Macbook Pro is running slow

When the slowness is especially bad, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.

Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.

Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.

Don't be put off by the complexity of these instructions. The process is much less complicated than the description. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.

2. If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.

There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.

3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. As I wrote above, it changes nothing. It doesn't send or receive any data on the network. All it does is to generate a human-readable report on the state of the computer. That report goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. If you prefer, you can act on it yourself without disclosing the contents to me or anyone else.

You should be wondering whether you can believe me, and whether it's safe to run a program at the behest of a stranger. In general, no, it's not safe and I don't encourage it.

In this case, however, there are a couple of ways for you to decide whether the program is safe without having to trust me. First, you can read it. Unlike an application that you download and click to run, it's transparent, so anyone with the necessary skill can verify what it does.

You may not be able to understand the script yourself. But variations of it have been posted on this website thousands of times over a period of years. The site is hosted by Apple, which does not allow it to be used to distribute harmful software. Any one of the millions of registered users could have read the script and raised the alarm if it was harmful. Then I would not be here now and you would not be reading this message. See, for example, this discussion.

Nevertheless, if you can't satisfy yourself that these instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.

4. Here's a summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:

☞ Copy a line of text in this window to the Clipboard.

☞ Paste into the window of another application.

☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.

☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.

The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time. Details follow.

5. Try to test under conditions that reproduce the problem, as far as possible. For example, if the computer is sometimes, but not always, slow, run the test during a slowdown.

You may have started up in "safe" mode. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.

6. If you have more than one user, and the one affected by the problem is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.

7. The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in the browser window, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.

Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/libexec;clear;cd;p=(0.5 0.25 1 1 0 100 1000 1000 15 5120 1000 25000 80 20 500 300 85 25 20480 1024 20 1203 51 25600 4 10 25 5120 102400 1000 25 100 );k=({Soft,Hard}ware Memory Diagnostics Power FireWire Thunderbolt USB Bluetooth SerialATA Extensions Applications Frameworks PrefPane Fonts Displays CFBundleIdentifier OSBundleRequired PlistBuddy{,' 2>&1'}' -c Print' 'Info\.plist' 'com\.apple\.' -\\t N\\/A );f=('\n%s'{': ','\n\n'}'%s\n' '\nRAM details\n%s\n' %s\ %s '%s\n'"${k[22]}"'%s\n' {Privacy,Mode}': %s\n' '\n ...and %s more line(s)\n' 'RSSI: %s\nNoise: %s\nTx rate: %s\n' '\nContents of %s\n '"${k[22]}"'mod date: %s\n '"${k[22]}"'checksum: %s\n%s\n' '%d MB: %s\n' );b=(com.adobe.{AAM.Updater-1.0{,},AdobeCreativeCloud,CS{4,5}ServiceManager,fpsaud,SwitchBoard{,}} ${k[21]}{aelwriter,{AirPortBaseSt,SafariNotific}ationAgent,FolderActions.enabled,installer.osmessagetracing,mrt.uiagent,ReportCrash.Self,{rp,usb}muxd} com.citrixonline.GoToMeeting.G2MUpdate com.google.keystone.daemon com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper com.oracle.java.{Helper-Tool,JavaUpdateHelper{,}} org.macosforge.xquartz.{privileged_{,},}startx );c=(879294308 4071182229 461455494 3627668074 1083382502 1274181950 1855907737 2758863019 1848501757 464843899 2636415542 3694147963 1233118628 2456546649 2806998573 2778718105 842973933 2051385900 3301885676 891055588 695903914 1443423563 4136085286 523110921 2883943871 3873345487 );s=(' s/[0-9A-Za-z._]+@[0-9A-Za-z.]+\.[0-9A-Za-z]{2,4}/EMAIL/g;/faceb/s/(at\.)[^.]+/\1NAME/g;/\/Shared/!s/(\/Users\/)[^ /]+/\1USER/g;s/[-0-9A-Fa-f]{22,}/UUID/g;' ' s/^ +//;/de: S|[nst]:/p;' ' {sub(/^ +/,"")};/er:/;/y:/&&$2<'${p[24]} ' 1s/://;3,6d;/[my].+:/d;s/^ {4}//;H;${ g;s/\n$//;/s: (E[^m]|[^EO])|x([^08]|02[^F]|8[^0])/p;} ' ' 5h;6{ H;g;/P/!p;} ' ' ($1~/^Cy/&&$3>'${p[29]}')||($1~/^Cond/&&$2!~/^N/) ' ' /:$/{ N;/:.+:/d;s/ *://;b0'$'\n'' };/^ *(V.+ [0N]|Man).+ /{ s/ 0x.... //;s/[()]//g;s/(.+: )(.+)/ (\2)/;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;s/\n\n//;/Apple[ ,]|Genesy|Intel|SMSC/d;s/\n.*//;/\)$/p;' ' s/^.*C/C/;H;${ g;/No th|pms/!p;} ' '/= [^GO]/p' '{$1=""};1' ' /Of/!{ s/^.+is |\.//g;p;} ' ' BEGIN { FS=":";if(system("sw_vers -productVersion|grep -q ^10\.1")) d="^'"${k[21]}"'launch(d\.peruser\.[0-9]+|ctl\.(Aqua|Background|System))$";} { if($2~/[1-9]/) { $2="status: "$2;printf("'"${f[4]}"'",$1,$2);} else if(!d||$1!~d) print $1;} ' ' { sub(/ :/,"");print|"tail -n'${p[30]}'";} ' ' NR==2&&$4<='${p[27]}' { print $4;} ' ' END { $2/=256;if($2>='${p[19]}') print int($2) } ' '|grep DYLD' ' { q=$1;$1="";u=$NF;$NF="";gsub(/ +$/,"");print q":"$0":"u;} ' ' /^ {6}[^ ]/d;s/:$//;/([^ey]|[^n]e):/d;/e: Y/d;s/: Y.+//g;H;${ g;s/ \n (\n)/\1/g;s/\n +(M[^ ]+)[ -~]+/ (\1)/;s/\n$//;/( {8}[^ ].*){2,}/p;} ' 's:^:/:p;' ' !/ /{print};END{if(NR<'{${p[12]},${p[13]}}')printf("^'"${k[21]}"'")} ' '|uniq' '1;END{if(NR<'${p[14]}')printf("^/S")}' ' NR>1&&$3!