Safari and Others Hang. Is there a good way to diagnose which process is being a trouble maker?
I have a peculiar problem that has been developing for some time now.
Current Symptoms:
Safari (Any Version 5.0-Current) will load but WebProcess.app Opens to 100%
on one core of CPU (Non-Responsive) and no web-pages will load.
- VLC.app launches in the same fashion, one process pegs to 100%.
- iMovie.app hangs. Not crashing, but failing to successfully launch.
- Apple Script saved as an application behaves in the same way.
Attempted Diagnosis:
I'm currently running OS 10.7.3 on a Early 2009 Mac Pro.
I have tried:
Deleted Preferences, and Saved Application States. Then realized the
problem can't be in ~/Lib/Prefs. because it also is a problem on a clean user
profile I created to check. So I also looked in /Sys/Lib/Prefs. with no Success.
I have run disk permissions more times that I can count.
This comes up with regularity but solves nothing:
Group differs on “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.
Repaired “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”
Permissions differ on “usr/lib/ruby”; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x .
Repaired “usr/lib/ruby”
Reinstalled 10.7.3 from the Combo Updater from apples website. No Help.
I did find launching any affected App from the Unix Exe File in the .app
bundles (So it launches in terminal) will open them and allow them to
runwithout issue (yea! temporary fix)!
Finally I booted with -x into Safe Mode. There the problem vanished. Hooray
it's another piece of software or an extension I have loaded (Could be any over
the past 6 months or so)! 😟
So, I rebooted and tried to launch Safari immediately. It worked! Only after a
minute or so, when the GUI and background Apps had finished
loading, the problem returns.
What I need help with:
Is there any good way to tell what application is causing the problem or what
these four apps have in common? I have looked at Console Logs, Crash Reports,
etc. etc. but admittedly am not sure what to look for. I would be happy to post logs
or reports or more detailed info, if it would help.
Otherwise Thank-you to anyone who reads this and has any good ideas short
of a fresh install. 🙂 Cheers!
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), It's Tricky, Tricky, Tricky.