OS X Lion is incredibly slow (even after index)

I just bought a brand new MBP 2.4 GHz Core i5 last month and it is ridiculously slow. I constantly see the spinning wheel and everytime I click on an icon it takes almost 10 seconds to open. I've been on the phone with Apple Care twice, the second time I verified/repaired the disk. It was quicker for about a day and now it's back to normal. They said if it becomes slow again, they will reformat the disk and if that doesn't work, I may be entitled to a new computer. I have a bad feeling that all new MBPro's are slow. What would reformatting the disk do? My computer/software is up to date right now, and is still sluggish. Any recommendations?

OK...I read several pages of problems and their solutions, including "The Correct Answer", and it was like deja vu all over again.

I've been on the line with AppleCare (thank god I got it!) at least 5 or 6 times , and I think I've done all the fixes mentioned in 11 pages on this topic, including, cleaning caches, trashing plists, option startedup/reinstall, permission repair, and hard disk repair (did I forget anything?). After each one, my 27" iMac (2.8 i7/8 GB) megs ran like new...for about an hour or less. Then, slowly, then the opening lag, shutdown lag, keyboard lag, mouse lag, and the sluggish behavior of all and any programs returned until by the next morning, my machine would barely wake up (black screen and several minutes to open Mail or my browser). I'm about to go to my Apple store and get a TimeMachine external HD so I can back up all my stuff and do a clean re-install, but I may decide to do a clean re-install of Snow Leopard instead of Lion. Lion *****. I just don't trust it anymore after all the time I've wasted trying to get back to an iMac that just works.

I read a couple reviews which came out after the initial release which sounded enthusiastic but cautious. I wonder what the reviewers would say after having Lion on their machines for a few months...

Just got off the phone with AppleCare and she discovered a "helpful" updating program called MacInformer that was hogging huge amounts of memory. I trashed it and have high hopes that the insuing quickness will remain. Look in the activity monitor cpu usage to find programs that you may have migrated from a previous os that just doesn't work in Lion and delete... I think this is a permenant fix for me. My only sadness is that it took many calls to AppleCare before I was finally I was kicked upstairs to a supervisor or something that recognized the issue and it's solution. Took about two minutes.

Let me get this right. You install some third party junk and are 'sad' Apple took so long to figure this out?

Yes I was. First of all, I don't remember installing MacInformer..it appeared in the Finder bar next to my monitor icon, bluetooth, etc. I thought it was part of Lion! Somehow was insinuated on my computer - these things happen, you know. Kelly recognized right away that there was some memory hog at work - five other apple "techs" (and I use the word loosely) didn't. I have her personal work telephone and extension now and glad to have it.

What's it to you, anyway? Do you work for AppleCare?

Crofoot wrote:

Yes I was. First of all, I don't remember installing MacInformer..it appeared in the Finder bar next to my monitor icon, bluetooth, etc. I thought it was part of Lion! Somehow was insinuated on my computer - these things happen, you know.

No they don't, you or another user on the machine allowed this install, even put in the admin pssword for it, so now take it off and maybe refrain from blaming others.

Hey..I'm a user, not a computer geek. I have no idea how MacInformer got on my computer, and I'm the only user. Kelly told me that sometimes when one downloads 3rd party software, you're coerced into accepting other stuff during the download...I guess I could have said "no, I'm suspicious of your software", but I was naive, ok? She told me to avoid any third party stuff and I agreed and have learned my lesson, but that doesn't let the AppleCare techs off the hook. I still think they might have been suspicious enough to look at the activity monitor first given the symptoms. I mean they're nice guys and gals and all, but c'mon..they might have asked me "what programs are running that are consuming huge amounts of memory?" Don't ya think? I've learned a lot during the last 4 or 5 days of dealing with this issue, but when I was given the solution, wow, did it make sense - even for a relatively untechie person like me.

For what it's worth, I was having the same problem with Lion being slow after upgrading from SL. I tried many of the "fixes" mentioned in this and other threads and nothing worked. Finally bit the bullet and did a clean install.

Everything is back to being speedy again.

This is the second time I've had to do this. Same thing happened when I upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

Despite the statements from certain pundits that you shouldn't have to do a clean install, it really seems like it's the best way to go. It's a pain to have to reinstall apps and such but the benefits outweigh the pain for me. Time Machine and keeping most things on my external drive makes it a little bit smoother.