~/0x|\.([0-9]{3,}|[-0-9A-F]{36})$/ { print $3":"$2;} ' ' /\.(framew|lproj)|\):/d;/plist:|:.+(Mach|scrip)/s/:.+//p;' '&&echo On' '/\.(bundle|component|framework|kext|mdimporter|plugin|qlgenerator|saver|wdgt)$/p' '/\.dylib$/p' ' /Temp|emac/{next};/(etc|Preferences|Launch[AD].+)\// { sub(".(/private)?","");print;} END { split("'"${b[*]}"'",b);split("'"${c[*]}"'",c);for(i in b) print b[i]".plist\t"c[i];} ' ' /^\/(Ap|Dev|Inc|Prev)/d;/((iTu|ok).+dle|\.(component|mailbundle|mdimporter|plugin|qlgenerator|saver|wdgt))$/p;' ' { gsub(/[()"]/,"",$3);if($2!="="||!$3) $3="N/A";print $3;} ' ' /^\// { sub("/dev/","",$1);printf("%s: %s\n",$1,$9);} ' '>&-||echo No' '{print $3"\t"$1}' 's/\'$'\t''.+//p' 's/1/On/p' '/Prox.+: [^0]/p' '$2>'${p[22]}'{$2=$2-1;print}' ' BEGIN { i="'${p[26]}'";M1='${p[16]}';M2='${p[18]}';M3='${p[28]}';M4='${p[23]}';} !/^A/{next};/%/ { getline;if($5<M1) a="user "$2"%, system "$4"%";} /disk0/&&$4>M2 { b=$3" ops/s, "$4" blocks/s";} $2==i { if(c) { d=$3+$4+$5+$6;next;};if($4>M3||$6>M4) c=int($4/1024)" in, "int($6/1024)" out";} END { if(a) print "CPU: "a;if(b) print "I/O: "b;if(c) print "Net: "c" (KiB/s)";if(d) print "Net errors: "d" packets/s";} ' ' /r\[0\] /&&$NF!~/^1(0|72\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])|92\.168)\./ { print $NF;exit;} ' ' !/^T/ { printf "(static)";exit;} ' '/apsd|BKAg|OpenD/!s/:.+//p' ' (/k:/&& $3!~/(255\.){3}0/)||(/v6:/&&$2!~/A/) ' ' $1=="op" {m=$3};$1~"lN" {N=$2};$1~"lR" {S=$2};$1~"Tx" {T=$2};$1~/^st/ {s=$2};$1~"li"&&$3!~"wpa2" {printf("'"${f[5]}"'",toupper($3))};END { if(S*N*T&&(S-N<'${p[25]}'||T<'${p[20]}')) printf("'"${f[8]}"'",S,N,T);if(s~/^r/&&m!~/^st/) printf("'"${f[6]}"'",m);} ' ' BEGIN { FS=":";p="sort|uniq -c|tail -n'${p[26]}'";} { n=split($3,a,".");sub(/_2[01].+/,"",$3);print $2" "$3" "a[n]$1|p;b=b$1;} END { close(p);if(b) print("\n\t* Code injection");} ' ' BEGIN { FS=":";m["A"]='${p[0]}';m["B"]='${p[1]}';m["C"]='${p[2]}';m["D"]='${p[3]}';m["E"]='${p[4]}';m["F"]='${p[5]}';m["G"]='${p[6]}';m["H"]='${p[7]}';m["I"]='${p[8]}';m["J"]='${p[9]}';m["K"]='${p[10]}';m["L"]='${p[11]}';} $1~/[ABGHIJKL]/&&$2>m[$1]{o[$1]=o[$1]"\n "$3" (UID "$4"): "$2} $1~/C/&&$2>m[$1]&&$5!~"^/dev"{o[$1]=o[$1]"\n "$3" (UID "$4") => "$5" (status "$6"): "$2} $1~/D/&&$2>m[$1]&&$5 { p="ps -c -ocomm -p"$5"|sed 1d";p|getline n;close(p);if(n)$5=n;o[$1]=o[$1]"\n "$5" => "$3" UID ("$4"): "$2;} $1~/[EF]/&&$2>m[$1]{o[$1]=o[$1]"\n "$3" (UID "$4", error "$5"): "$2} END { u1="Mb/s";u2="per sec";u3="us/s";u4="KiB/s";u5="%";u6="total";u7="MB";u8="ports";u["A"]=u1;u["B"]=u1;u["C"]=u2;u["D"]=u2;u["E"]=u2;u["F"]=u2;u["G"]=u3;u["H"]=u4;u["I"]=u5;u["J"]=u6;u["K"]=u7;u["L"]=u8;l["A"]="Net in";l["B"]="Net out";l["C"]="File opens";l["D"]="Forks";l["E"]="Failed forks";l["F"]="System errors";l["G"]="I/O wait time";l["H"]="I/O requests";l["I"]="CPU usage";l["J"]="Open files";l["K"]="Memory";l["L"]="Mach ports";for(i in o)print "\n"l[i]" ("u[i]")\n"o[i];} ' ' END{if($3~/[0-9]/)print$3} ' ' BEGIN { L='${p[17]}';} !