acousticmirror

Q: spinning beach ball with every click

I've got a 3.5 year old Mac Mini 2.3 GHz Core i5 with 4 GB of RAM running OS X 10.9.2. A couple months ago, at no specific moment in time, my mini started to slow down, it's continued to get slower and slower to the point now where every time I click on anything, I get a spinning beach ball for as many as 10 - 20 seconds before the Mac processes what I've done. I have run permission repairs and also bought and installed CleanMyMac2, while it "cleaned" 50+ GB of junk, my Mac's behavior has not changed. Anyone got any other ideas?

Mac mini, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), 4 GB RAM 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5

Posted on May 17, 2014 9:46 AM

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Q: spinning beach ball with every click

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  • by ehs1979,

    ehs1979 ehs1979 May 20, 2015 8:32 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 20, 2015 8:32 PM in response to Eric Root

    Hi Eric, believe I followed your directions, to no avail. Note my mail accounts are gone as well.  What a disaster, all I wanted to do is make my computer a little faster.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 21, 2015 9:49 AM in response to ehs1979
    Level 9 (69,813 points)
    iTunes
    May 21, 2015 9:49 AM in response to ehs1979

    Try running this program and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor.  Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read.

     

    Etrecheck – System Information

  • by ehs1979,

    ehs1979 ehs1979 May 21, 2015 1:42 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 21, 2015 1:42 PM in response to Eric Root

    Eric, I have a Time Machine backup, can I use it to get my preferences, desktop info, and user folder from there? Thanks.

  • by ehs1979,

    ehs1979 ehs1979 May 21, 2015 6:47 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 21, 2015 6:47 PM in response to Eric Root

    Eric, all of my files are gone, photos, music, all of it. 

     

    BTW, thanks, Warwick.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 22, 2015 10:39 AM in response to ehs1979
    Level 9 (69,813 points)
    iTunes
    May 22, 2015 10:39 AM in response to ehs1979

    You are welcome.  Can you restore them from Time Machine?

  • by ehs1979,

    ehs1979 ehs1979 May 24, 2015 4:43 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 24, 2015 4:43 PM in response to Eric Root

    Hi Eric,

    I do have a backup, unfortunately it's two weeks old so it's missing an important video; I keep my backup drive in a fireproof safe and not connected 24/7.  Anyway, thanks a lot for your attention to my pleas for help.  Also, I was frustrated and being snotty when I "thanked" the person named Warwick, the  support contributor whose instructions I believe I followed to the letter, and instead of cleaning the cache the instructions deleted just about everything from my hard drive.

  • by changeofart,

    changeofart changeofart May 27, 2015 11:34 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 27, 2015 11:34 AM in response to Eric Root

    Thanks for the help!

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 28, 2015 11:22 AM in response to changeofart
    Level 9 (69,813 points)
    iTunes
    May 28, 2015 11:22 AM in response to changeofart

    You are welcome.

  • by NickyBoy80,

    NickyBoy80 NickyBoy80 Jun 7, 2015 8:41 AM in response to BobHarris
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 7, 2015 8:41 AM in response to BobHarris

    Not sure what 'thread jacking' is. Sounds made-up. But surely the individual is simply sharing his problem and asking

    for help?

  • by NickyBoy80,

    NickyBoy80 NickyBoy80 Jun 7, 2015 8:43 AM in response to acousticmirror
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 7, 2015 8:43 AM in response to acousticmirror

    Same here. Even scrolling the page freezes or even typing.

  • by changeofart,

    changeofart changeofart Jun 7, 2015 12:47 PM in response to NickyBoy80
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 7, 2015 12:47 PM in response to NickyBoy80

    I did as this post suggested and it worked:

     

     

    Do a backup.

     

    Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.  Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.desktop.plist.  Move the .plists to your desktop.

     

    Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plists from the desktop.

     

    If the same, return the .plists to where you got it  from, overwriting the newer one.

  • by Linelle Lane,

    Linelle Lane Linelle Lane Feb 10, 2016 9:00 AM in response to changeofart
    Level 1 (109 points)
    Feb 10, 2016 9:00 AM in response to changeofart

    I have a 2011 iMac still running Snow Leopard. It has been a dependable machine. I was out of town for a week and powered it off. Since turning it on again, the spinning ball happens as soon as I click anything. I can't even perform a Time Machine backup (although I do have recent ones so I'm not too worried about losing anything). If I let the ball just spin, everything goes black and nonresponsive, although the engine is still running.

     

    I have no clue what is going on. Yesterday I did an erase and reinstall of OSX, followed by restoring from my latest Time Machine backup. It's significant to note that during the reinstall and restore the iMac behaved normally, allowing all the functions and clicks, e.g., Continue, etc.

     

    However, once it restarted and I was back at my Desktop with all icons and apps as they should be, the spinning ball returned.

     

    Although I used my MacBook Pro 95% of the time, I still like a larger screen desktop for some of my apps. This iMac is 5 years old and I don't want to spend much money or invest more of my time futzing with things if it's a serious issue. I'm about ready to replace it, but I hate to be bested by these things. It just makes no sense what has caused this, short of a catastrophic internal failure.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Feb 10, 2016 9:30 AM in response to Linelle Lane
    Level 9 (69,813 points)
    iTunes
    Feb 10, 2016 9:30 AM in response to Linelle Lane

    You might want to consider starting a new post in the Snow Leopard community since this post dates back to 2014. People may be less likely to look at it.

     

    Try running this program and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor.  Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read.

    Etrecheck – System Information

  • by Linelle Lane,

    Linelle Lane Linelle Lane Feb 10, 2016 9:39 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (109 points)
    Feb 10, 2016 9:39 AM in response to Eric Root

    Thank you Eric. I will do that.

  • by jmbeam,

    jmbeam jmbeam Apr 15, 2016 9:28 AM in response to ehs1979
    Level 2 (239 points)
    Apr 15, 2016 9:28 AM in response to ehs1979

    OMG I followed the advice from the original poster Acousticmirror and performed the two fixes in "terminal" and I have now lost everything I had on my desktop and my computer.!!

     

    What the **** do I do now? Is it all lost? Please someone .can anyone help me? Right now my account is there without any data whatsoever, no desktop icons etc.

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