obdev.littlesnitchd.plist

com.barebones.textwrangler.plist

com.cocoatech.pathfinder.SMFHelper.plist

com.micromat.TechToolProDaemon.plist

com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon.plist

com.rcook.assp.plist

edu.stanford.folding.prefpane.plist

edu.washington.cs.adeona.plist

org.macports.Privoxy.plist

might be related to specific sata controllers and/or drive combinations.

lets see if we can find a common factor. bring up the system information tool, be aware for those of you having this problem it might take a really long time to open [like me for example] even though it's going painfully slow, your mac probably isn't locked up. for those who don't know how to get the tool up, menu bar top left click the apple, click about this mac, then more information, then system report. each step will likely take several minutes to complete on computers effected with this bug.

please supply the following information,

os version 10.7.1 or 10.7.0.

your sata controller product code, will probably look something like ICH8-M AHCI which would be mine.

hard drive model number which will be right under it

once you have those bits of information, answer the following list of questions

are you using raid?

what model/year mac do you have?

what's listed in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ and /Library/LaunchAgents/

do you have virtualization software installed? parallels or vmware

finally, just to rule out wifi since it's well known apple had a wifi bug in 10.7.0 that is supposed to be patched in 10.7.1 [but didn't fix my problem] go to the wifi section of the system information tool and post the firmware version of your wifi card

my answers to these questions are

macbook pro 17 inch 2.4 ghz don't remember year

running os 10.7.1

ICH8-M AHCI sata controller

ST95005620AS hard drive model, is a seagate ssd hybrid drive

nothing but stock deamons in launcher directories, no other apps

Atheros 5416: 2.1.14.9 airport extreme card

using parallels but unloaded the deamons for testing.

Activity Monitor should give you clues as to what is slowing down your system.

Macbook Pro 13" 2010

OS 10.7.1

LaunchDemons:

com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

com.apple.remotepairtool.plist com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon.plist

com.google.keystone.daemon.plist com.rim.BBDaemon.plis

LaunchAgents:

com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy.plist

com.google.keystone.agent.plist com.rim.BBLaunchAgent.plist

com.hp.help.tocgenerator.plist com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist

com.parallels.desktop.launch.plist

NVidia MCP89 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia

Product: MCP89 AHCI

Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit

Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

TOSHIBA MK5055GSXF:

Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)

Model: TOSHIBA MK5055GSXF

Revision: FH405B

Serial Number: 60FHP0PGT

Native Command Queuing: Yes

Queue Depth: 32

Removable Media: No

Detachable Drive: No

BSD Name: disk0

Rotational Rate: 5400

Medium Type: Rotational

Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)

S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

Volumes:

disk0s1:

Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)

BSD Name: disk0s1

Content: EFI

disk0s2:

Capacity: 499.25 GB (499,248,103,424 bytes)

BSD Name: disk0s2

Content: Apple_CoreStorage

Recovery HD:

Capacity: 650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)

BSD Name: disk0s3

Content: Apple_Boot

Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8D)

Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.100.98.75.10)

Activity Monitor:

Mail always seem to be unusually high.

As does mds, kernel_task and WindowServer.

Quitting Mail however doesn't really bring the system back to speed it was with Snow Leopard.

ok... radically differant sata controllers and hard drives, that rules that out. windowserver is usually very high on mine too but I do not believe that is the problem. when activity on my mac stops the hard drive is also stalled, no reads or writes going on.

so far only common thing we have is still the sata drivers if the two controllers behave the same way, and we now have the added possibility of parallels causing trouble but I somehow doubt it as it's not much of an issue in activity monitor. hmm.

ok brain storming, what other os layers does hard drive read/write requests pass through? something somewhere is stalling out on read/write requests. I've done a lot of testing on this last few hours. apps already up and running that don't require constant access to hard drive function without lag or delay, as soon as an app needs to read or write [such as copying a file] instant stall, and many of them. most noticable when copying or moving a large selection of small files. has there been any significant additions to hpfs in lion?

"something somewhere is stalling out on read/write requests"

Yep I agree.

Not very scientific, but since I have no slowness issues, the only thing very much different to your activities:

Rim BB

Wacom table

Do you have the latest version of Parallels version 6?

yes it's up to date, currently combing the logs for any clues on where to look for the cause of the read/write operations stalls

Wow. I thought I had latest Parallels but ran it; checked updates and sure enough there was one due. Installed it. Then noticed in Activity Monitor that kext_cache was running a while after it finished.

Now – and i don't know if it's placebo or something perhaps – but I'm 90% sure my system is running much faster.

It seems quite possible that a dodgy incompatability with a Parallels kernal extension was the cause of the trouble.

Not counting my chickens just yet though (last week I thought the boot in restore and disk repair had solved it).

question, how many effected have installed flash player?

I have the latest Flash and Shockwave players. No slowness issues here.

For those of you who are suspecting it might be Parallels, would you have to have Parallels running for it to be the culprit? I rarely have mine running when i experience the problem and it is up to date.

BTW, what a great thread! Fantastic and very substantive participation.