/^[[:space:]]*(#.*)?$/ { l++;if(l<=L) f=f"\n "$0;} END { F=FILENAME;if(!F) exit;if(!f) f="\n [N/A]";"cksum "F|getline C;split(C, A);C=A[1];"stat -f%Sm "F|getline D;"file -b "F|getline T;if(T~/^Apple b/) { f="";l=0;while("'"${k[18]}"' "F|getline g) { l++;if(l<=L) f=f"\n "g;};};if(T!~/^(AS.+ (En.+ )?text(, with v.+)?$|(Bo|PO).+ sh.+ text ex|XM)/) F=F"\n '"${k[22]}"'"T;printf("'"${f[9]}"'",F,D,C,f);if(l>L) printf("'"${f[7]}"'",l-L);} ' ' s/^ ?n...://p;s/^ ?p...:/-'$'\t''/p;' 's/0/Off/p' 's/^.{52}(.+) <.+/\1/p' ' /id: N|te: Y/{i++} END{print i} ' ' /kext:/ { split($0,a,":");s=system("'"${k[18]}"'\\ :'${k[17]}' \""a[1]"\"/*/I*|grep -q Sa");if(!s) a[1]=a[1]" S";if(!a[2]) a[2]="'"${k[23]}"'";printf("'"${f[4]}"'",a[1],a[2]);next;} !/^ *$/ { p="'"${k[19]}"'\\ :'"${k[16]}"' \""$0"\"/*/'${k[20]}'";p|getline b;close(p);if(b~/ /||b=="") b="'"${k[23]}"'";printf("'"${f[4]}"'",$0,b);} ' '/ en/!s/\.//p' ' NR>=13 { gsub(/[^0-9]/,"",$1);print;} ' ' $10~/\(L/&&$9!~"localhost" { sub(/.+:/,"",$9);print $1": "$9|"sort|uniq";} ' '/^ +r/s/.+"(.+)".+/\1/p' 's/(.+\.wdgt)\/(Contents\/)?'${k[20]}'$/\1/p' 's/^.+\/(.+)\.wdgt$/\1/p' ' /l: /{ /DVD/d;s/.+: //;b0'$'\n'' };/s: /{ /V/d;s/^ */- /;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;/APPLE [^:]+$/d;p;' '/^find: /!p;' ' /^p/{ s/.//g;x;s/\nu/:/;s/(\n)c/\1:/;s/\n\n//;p;};H;' ' BEGIN{FS="= "} /Path/{print $2} ' ' /^ *$/d;s/^ */ /;p;' ' s/^.+ |\(.+\)$//g;p;' '1;END{if(NR<'${p[15]}')printf("^/(S|usr/(X|li))")}' ' /2/{print "WARN"};/4/{print "CRITICAL"};' ' /EVHF|MACR|^s/d;s/^.+: //p;' ' $3~/^[1-9][0-9]{0,2}(\.[1-9][0-9]{0,2}){2}$/ { i++;n=n"\n"$1"\t"$3;} END{ if(i>1)print n} ' s/{':[^:]+$','P.+:'}'//;s/ +([0-9]+)(.+)/\2: \1/p' ' /es: ./{ s/^.+://;b0'$'\n'' };/^ +C.+ted: +[NY]/H;/:$/b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;/: +N/d;s/\n.+//p;' ' 1d;/:$/b0'$'\n'' $b0'$'\n'' /(D|^ *Loc.+): /{ s/^.+: //;H;};/(B2|m): /H;d;:0'$'\n'' x;/[my]: [AM]|^\/Vo/d;s/(^|\n) [ -~]+//g;s/(.+)\n(.+)/\2:\1/;s/\n//g;/[ -~]/p;' 's/$/:(0|-(4[34])?)$/p' '|sort'{'|uniq'{,\ -c},\ -nr} ' s/^/'{I,J,K,L}':/;s/ *: */:/g;p;' '/e:/{print $2}' ' /^[(]/{ s/....//;s/$/:/;N;/: [)]$/d;s/\n.+ ([^ ]+).$/\1/;H;};${ g;p;} ' 's/:.+$//p' '|wc -l' /{\\.{kext,xpc,'(appex|pluginkit)'}'\/(Contents\/)?'Info,'Launch[AD].+'}'\.plist$/p' 's/([-+.?])/\\\1/g;s/^/^/p' 's/, /\'$'\n/g;p' ' BEGIN{FS=":"} { printf("'"${f[10]}"'",$1/1048576,$2);} ' );c1=(system_profiler pmset\ -g nvram fdesetup find syslog df vm_stat sar ps crontab kextfind top pkgutil "${k[18]}\\" echo cksum kextstat launchctl smcDiagnose sysctl\ -n defaults\ read stat lsbom 'mdfind -onlyin /' env pluginkit scutil 'dtrace -q -n' profiles sed\ -En awk /S*/*/P*/*/*/C*/*/airport networksetup mdutil lsof test osascript\ -e netstat mdls route );c2=(${k[21]}loginwindow\ LoginHook ' /L*/P*/loginw*' "'tell app \"System Events\" to get properties of login items'" 'L*/Ca*/'${k[21]}'Saf*/E* -d 2 -name '${k[20]} '~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 \)' -i '-nl -print' '-F \$Sender -k Level Nle 3 -k Facility CReq "apple\.