Mavericks too slow

Ok. Since I posted this, I manage to remove some of the things that were reported with errors (like Cisco VPN Client, DIVX, Adobe CS4 UpdateManager, VMWare and VirtualBox). Made I clean boot after that and noticed a minor gain (might be just a psycological effect though... 😀 )

Now I'm following your suggestion to remove SoundFlower, MagicPrefs, MacFUSE and SmartSleep...

I'm just a bit concerned about MagicPrefs and SmartSleep, cause I remeber that at some point they were usefull) SmartSleep did the job of easily letting me control the macbook behavior when closing it down (but I know that I can do the same job by some Terminal commands). And MagicPrefs allow me some very usefull gestures on MagicMouse...

Are those 2 known to be offensive to performance, or are we just getting rid of strange (non-official) things on the system?

Is there anyway to add/configure more gestures to the Magic Mouse than the 3 listed on System Preferences, natively on OS X?

And thanks a lot for the help so far! 😀

I too appreciate all the advice (which I took), but I continue to believe OS 10.9 Mavericks has some problems causing so many of us to being running much slower than 10.8. In my case, I have no 3rd Party background processes running (I keep any apps that can run in the backgound from doing so), and yet as soon as I upgraded to 10.9, my Mac Pro was distinctly slower in all tasks.

Perhaps the new memory management feature helps some Macs, but not mine (8 GB). Apple either did not test 10.9 in enough environments to know what would happen, or they knew and still went ahead. Many of us use our Macs for very serious projects, and this type of issue is not acceptable. I do not plan to upgrade to any new Apple software for a long time. I hope perhaps that message gets through to someone at Apple.

My respectful message to Apple CEO, Tim Cook:

http://applesoftwareproblems.blogspot.com

Not on my five Macs.

Pete

Me neither. Not on the 2 macs that are running Mavericks...

Hi again ElectroMac74

Your MacBook Air takes over a minute to start up? That's unacceptable.

Since your problem remains unresolved don't hesitate to start a new Discussion all over again, since it's been several days since you started this one and your problem remains unresolved. Whenever people respond to a post by tacking on their own problems it may help them, but it almost always results in distractions that don't address your concerns. There isn't anything you can do about that other than to mark this Discussion "closed but not solved" and consider posting a link to your new Discussion to draw attention back to your concern.

Ultimately you are the only one who is going to care about your Mac. If you get answers that don't help you, and it doesn't appear that this Discussion will be productive, it's OK to start a new one.

Earlier, you suggested you might try a "clean install". Just be aware that reinstalling Mavericks by downloading and installing it over your existing installation isn't likely to solve anything. If you completely erase your MacBook Air and install Mavericks that is almost certainly going to work since you would have removed all traces of SIMBL and other potential problems that are causing unacceptable performance. Mavericks works perfectly well on your MacBook Air since I have installed it on models completely identical to yours, so unless you have a hardware problem (extremely rare on your model) then an "erase and reinstall" is almost certainly going to result in success. An "erase and reinstall" can be followed by restoring your programs and other essential files from a backup, so be sure to back up your Mac first.

To "erase and reinstall" means to completely erase your Mac and install Mavericks on the erased partition. Given the problems you are describing it may be the best way to proceed since you are still having problems despite everything you have attempted to correct them. Obviously you will want to back up your Mac first because all the information on it will be gone after it is erased. You can restore individual files and folders using Time Machine. You would not want to restore your entire system because whatever is causing the problem will also be reinstalled.

Please confirm that you performed anSMC resetbecause after all this time I am not certain you did that yet:

Read all the steps.

Before Resetting the SMC

Try each of the following steps in this order before you reset the SMC. Test the issue after completing each troubleshooting step to determine if the issue still occurs.

1. Press Command + Option + Escape to force quit any application that is not responding.
2. Put your Mac to sleep by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Sleep. Wake the computer after it has gone to sleep.
3. Restart your Mac by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Restart.
4. Shut down your Mac by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Shut Down.

Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if it's not already connected.
3. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time. The power adapter indicator light will cycle off / on once.
4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
5. Press the power button to turn on the computer.

Myara wrote:

I'm just a bit concerned about MagicPrefs and SmartSleep, cause I remeber that at some point they were usefull) SmartSleep did the job of easily letting me control the macbook behavior when closing it down (but I know that I can do the same job by some Terminal commands). And MagicPrefs allow me some very usefull gestures on MagicMouse...

Are those 2 known to be offensive to performance, or are we just getting rid of strange (non-official) things on the system?

You have bigger issues to worry about, focusing on SmartSleep & MagicPrefs you are simply 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic'…

The point is to get rid of any old code that has either very deep system access or runs in the background on login or startup - You can run these items, however they need to be up to date.

This is based on the last report, so update your report & compare, if they are already gone, accept my apologies.

Myara, you have 4 possibly ancient startup items…

Startup Items:

CiscoVPN - Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN

HWNetMgr - Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr

HWPortDetect - Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect

VirtualBox - Path: /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox

That type of startup item has been discouraged by Apple for a long time (since 10.4 I think). They have full system access, and I suspect they are very out of date.

Kernel Extensions:

com.parallels.virtualsound (1.0

org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (4.1.18)

org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (4.1.18)

com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.2)

net.tunnelblick.tun (1.0)

com.parallels.kext.usbconnect (9.0

com.parallels.kext.hypervisor (9.0

com.parallels.kext.hidhook (9.0

com.parallels.kext.netbridge (9.0

com.parallels.kext.vnic (9.0

com.parallels.filesystems.prlufs (2010.12.28)

On a similar note all of these have very low access into the system, the last one is from 2010!

Virtualbox appears to be from 2012, I have no idea what some of them do, but old code with very low level access to the system will make everything unstable.

Update these apps or even better, get rid of the kernel extensions & startup items.

/Library/Extensions/ and /Library/StartupItems/

The failed launchDeamons and agents are also a concern…

Problem System Launch Daemons:

[failed] com.apple.AOSNotificationOSX.plist

[failed] com.apple.softwareupdated.plist

[failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist

Launch Daemons:

[failed] com.vmware.launchd.vmware.plist

Launch Agents:

[failed] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist

[failed] in this instance means "tried to run but something went wrong" it could be that the process is still doing whatever went wrong, Apple has been tightening the rules of what things can do, if they no longer follow those rules there is no telling what will happen.

You could probably prune out a lot of the other agents & deamons too.

I'd also suggest you update all those pref panes & make sure that any apps that are login items are all up to date, otherwise you are merely making it impossible to login & troubleshoot in an accurate manner. Frankly you could remove them all right now to see what is useful, if you re-add them as you need them you will have a better idea of which ones cause you trouble.

Post another etrecheck report if you want more feedback, we are probably out of sync with your system now.

Wow, thanks a lot for all the helpfull info! 😀

Just ran EtreCheck again to post here and got a surprise: the failed System Daemons are back (and I'm totally sure that as soon as I uninstalled the Cisco VPN, VMWare Fusion, Virtual Box and CS4UpdtManager they weren't there anymore!).

Another surprise is that the CS4Service Manager is showing again on the list... :/

As for the Parallels, unfortunately for professionals reasons I cannot get rid of it... And as far as I could test (and that's why I chose it) it is far better (or "less worse") than the others that do same stuff (like Virtual Box or VMWare Fusion)...

