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Level 1

11 points

Spinning wheel of death

Hello, I am hoping you can help.

I am getting the spinning wheel of death on most applications at the moment.

I have read about the varios ways to trouble shoot but they do sound quite involved eg going to the utility monitor and have tried that but did not get very far with it as I dont understand the menus. I am worried I will cause more harm than good.

My question is, do you think smeone with little technical knowledge has a chance of sorting this out? I will perservere if you think its possible. Or, is this quite a difficult issue to resolve?

Many Thanks

Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Mar 31, 2012 11:31 PM

Best reply

John Galt

Level 10

141,180 points

Posted on Mar 31, 2012 11:54 PM

1. Go to the Spotlight icon at the top right of your screen:

2. Type activity monitor in the search field (where it says "sandra" in the picture above)

3. The "top hit" will be the Activity Monitor app. Click it. The Activity Monitor utility will appear.

4. Read the following KB article to decipher its meaning:

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

5. Reply with the numbers shown for "page ins" and "page outs" like you see in the following.

Also, reply with the total amount of memory installed in your system - it is the number below the "pie chart" in the above screenshot.

Now that you are an Activity Monitor expert, you can use it to identify what specific processes are causing your system to become sluggish. Referring to the KB article in Step 4 above, click the %CPU column heading to sort it by percent CPU load. If the numbers at the top of the column are zero or close to it, click the same column heading again to reverse the sort order. Higher numbers mean your CPU is working harder on that process than those with lower numbers. Identify these processes and see if you can correlate your spinning "wait cursor" appearance to them.

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21 replies

DD67 Author

Level 1

11 points

Sep 2, 2013 12:03 AM in response to John Galt

I realise that I did not update this thread.

EVENTUALLY this problem resolved.

It turned out my babysitter who lived next door but one had used my computer and had enetered the details of another wireless network which my mac started using as its default setting. The signal was poor and clearly could not keep up its connection.

It doesnt explain why I got the SWOD on other applications but thankfully the problem has not come back.

Thanks again for your help.

John Galt

Level 10

141,180 points

Sep 2, 2013 6:03 AM in response to DD67

Great! Thanks for the update and description of the problem.

The cause is usually something simple, but if someone else used your Mac it's certainly understandable that mysterious behaviour could result.

BocaJulz

Level 1

8 points

Sep 2, 2013 6:49 AM in response to John Galt

Howdy John! FYI - I resolved my spinning wheel of death.....I finally got a new MBP retina, maxed out the memory and storage and never happens again! LOL!!! It was a big investment, but well worth it. I'm sailing along using CS6 and happy to be mobile with a laptop, finally. Guess after 5 years, my iMac was at End of Life......even the display was turning yellow - guess the tubes were burning out alongside the memory! I'm in MBP heaven now 😉

mbp-pi22

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2013 7:17 PM in response to John Galt

Hello John,

If you could be of any assistance then that would be great, if not then a trip to the Genius bar will be needed.

I bought a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011) in September of last year. I have been using this mbp for a little over a year. Before this, I had a black macbook which worked fine for 4 years. After using this laptop for more than a year, the spinning wheel of death has come. There is a lag for about 3-5 seconds in which my whole mbp stops. I am wondering what could possibly make my somewhat new mbp do this? Sadly, my year warranty has expired and I have not bought applecare. If you could help me then that would be great. Here is my info.

Thanks.

John Galt

Level 10

141,180 points

Oct 17, 2013 7:33 PM in response to mbp-pi22

mbp-pi22 I'm sure your problem is fixable but you should start a new Discussion. This one is old and won't attract you the attention you need. It's just the way this site works.

Click here: start a new Discussion

Include a description of the problem and the OS X version you're using.

Thanks!

Sep 15, 2014 9:52 AM in response to John Galt

John, I've been reading this thread and have bookmarked the pages you suggest. My problem is I'm getting the wheel of death in Pages. I've restarted both app and commuter to clear out the RAM but it just happens again almost immediately. I'm concerned because I believe my files are being corrupted by continually Force Quitting Pages. I am a writer and depend on it greatly. My iMac with 8 GB RAM is running out of memory and storage so I recently purchased a MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM and double the memory the over 500 GB number that I can't remember--says 499 GB avail.). When I opened the file from the other computer on my new one, I had trouble too, but not as severe, so I figure I have a corrupted file.

A I causing myself problems by having the app and folders open on both computers at the same time? What are the boundaries that I should work in regarding that? I appreciate any help. Thanks.

Spinning wheel of death