Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

2 points

Interface slow/buggy with two user accounts?

I've recently created a second user account on my 2009 27" iMac and ever since I've been having weird things happening, such as flash videos in safari becoming unresponsive (literally frozen) untill I move the safari window, which gets the video to play for a few more seconds, then it freezes again... Also, GarageBand does the same thing, when I press play I hear my music, but the play head freezes in place after a few seconds and the only way to get it to move again is to jiggle the GarageBand window, switch to another Space and switch back or press CMD ALT ESC to bring up the force quit menu (not actually force quitting the application, just the action of bringing up the menu is enough to get GarageBand to refresh and start playing again...). These methods also work with safari.

Quitting and reopening the applications doesn't fix the problem and restarting the computer brings temporary relief, but it always comes back. Sometimes safari is open on both user accounts, that might be causing the problem, I'm not sure. I do know that it started at the same time I created a second account.

So whats going on? I'm thinking it's maybe a graphical issue? I've tried doing a permissions and disk repair and while my hard drive was found corrupt, the repair didn't seem to make a difference. Is my only option here to delete the second account? Would that even work? Or is a trip to the apple store in order? I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this issue since ive never come across a bug in OSX that I couldn't fix myself!

Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 27" 3GHz Core 2 Duo

Posted on Jul 7, 2012 4:38 AM

Best reply

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Posted on Jul 7, 2012 5:26 AM

A trip might be in order but not yet. First run software update, if your profile is correct you're a version behind as 10.6.8 is current, there may neither updates as well. Second reset the SMC and pram

To reset the SMC

Shut down the computer.

Unplug the computer's power cord.

Wait fifteen seconds.

Attach the computer's power cord.

Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

To reset PRAM/NVRAM

Shut down the computer.

Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.

Turn on the computer.

Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.

Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

Release the keys.

View in context

27 replies

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jul 7, 2012 2:06 PM in response to WZZZ

No, the next step, if there's no free memory, is for inactive memory to be reallocated. If there's no free or inactive memory, then memory will be paged.

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jul 7, 2012 2:18 PM in response to Linc Davis

Exactly, and I already said that in theory inactive can be drawn from, but it doesn't seem to work this way in practice. I've seen this on my own system at one point where there was a lot of inactive, very little free, but inactive clearly was not being reallocated, as paging was happening like crazy. Inactive was a huge, useless pile of crap.

Kappy had a post somewhere, which I can't locate right now, that explained this. It had to do with some algorithm which determines how inactive is allocated and that prevents it from being reallocated freely as needed. The apps that had caused the problem were, by then, quit, but that didn't make a bit of difference.

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jul 8, 2012 5:58 AM in response to Linc Davis

Can you figure this one out? It's from when I had only 4GB RAM (now 12GB.) With 1.85GB free, things had slowed down to molasses and Page outs were getting near 50% of Page ins. (Huge drive free space, btw.)

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jul 8, 2012 6:20 AM in response to WZZZ

Memory Usage Performance Guidelines: About the Virtual Memory System

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jul 8, 2012 9:20 AM in response to Linc Davis

Not that it might not, somehow, cover it in the abstract, according to the general principles of memory management, but it would have been nice if that link -- which, btw, I had already bookmarked -- directly explained the above situation, about which I was genuinely curious. That article, as it relates to the specifics described in the screenshot above, leaves me still guessing. I suppose it was unrealistic of me to have expected such a direct explanation from you. Or, if you don't know, why don't you just say so?

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jul 9, 2012 6:16 AM in response to Hazza42

H, I'm back, and so is the bug...

I've tried all your. Suggestions, resetting pram and system controlle, even a safe boot. None of them solved my problem long term.

I've also noticed that the freezing interface is system wide. Everything is effected by it, even the finder. It'll freeze up during file browsing and the only way to bring it back to life is to press CMD ALT ESC to bring up the force quit menu. Not actually force quitting it, just bringing up the menu seems to solve it, but only for literally a few seconds, then it'll freeze again...

I've also discovered that this ONLY happens when I have two accounts logged in at once. When I'm only logged in on my account, no problem, as soon as my brother logs in, everything falls apart...

Does anyone know what on earth is going on here? It's only my iMac that seems to be doing this. I've tested it on multiple other macs and MacBooks and they have no problem at all... I think it might be time for a backup and a complete wipe of the system, a fresh install of lion and only restoring the files and applications I actually need.

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,694 points

Jul 9, 2012 6:36 AM in response to Hazza42

Keep Activity Monitor open and begun looking for an application in one of the user accounts that is using a large %CPU. That may indicate a corrupt app.

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jul 9, 2012 6:51 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Ok, I looked at activity moniter and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, then I did a restart and everything got worse. The intire interface is incredibly slow now, scrolling is jagged and jumpy, switching spaces no longer has an animation and sometimes the menubar at the top of the screen dissapears untill you click the empty space where it should be. Its so slow it feels like I'm screen sharing the computer over VNC with the worlds slowest wifi... Also, I opened activity moniter again and this:

Pretty much all 12GB used up. Looked down the list and there are no corrupt apps or processes. I'm no expert but im pretty sure having 9.54GB of wired memory isnt healthy...

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jul 9, 2012 7:55 AM in response to Hazza42

You have a huge amount of Wired memory allocated. It's gobbling up an enormous percentage of your RAM. I don't understand why that should be. Are you running Windows on some partition, maybe Parallels? Was this screenshot taken when booted from Safe Boot?

Unrelated to that, open Disk Utility and then Verify Disk.

Also in Disk Utility, with the drive selected -- this will be the first listing at the top -- not the volume, what are you seeing for SMART Status?

Might also try checking the health of the drive with the free demo of SMART Utility.

http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

The problems you are experiencing may be coincidental with the creation of the second user.

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jul 9, 2012 8:05 AM in response to WZZZ

A restart and another pram reset seems to have fixed the wired memory issue, I don't have any partitions or parallels installed so I'm not sure what caused it... The interface is now working properly again, not sure for how long though!

I do have an app called onyx, so I'll check my smart status with that? Disk utility is saying that it's verified and I've recently repaired the disk using disk utility too.

In any case, when the new iMacs come out later this year, I'll be upgrading. I'll probably migrate my MacBooks hard drive over since that has all my recent work on it, the iMac has become somewhat of a graveyard of applications, files and folders that I don't need anymore. It's become so cluttered that cleaning it would actually take longer than copying the few things that I do actually need from it (iTunes/Media) and restoring the whole lot from my MacBooks hard drive.

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jul 9, 2012 8:10 AM in response to Hazza42

I don't think Onyx will do anything more than report what you can already see from DU. SMART Utility will run a thorough check of the drive.

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Aug 11, 2012 12:24 PM in response to WZZZ

Well, my hard drive just died! The SMART status in Disk Utility now reads 'Failing' and it will only boot to external drives. You were right thinking it was a hard drive issue, I bought a spare one as a precaution and it paid off! I made sure I had a time machine backup so my data is all safe this time. A fairly painless hard drive failure (that doesn't happen often!)

I'm just glad to finally find out what was causing all that weird behavior!

Thanks for all the help!

Interface slow/buggy with two user accounts?