Well, here goes my last EtreCheck (quick note: It's noticeable that the Mac is far faster than it was before uninstalling the softwares mentioned above - but still - not quite as it was before Mavericks...):

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

8 GB RAM

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

Audio Plug-ins:

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0

AirPlay: Version: 1.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0

iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3

Startup Items:

HWNetMgr - Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr

HWPortDetect - Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect

System Software:

OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 4 days 0:23:57

Disk Information:

SAMSUNG HM500JI disk0 : (500,11 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209,7 MB

Mac HD (disk0s2) /: 499,25 GB (41,64 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N

USB Information:

Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

Lexmark International, Inc. Lexmark E230

EPSON EPSON Epson Stylus Photo TX720WD Series

Creative Technology Ltd. VF0415 Live! Cam Vid. IM Ultra

Logitech USB Receiver

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Kernel Extensions:

com.parallels.virtualsound (1.0

com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.2)

com.parallels.kext.usbconnect (9.0

com.parallels.kext.hypervisor (9.0

com.parallels.kext.hidhook (9.0

com.parallels.kext.netbridge (9.0

com.parallels.kext.vnic (9.0

com.parallels.filesystems.prlufs (2010.12.28)

Problem System Launch Daemons:

[failed] com.apple.AOSNotificationOSX.plist

[failed] com.apple.installd.plist

[failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

[loaded] com.barebones.authd.plist

[loaded] com.barebones.textwrangler.plist

[loaded] com.bombich.ccc.plist

[loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

[loaded] com.parallels.mobile.dispatcher.launchdaemon.plist

[loaded] com.parallels.mobile.kextloader.launchdaemon.plist

[not loaded] de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon.plist

[loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist

Launch Agents:

[not loaded] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

[loaded] com.parallels.mobile.prl_deskctl_agent.launchagent.plist

[loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist

User Launch Agents:

[loaded] com.parallels.mobile.startgui.launchagent.plist

[loaded] com.pia.pia_manager.plist

[loaded] com.vladalexa.MagicPrefs.plist

User Login Items:

uHD-Agent

Skype

Anotações

Safari

Data

Lembretes

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player

Flip4Mac WMV

Java

MagicPrefs

Perian

SmartSleep

Internet Plug-ins:

Default Browser.plugin

DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin

Flash Player.plugin

FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin

googletalkbrowserplugin.plugin

iPhotoPhotocast.plugin

JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

npgtpo3dautoplugin.plugin

o1dbrowserplugin.plugin

QuickTime Plugin.plugin

RealPlayer Plugin.plugin

SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin

Silverlight.plugin

User Internet Plug-ins:

BlueStacks Install Detector.plugin

fbplugin_1_0_3.plugin

Bad Fonts:

None

Time Machine:

Skip System Files: NO

Auto backup: YES

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

44% prl_vm_app

3% WindowServer

1% EtreCheck

1% prl_disp_service

0% EPSON Scanner

0% prl_client_app

0% configd

0% Dock

0% com.apple.WebKit.Networking

0% fontd

Top Processes by Memory:

2.72 GB prl_vm_app

106 MB Mail

66 MB prl_client_app

66 MB com.apple.IconServicesAgent

57 MB Safari

49 MB WindowServer

41 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

33 MB Finder

25 MB PluginProcess

25 MB com.apple.WebKit.Networking

Virtual Memory Statistics:

30 MB Free RAM

810 MB Active RAM

783 MB Inactive RAM

4.37 GB Wired RAM

6.71 GB Page-ins

338 MB Page-outs

Once again, Soundflower has been a culprit in many a system over the years. It needs to be removed, as does MagicPrefs and SmartSleep. You can always reinstall them if you find their removal makes no difference, but I will bet their removal will. Nothing to lose.

Cheers

Pete

Oh-oh... Something is not quite right... Just realized that "com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower" is back too... Pretty sure that SoundFlower was completelly removed too... 😟

Re "I ran the CleanMyMac uninstaller, but I can’t get rid of all of it.": I had trouble zapping it, too.

Finally I used a program Find Any File to find all the occurances of the term Cleanmymac in any file. Deleted all of those and it was gone.

Phil

If you have an external drive do a clean install of Mavericks. This allows you to play when you have time but continue to work in your internal drive. There will be no remanants of older software and add-ons to remove.

Once you are happy with your new setup, boot from the clean version and wipe the internal and clone it back.