27" iMac very sluggish after recent software/firmware update

Hi and Welcome to Apple Support Communities,

I would suggest a few things.

Run a Permission and Disk Repair:

To do this turn on your Mac and hold the "Option" key. You'll see your bootable partitions, select the one that says "Recovery HD". Once you get in the Recovery HD select the Disk Utility option, that should launch the Disk Utility App. Once you are in the App select the Macintosh HD and in the "First Aid" tab select the "Repair Permissions Option" after that, run a disk verification. Click "Verify Disk" and if there are errors click the "Repair Disk" option until no errors are reported.

Reboot your Mac.

If the issue persists, I would suggest visiting your nearest Apple Store to have your iMac cheked. You can make an appointment at your local Apple Store Genius Bar here.

Hope this helps!

There are some simple troubleshooting steps you can take.

Be sure you drive is not overly full. Rule of thumb would be over 85%.

(First, be sure you have a good backup, or create one now.)

Create a new User go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > "+" (make it an admin acct) and test the apps in this new account, if they work the problem is isolated to your User and not systemwide.

If the issue is limited to your user account try starting up in Safe Mode (It will take more time to startup because it runs a directory check.)

If your apps functions correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> Login Items and remove them. Boot normally and test.

If the issue is systemwide then, you may be able to repair by booting cmd-r to your recovery Volume and re-installing Lion. This will be an "install in place" and shouldn't effect your data and settings.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software – potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions – they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.

These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.

Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.

Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then either copy or drag it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.

Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.

When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” (without the quotes) and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.

Step 1

Copy or drag – do not type – the line below into the Terminal window, then press return:

kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}'

Post the lines of output (if any) that appear below what you just entered (the text, please, not a screenshot.)

Step 2

Repeat with this line:

sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix)|edu\.mit|org\.(amavis|apache|cups|isc|ntp|postfix|x)/{print $3}'

This time, you'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning.

Step 3

launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|edu\.mit|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}'

Step 4

ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null

Important: If you synchronize with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.

Step 5

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item'

Remember, steps 1-5 are all drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste, whichever you prefer – no typing, except your password. Also remember to post the output.

You can then quit Terminal.

Please read this whole message carefully, especially the warnings, before doing anything.

WARNING: The changes to your configuration suggested here should be regarded as provisional; they may not solve your problem, or they may remove functionality that you consider to be useful. If a third-party system modification that you want to keep is causing the problem, you’ll have to seek help from its developer.

WARNING: Back up all data if you haven’t already done so. Before proceeding, you must be sure you can restore your system to the state it’s in now, even if it becomes unbootable -- which might happen. If you’re not absolutely sure you can do that, STOP – DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING. If you’re dissatisfied with the results of the procedure suggested below, restore from your backup. I will not be responsible for the consequences, and I will not help, if you ignore this warning.

You should either update or uninstall the following system modification(s), if an update is available from the developer:

N/A

and definitely remove at least the following:

BrowserPlus

Citrix GoToMyPC

† CleanMyMac

† Glims

Hulu Desktop

Juniper Network Connect

Silverlight

Soundflower

All of the latter must be removed completely, and (unless otherwise specified in this message) the only way to do that is to use the uninstallation tool provided, if any, or to follow the developer's instructions. In some cases it may be necessary to re-download or even reinstall the software in order to get rid of it. I can't be more specific, because I don't install such things myself.

WARNING: Trying to remove complex system modifications by hunting for files by name usually will not work and may make matters worse. If you can’t remove the modifications any other way, you’ll have to erase your boot volume and perform a clean reinstallation of the Mac OS.

I recommend that you never reinstall the modifications marked with a dagger (†) above, if any. If your problem is resolved after uninstalling all the above modifications and rebooting, but you still want to use some of those not marked with a dagger, you can experiment with putting them back, one at a time, testing carefully after each step. Keep in mind that system modifications may be incompatible with each other or with future Mac OS updates, so it may not be clear which one is at fault.

Never install any third-party software unless you're sure you know how to uninstall it; otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.

If you still have problems after making the suggested changes and rebooting, post again. Remember: if you don’t like the results of this procedure, you can undo it by restoring from the last backup you made before you started.

It's not clear whether you've seen an improvement from the changes you made. If not, you should uninstall the remaining system modifications and test again. I have never used "CleanMyMac" and can't tell you anything about it. It's a modification, and therefore has to be ruled out as a suspect. As for the Juniper client, you can uninstall it temporarily and test. If it's contributing to the problem, you'll have to get help from the developer, or from your IT staff, as I wrote above.