Tom

thanks, Tom. I appreciate your comment, but glad I didn't have to do a back-up and clean install. Iam confident that I have finally found the problem (culprit) and permnently fixed it with a simple trashing of some badlty designed 3rd party software. Any way, I don't have TimeMachine working as I don't have an outside hard drive to use for my terabyte HD, but I'm seriously considering getting something for this.

Everything is still excellent and it's been hours!!

I like macs but the tone makes it seem like any criticism of Apple by a user that installs real world programs from other makers upsets you. A Mac's not very useful without some third party apps, same as windows. What I like about Macs is it seems easier to get rid of junk and keep things clean without wading through a registry. Still, I was real disappointed in Lion. I bought it right from the Apple store and it turned my computer into a painfully slow circle spinner, and I got real tired of the spinning disk waiting to move between emails. I also didn't have days of downtime figuring it out.

Even if someone installed a third party program, the architecture and utilities should be where you can find out what's locking things up relatively quick, and I would expect Apple to be able diagnose issues fairly easy. For Lion, the idea that you have to rebuild your premissions, check your hard drive, and all these things you would think an intelligent upgrader would do seems a little out of character, or at least not the image I had of Apple.

I bought a new macbook pro with lion last month and reall don't know what to do. I've been on the phone with care twice, I've repaired the disk (which made it quicker for about a day), and now it's back to spinning wheels and delays all over the place. They said the next option would be to wipe the disk clean and start all over, but I doubt that would help since my computer is up to date with all updates. They mentioned that if it continues, I could have a lemon and they may give me a new computer, but I'm afraid all new macbooks with lions are like this.

I was surprised by Digitalclips and Csound1's responses too, but tried to reply honestly to their "blaming" concerns. In spite of my recent disappointment with my initial support "help", regarding this slowdown problem (ultimately solved by AppleCare, I admit), I've always been I huge Mac Addict (lol) for some of the reasons you mentioned. Once the Memory Hog was discovered (again, with the expertise of AppleCare), in the Activity Monitor (clicking on the "Real Mem" column puts all running programs in decending order regarding memory usage), it was a very simple matter to go into my Applications folder and drag it to the Trash. Problem solved.

I, and a couple of my support agents, had looked at the Activity Monitor previously, but not at individual program memory usage until the Supervisor suggested it. I wasn't familiar enough with Activity Monitor to highlight the Real Mem column, to see the offending program quite as easily. The window opens with "Process Name" highlighted by default, and this alphabetical list doesn't put the memory usage in your face so much. The usage was in Gigabytes for the offender, and all the other open programs were under 400MB, so, not being very observant, as I have already admitted to, I skimmed over the list and probably saw "2.5 GB", as "2.5 MB", a more common range in the list.

So, I'm still suggesting to all those who are continuing to have this slowdown problem - Look in Real Memory of your Activity Monitor! It may save you a lot of time and frustration. Lion is currently purring like a big pussycat, and I haven't had one iota of lag since this fix. The discussion I had with "help" was that programs not friendly to Lion can migrate during the OS upgrade, and have to be discovered and weeded out. They may have worked fine with Snow Leopard, but don't play well with Lion. Obviously, this isn't a fix for everybody, but it's worth a look before doing a clean reinstall, if you continue to have problems.

My comment was more about the fact you were 'sad' Apple support didn't pick up on a third party product sooner. Given there are a lot of potential third party apps than can cause problems, the simple solution is to try any Mac without them first. Testing a Mac in Safe Mode is and has been prudent since the days of Extension manager in pre OS X days as a first step in diagnosing Mac OS related issues. Here is how for those that don't know.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/21245.html

IMHO, your original comment was sarcastic and inflamatory.

It is ok to be peeved at a inefficient service that I paid for, isn't it?

If, "Given there are a lot of potential third party apps than can cause problems...", and I was having dumb user problems, you'd think that this would be one of the first places they would look...

I am learning, and Mac OS seems to get easier and easier to use and trouble-shoot, but given the relative lack of problems from this great product, I'm not used to poking around under the hood... That's why I pay for AppleCare. And "if the simple solution..." is to reboot in Safe Mode, why wasn't this ever suggested to me? Can I be 'sad' about this?

I am sorry if you took my post that way. I have spent the last thirty years helping people on Apple equipment and truly didn't mean to offend.

Yes I'd agree they could have suggested a safe boot as a starting point once the obvious was out of the way. Last week I forgot to ask if the computer was powered on, which it wasn't and hence the users issue ... it took a few minutes till the light bulb went on in my head and I asked .. support can be a hard at times 😉