(bird|i?clou)"' '{/,}L*/{Con,Pref}* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist -exec plutil -s {} \;' "-f'%N: %l' Desktop L*/Keyc*" therm sysload boot-args status " -F '\$Time \$(RefProc): \$Message' -k Sender Req 'fsev|kern|launchd' -k RefProc Rne 'Aq|WebK' -k Message Rne '08012|Goog|ksadm|probe|Roame|SMC:|smcD|sserti|suhel| VALI|ver-r|xpma' -k Message Req 'abn|bad |Beac|caug|corru|dead[^bl]|FAIL|fail|GPU |hfs: Ru|idle ex|inval|jnl:|last value [1-9]|lv_c|NVDA\(|pagin|pci pa|proc: t|Roamed|rror|SL|TCON|Throttli|tim(ed? ?|ing )o|WARN' " '-du -n DEV -n EDEV 1 10' 'acrx -o%cpu,comm,ruid' "' syscall::recvfrom:return {@a[execname,uid]=sum(arg0)} syscall::sendto:return {@b[execname,uid]=sum(arg0)} syscall::open*:entry {@c[execname,uid,copyinstr(arg0),errno]=count()} syscall::execve:return, syscall::posix_spawn:return {@d[execname,uid,ppid]=count()} syscall::fork:return, syscall::vfork:return, syscall::posix_spawn:return /arg0 < 0/ {@e[execname,uid,arg0]=count()} syscall:::return /errno != 0/ {@f[execname,uid,errno]=count()} io:::wait-start {self->t=timestamp} io:::wait-done /self->t/ { this->T=timestamp - self->t;@g[execname,uid]=sum(this->T);self->t=0;} io:::start {@h[execname,uid]=sum(args[0]->b_bcount)} tick-10sec { normalize(@a,2560000);normalize(@b,2560000);normalize(@c,10);normalize(@d,10);normalize(@e,10);normalize(@f,10);normalize(@g,10000);normalize(@h,10240);printa(\"A:%@d:%s:%d\n\",@a);printa(\"B:%@d:%s:%d\n\",@b);printa(\"C:%@d:%s:%d:%s:%d\n\",@c);printa(\"D:%@d:%s:%d:%d\n\",@d);printa(\"E:%@d:%s:%d:%d\n\",@e);printa(\"F:%@d:%s:%d:%d\n\",@f);printa(\"G:%@d:%s:%d\n\",@g);printa(\"H:%@d:%s:%d\n\",@h);exit(0);} '" '-f -pfc /var/db/r*/'${k[21]}'*.{BS,Bas,Es,J,OSXU,Rem,up}*.bom' '{/,}L*/Lo*/Diag* -type f -regex .\*[cght] ! -name .?\* ! -name \*ag \( -exec grep -lq "^Thread c" {} \; -exec printf \* \; -o -true \) -execdir stat -f:%Sc:%N -t%F {} \;' '/S*/*/Ca*/*xpc*' '-L /{S*/,}L*/StartupItems -type f -exec file {} +' kMDItemContentTypeTree=${k[21]}{bundle,mach-o-dylib} :Label "/e*/{auto,{cron,fs}tab,hosts,{[lp],sy}*.conf,mach_i*/*,pam.d/*,ssh{,d}_config,*.local} {,/usr/local}/etc/periodic/*/* /L*/P*{,/*}/com.a*.{Bo,sec*.ap}*t {/S*/,/,}L*/Lau*/*t .launchd.conf" list '-F "" -k Sender hidd -k Nle 3' /Library/Preferences/${k[21]}alf\ globalstate --proxy '-n get default' -I --dns -get{dnsservers,info} -P -m\ / '' -n1 '-R -ce -l1 -n5 -o'{'prt -stats prt','mem -stats mem'}',command,uid' -kl -l -s\ / '--regexp --files '${k[21]}'pkg.