Finder freezes - needs 20 seconds to react

I forgot to mention that I can work as normal in other apps while the finder is waiting for something...

Thanks for the many inputs.

Meanwhile I tried several things and found out some things.

1. Removed all external harddrives, optical drives, card readers etc. -->> problem still there

2. Tried to check and repair permissons of the harddrive. Seems that there were several (over 100) errors for permissions with iTunes and Safari. As far as I remember these were indeed the last two I updated, but I saw no relationship to the problem. Repairing permissions did not work. After performing the repair three times and re-check, all stay the same.

3. Looked at the results in the console. This is what it showed me:

4. Copy pasted the results from etrecheck:

EtreCheck version: 1.9.11 (43) - report generated 29. Mai 2014 11:08:18 MESZ

Hardware Information:

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)

iMac - model: iMac13,2

1 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

16 GB RAM

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX - VRAM: 2048 MB

System Software:

OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Uptime: 0 days 0:13:22

Disk Information:

APPLE HDD ST1000DM003 disk0 : (1 TB)

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

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 999,35 GB (202,25 GB free)

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

USB Information:

Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub

Logitech USB Optical Mouse

Apple Inc. Apple Keyboard

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information:

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Apple Inc. Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

Gatekeeper:

Anywhere

Kernel Extensions:

[not loaded] com.Belcarra.iokit.USBLAN_netpart (2.0.2) Support

[not loaded] com.Belcarra.iokit.USBLAN_usbpart (2.0.2) Support

[kext loaded] com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.6.6 - SDK 10.6) Support

[not loaded] com.RemoteControl.USBLAN.panther (1.6.1) Support

[not loaded] com.RemoteControl.USBLAN.usbpart (2.0.6) Support

[not loaded] com.belcarra.iokit.netpart.panther (1.6.1) Support

[not loaded] com.belcarra.iokit.usbpart.panther (1.6.1) Support

[kext loaded] com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0) Support

Startup Items:

CUDA: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CUDA

Launch Daemons:

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

[loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist Support

[loaded] com.marketcircle.billingspro.configd.plist Support

[loaded] com.marketcircle.daylite.accessd.plist Support

[loaded] com.marketcircle.daylite.attachmentd.plist Support

[loaded] com.marketcircle.daylite.backupd.plist Support

[running] com.marketcircle.daylite.cardcald.plist Support

[running] com.marketcircle.daylite.portsd.plist Support

[loaded] com.marketcircle.daylite.staged.plist Support

[loaded] com.marketcircle.daylite.touchd.plist Support

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

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support

[loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist Support

[not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist Support

Launch Agents:

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support

[running] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist Support

[loaded] com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist Support

[loaded] com.nvidia.CUDASoftwareUpdate.plist Support

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support

[not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist Support

[not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist Support

User Launch Agents:

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support

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

[running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist Support

[failed] com.taoeffect.EspionageHelper.plist Support

User Login Items:

Dropbox

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 2.0.0.0 - SDK 10.7 Support

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.1

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.07 - SDK 10.6 Support

AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.07 - SDK 10.6 Support

Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.1.0 Support

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.20125.0 - SDK 10.6 Support

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 55 Check version

Safari Extensions:

Open in Internet Explorer: Version: 1.0

Audio Plug-ins:

AirPlay: Version: 1.7 - SDK 10.8

iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.1 - SDK 10.8

iTunes Plug-ins:

Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.8

User Internet Plug-ins:

Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 Support

3rd Party Preference Panes:

CUDA Preferences Support

Flash Player Support

Java Support

Perian Support

Time Machine:

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

6% mds

1% WindowServer

0% fontd

0% Creative Cloud

0% ocspd

Top Processes by Memory:

328 MB firefox

147 MB mds

115 MB WindowServer

82 MB Finder

82 MB Dropbox

Virtual Memory Information:

12.98 GB Free RAM

1.37 GB Active RAM

299 MB Inactive RAM

1.35 GB Wired RAM

354 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

5. Activity monitor shows no special use of CPU while spinning wheel. It only shows that the finder is not responding in RED for the 20 seconds.

All other applications work like expected during spining wheel. No slow down there.

Thanks for your input, but I do not exactly know what and how to uninstall.

I installed the espionage software maybe 6 month ago when I shared my Mac with a friend of mine to hide some private folders, but never used it. And it is right, that I do not know how to uninstall it. But that caused no problem so far. The other things are totally new to me. Can anybody explain what it is and why it affects the machine NOW and not befor? And how do I get rid of it or install correctly?

@harrypottuh

Interesting.....did you by accident upgrade your iTunes and Safari apps via the Appstore???

I couldn´t manage to repair permission. Nearly 100 are still "corrupt". Wasn´t there a way to start the MAC in a special mode by pressing a key at startup and than access the disk utility for repairing task???

@dianeoforegon

Most of the times it ends in setting the system off new.....correct?

Unfortunately in most cases I posted a problem to get help from a forum I had to start from scratch and format the system to set it off new. But I still hope to find a better solution...

What I found out today is, that once the finder is open I can browse without any problems through my folder structure. But when I want to rename a folder or a single doc or pic, the spinning wheel starts again for 20 seconds.