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slow and spinning beach balls after 10.8.2 update

After the initial install of ML 10.8 for the most part the sytem seemed to run fine. Very few snags. But after the 10.8.1 and now the 10.8.2 updates I am finding slower and slower times for programs to boot and waiting to be able to type anything and spinning beach balls all the time. I have noticed this continuously bringing up the contacts program, MS word, Pages, Apple Mail etc. Initial booting of the computer is slower as well and often has a frozen beach ball for a minute or so before it unfreezes and proceeds. Also huge slow down in printing from my wifi printer which before was super fast. I have reset the SMC, Pram, did disk permission repairs and all of those items. Nothing has changed anything. This is a early 15" 2011 MBP unit with 8 gig of ram, 750 gig hard drive with only 250 gig in use, 2.2 I7 processor and Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB. All software is updated to latest versions. This slower and slower and waiting thing is getting continuously worse all the time and very annoying. If anyone has any ideas I am open to suggestions to find a solution. Thanks much.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Sep 22, 2012 9:56 PM

90 replies

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Oct 30, 2012 9:56 AM in response to missionarymac

One free way to check fonts is with the Validate Font command in FontBook's File menu.

There are other utilities which may look deeper.

Oct 30, 2012 10:12 AM in response to drdocument

No problems found with fonts at all. The only usage in activity monitor that is somewhat high is the mds but now back down and the hp service monitor? But nothing that high in either one. All else very low. I tried the log out and back in again and just like last night when it logged back in all seemed very fast and good again. But if like last night after a while it will start the same slow down and spinning beach balls again. But the log out and back in works wonders for a while.

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Oct 30, 2012 10:34 AM in response to missionarymac

Curious. (And frustrating, I'm sure.)

A couple other ideas:

Do you have any very large files which are updated frequently and may be requiring more time for Time Machine backup? Do your TM backups seem unusually large? When you connect the backup drive and allow TM to back up, are you careful to wait until backup is entirely complete before unmounting the backup drive?

You might try rebuilding Spotlight index and Launch Services database. I use OnyX for that. (But be careful with OnyX to be absolutely sure what your'e doing before you do it.)

Oct 30, 2012 1:59 PM in response to drdocument

Nothing unusual about TM and it does not take long usually to update. Always wait till it is finished and usually a while after it finishes before ejecting the drive and unplugging it. Never have seemed to have a problem with TM at least as far as I know. I too have used onyx for some time. Tonight I cleaned and repaired and rebuilt everything I could find to do. Permissions, launch and pre bindings, cleared caches, even defragged the drive etc. Spent about 2 hours on all this. Did not find anything wrong with fonts etc. Rebuilt spotlight index and launch services. when all was finished I can say it actually was worse than before I began. Finally did the log out thing again and that helped again? But if like before it won't last. This has become a real puzzle to me and I really want to find a solution as I think it will help others also. But I am really out of ideas again.

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Oct 30, 2012 2:30 PM in response to missionarymac

It is not surprising that after clearing caches (depending on which ones, some more than others) it would be a bit slower. As you probably know, caches are "quick-access" files stored by applications, including Finder, which are loaded into RAM at startup or launch to provide ready access to frequently used data.

So cleaning caches has a "cost" and a "promise." If a cache contains some older, possibly invalid, data it can slow things down or cause an app to misbehave, but on the other hand, if there is nothing untoward in the cache, deleting it requires that frequently-used data be re-cached. After some normal use and a few restarts, those caches will get rebuilt and performance improve.

Logs are just text files of "history" and don't really do anything except perhaps take up a small amount of space.

Sounds like you've done almost everything possible. If you have double-checked your login items and any third-party preference panes, and they're all ML-compatible and up to date, they're probably okay, but you might try disabling any third-party login items or preference panes temporarily to see if anything improves over a couple days.

Are you relying mostly on wifi access? If so, you might create a new Location in Network Prefs and see if that helps.

Another possibility could be some errant prefs (plist) files. You might try PreferenceCleaner.

(Incidentally, I do not know if it makes any difference, but the last time I used OnyX to repair permissions, when I went back and ran Repair Permissions from Disk Utility I got another list of permissions which had been repaired again, so my practice now is to use only DUI for permission repair. It could be nothing; that's just me.)

I haven't looked back in the thread, but are you using any anti-virus software? If so, you could disable it, or consider an alternative (I use ClamXav and only when needed, no constant monitoring). I am careful about clicking any links in emails, and have firewall set, so I feel okay about not using constant monitoring.

In any event, rebuilding caches will take some use and a few restarts (and this happens with a new user as well).

Hope this helps. Keep us posted.

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Oct 30, 2012 2:34 PM in response to missionarymac

Another thought:

Are you storing docs in the cloud? Accessing them frequently?

This, in combination with any wifi slowdown, could be a factor.