*' '+c0 -i4TCP:0-1023' ${k[21]}dashboard\ layer-gadgets '-d /L*/Mana*/$USER' '-app Safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled' '-Fcu +c0 -l' -m 'L*/{Con*/*/Data/L*/,}Pref* -type f -size 0c -name *.plist.???????' kern.memorystatus_vm_pressure_level '3>&1 >&- 2>&3' '-F \$Message -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq "'{'n Cause: -','a underr|I/O e'}'"' '-app Safari UserStyleSheetEnabled' -name\ kMDItem${k[16]} -T\ hfs '-n get default' -listnetworkserviceorder :${k[16]} :CFBundleDisplayName $EUID {,'/{S*/,}'}'L*/{,Co*/*/*/L*/}{Cache,Log}s $TMPDIR../C -type f -size +'${p[31]}'M -exec stat -f'%z:%N' {} \;' );N1=${#c2[@]};for j in {0..15};do c2[N1+j]=SP${k[j]}DataType;done;l=({Restricted\ ,Lock,Pro}files POST Battery {Safari,App,{Bad,Loaded}\ kernel}\ extensions Heat System\ load boot\ args FileVault Diagnostic\ reports Log {Free\ space,Swap}' (MiB)' Activity SMC Login\ hook 'I/O per process' 'High file counts' UID Daemons Agents XPC\ cache Startup\ items {Admin,Root}\ access Bundles {,Inserted\ }dylibs Stylesheet Font\ issues Firewall Proxies DNS TCP/IP Wi-Fi 'Elapsed time (sec)' {Root,User}\ crontab {Global,User}' login items' Spotlight Memory\ pressure Listeners Widgets Parental\ Controls Prefetching Nets Volumes Bad\ plists {I/O,iCloud,HID}\ errors Shutdown\ codes {User,System}\ caches/logs );N3=${#l[@]};for i in {0..8};do l[N3+i]=${k[5+i]};done;F() { local x="${s[$1]}";[[ "$x" =~ ^([\&\|\<\>]|$) ]]&&{ printf "$x";return; };:|${c1[30]} "$x" 2>&-;printf "%s \'%s\'" "|${c1[30+$?]}" "$x";};A0() { Q=6;v[2]=1;id -G|grep -qw 80;v[1]=$?;((v[1]))||{ Q=7;sudo -v;v[2]=$?;((v[2]))||Q=8;};v[3]=`date +%s`;date '+Start time: %T %D%n';printf '\n[Process started]\n\n'>&4;printf 'Revision: %s\n\n' ${p[21]};};A1() { local c="${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}";shift 2;c="$c ` while [[ "$1" ]];do F $1;shift;done`";((P2))&&{ c="sudo $c";P2=;};v=`eval "$c"`;[[ "$v" ]];};A2() { local c="${c1[$1]}";[[ "$c" =~ ^(awk|sed ) ]]&&c="$c '${s[$2]}'"||c="$c ${c2[$2]}";shift 2;local d=` while [[ "$1" ]];do F $1;shift;done`;((P2))&&{ c="sudo $c";P2=;};local a;v=` while read a;do eval "$c '$a' $d";done<<<"$v";`;[[ "$v" ]];};A3(){ v=$((`date +%s`-v[3]));};B1() { v=No;! ((v[1]))&&{ v=;P1=1;};};eval "`type -a B1|sed '1d;s/1/2/'`";B3(){ v[$1]="$v";};B4() { local i=$1;local j=$2;shift 2;local c="cat` while [[ "$1" ]];do F $1;shift;done`";v[j]=`eval "{ $c;}"<<<"${v[i]}"`;};B5(){ v[$1]="${v[$1]}"$'\n'"${v[$2]}";};B6() { v=` paste -d: <(printf "${v[$1]}") <(printf "${v[$2]}")|awk -F: ' {printf("'"${f[$3]}"'",$1,$2)} ' `;};B7(){ v=`grep -Ev "${v[$1]}"<<<"$v"|sort`;};eval "`type -a B7|sed '1d;s/7/8/;s/Ev/E/'`";C0() { [[ "$v" ]]&&sed -E "$s"<<<"$v";};C1() { [[ "$v" ]]&&printf "${f[$1]}" "${l[$2]}" "$v"|sed -E "$s";};C2() { v=`echo $v`;[[ "$v" != 0 ]]&&C1 0 $1;};C3() { B4 0 0 63&&C1 1 $1;};C4() { echo $'\t'"Part $((++P)) of $Q done at $((`date +%s`-v[3])) sec">&4;};C5() { sudo -k;pbcopy<<<"$o";printf '\n\tThe test results are on the Clipboard.\n\n\tPlease close this window.