Oct 30, 2012 2:37 PM in response to missionarymac

iCloud is a certain suspect also time machine, I believe

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Oct 30, 2012 2:46 PM in response to Jim J. Farrell, IV

Though I do not store docs in the cloud, I have expeerienced sluggish wifi access on my Early 2011 MacBook Pro in Mountain Lion. Have yet to try creating new Location. Will report.

Oct 30, 2012 11:53 PM in response to drdocument

My wifi is excellent. I use an adsl line with a new Apple extreme base station with excellent coverage and speed so I really don't think that is an issue with my problem. I don't access the cloud hardly at all except I do have it set to store a backup of my calendar and contacts. I don't use it for pictures or documents at all. Agree with the temp slow down on cach deletion and it has improved some since last night but still not what it should be. I have noticed that my "contacts" program is always slow when coming up and being able to type in it. Hesitation and spinning balls before allowing me to type in it. Often MS Word is the same story and Pages is horrible. Mail takes forever to come up but once up it seems to work ok. Those are my most used apps by far so not sure about others on a regular basis. Calendar seems ok for the most part but on occasion it acts up but the least of all. We have noticed one other odd thing that is a common problem between my wife's MBP running SL and my unit on ML. We have an HP officejet pro 8500 printer which we access by wifi. It has always been really snappy and printed very quickly but lately it takes a long time to print after it has been called on by either unit. I have reset the print program on both MBP's and even uninstalled and reinstalled the printer. Checked the wifi on it which shows excellent but can't find a solution. Seems like this happened after we downloaded the latest HP driver updates from Apple a couple of weeks ago but may not have a connection. Really don't see this as having anything to do with the other issue as my wife has no problems at all on SL on her unit. Might try the new location you mentioned and see if that helps with the printer as that is about the only thing I can think of left for that situation. I guess we are blessed to deal with ML issues and now the windows folks have issues with windows 8 to deal with! Computing life is always an event!

Oct 31, 2012 3:57 AM in response to drdocument

I'm sorry if you've already been asked this, but how many GB's of RAM do you have installed? Mountain Lion is apparently very memory intensive, and 4 GB's of RAM have been mentioned as being the "minimum" amount of RAM that a User can get by with to achieve any system speed (Mountain Lion itself often consumes 4 GB's of RAM, leaving Apps to page out to the hard drive, leading to the spinning beachballs.)

Hope this helps 🙂

Oct 31, 2012 5:32 AM in response to Radiation Mac

I have 8 gig of ram. I7 2.2 processor, 750 gig hard drive with only 212 gig used. early 2011 MBP 15"

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Oct 31, 2012 6:17 AM in response to missionarymac

Curious. I have the 13-in early 2011 MBP i5 with 4GB RAM and 320GB HD, 1st gen. Time Capsule with cable modem, and ML is running fine for me, including Office 2011, and mail, contacts, calendars and notes in iCloud.

I am not having the slowdown problem, except that on wake it seems slow to reestablish full wifi connection, but otherwise MBP is quite responsive. Activity Monitor is showing about 57MB of pageouts, which suggests that I could benefit from increased RAM, but I'm still okay.

You may have zeroed in on the problem being in the HP driver (I don't have an HP printer). Seems there have been other reports of HP driver problems. It appears the latest HP drivers are v.2.12, posted Oct 11, 2012, so your observation of having downloaded them a couple weeks ago sounds about right.

You might try completely deleting printers, uninstalling HP drivers and deleting associated prefs (if any), then reinstalling from scratch.

Oct 31, 2012 2:25 PM in response to drdocument

I was one step ahead of this idea in that this morning I reset the printer section and deleated all printers and related software from the MBP. Then I downloaded the latest drivers (2.12) for the HP Officejet pro and reinstalled them. It is too early to tell if this really makes any real difference yet. As I have stated after doing everything and logging out and then back in it always seems better but then begins to slow down. I will say that I still had some typing hesitations especially in the Contacts program even right after the resetting of everything. Thanks to all who keep trying to come up with ideas. This has been a real challenge. Some seem to have no problems and others have from what all I read on this ML o/s. In the beginning it seems great but now it is a constant frustration. Some where there has to be an answer to this?

Nov 1, 2012 9:26 AM in response to missionarymac

Well I can say that he HP driver removal and reinstall did not do the trick. Back to it's slow and quirky stuff in less than a day. Hate to give up on this as I like some of the new features of ML and Lion but may have to punt and return to SL. My wife laughs each time she taps on something on her unit and it is up instantly ready to go and I tap and wait and wait. I am out of ideas!

drdocument

Level 4

3,019 points

Nov 1, 2012 9:55 AM in response to missionarymac

Sorry to hear that. Something else you might try:

Launch Console (from Utilities) and click the triangles next to "User Diagnostic Reports" and "System Diagnostic Reports" and see if there are any reports in either category.

Also, leave Console running and note the time when a beachball appears, then look in Console's "All Messages" for that time and see if something is reported which might give a clue.

slow and spinning beach balls after 10.8.2 update