\n';exit 2>&-;};for i in 1 2;do eval D${i}0'(){ A'$i' $@;C0;};';for j in 2 3;do eval D$i$j'(){ x=$1;shift;A'$i' $@;C'$j' $x;};';done;done;trap C5 2;o=$({ A0;D10 0 N1+1 2;D10 0 $N1 1;B1;C2 27;B1&&! B2&&C2 28;D12 22 15 63;D10 0 N1+2 3;D10 0 N1+15 17;D13 3 0 N1+3 4;D13 4 0 N1+4 5;D13 N3+4 0 N1+9 59;for i in 0 1 2;do D13 N3+i 0 N1+5+i 6;done;D13 N3+3 0 N1+8 71;D13 9 1 10 7;D13 10 1 11 8;B2&&D13 18 19 53 67;D12 11 2 12 9;D12 12 3 13 10;D12 15 6 36 13;D12 45 20 52 66;D12 16 7 37 14;D13 17 8 15 38;D10 9 16 16 77 45;C4;B2&&D10 35 49 61 75 76 78 45;B2&&{ D10 28 17 45;C4;};D10 12 40 54 16 79 45;D10 12 39 54 16 80 45;D13 31 25 37 15;B2&&D13 19 21 0;B2&&D13 40 10 42;B2&&D12 2 29 35 46;D12 44 34 43 53;D12 25 22 20 32;D12 33 0 N1+14 51;D12 34 21 28 35;D13 35 27 29 36;A1 40 59 81;B3 18;A1 33 60 82;B8 18;B4 0 19 83;A1 27 32 39&&{ B3 20;B4 19 0;A2 33 33 40;B3 21;B6 20 21 3;};C2 36;D13 50 38 5 68;B4 19 0;D23 37 33 34 42;B2&&D13 46 35 45 55;D13 38 32 31 43;B2&&D13 58 4 65 76 91;D13 13 4 19 44;B1&&{ D13 53 5 55 75 69&&D13 51 6 58 31;D12 55 5 27 84; D13 56 5 54 75 70;D13 14 5 14 12;C4;};A1 13 44 74 18;C4;B3 4;B4 4 0 85;A2 14 61 89;B4 0 5 19;A1 17 41 20;B7 5;C3 8;B4 4 0 88;A2 14 24 89;C4;B4 0 6 19;B4 4 0 86;A2 14 61 89;B5 6 0;B4 6 6 73;B2&&{ A1 18 26 23;B7 6;B4 0 0 11;C3 23;};A1 18 26 23;B7 6;B4 0 0 11;C3 24;D13 26 4 21 24;D13 42 14 1 62;D13 43 37 2 90 48;D13 41 10 42;D12 48 36 47 25;A1 4 3 60&&{ B3 5;A2 14 61;B4 0 6 21;B4 5 0;A2 14 62;B4 0 0 21;B6 0 6 4;C3 5;};D12 32 21 56 35;D12 49 21 48 49;B4 4 22 57;A1 21 46 56;B7 22;B4 0 0 58;C3 47;D13 54 5 7 75 69;D13 57 4 64 76 91;D12 0 4 4 84;D12 1 4 51 84;D13 21 22 9 37;A1 23 18 28 89;B4 0 16 22;A1 16 25 33;B7 16;B4 0 0 34;D20 31 47;D13 52 4 8 41;C4;B4 4 12 26 89 93;for i in {0..3};do A1 0 N1+10+i 72;B7 12;B4 0 0 52;C3 N3+5+i;((i))||C4;done;A1 24 22 29;B7 12;B3 14;A2 39 57 30;B3 15;B6 14 15 4;C3 29;B4 4 13 27 89 65;A1 24 23;B7 13;C3 30;B4 4 0 87;A2 14 61 89 20;B4 0 16;A1 26 50 64;B7 16;C3 6;D13 7 11 6;A3; C2 39;C4;} 4>&2 2>/dev/null;);C5

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

8. Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste by pressing command-V. The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.

9. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "Syntax error" or "Event not found," enter

exec bash

and press return. Then paste the script again.

10. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, just press return three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.

If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.

11. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, a series of lines will appear in the Terminal window like this:

[Process started]

Part 1 of 8 done at … sec
…
Part 8 of 8 done at … sec

The results are on the Clipboard.

Please close this window.

[Process completed]

The intervals between parts won't be exactly equal, but they give a rough indication of progress. The total number of parts may be different from what's shown here.

Wait for the final message "Process completed" to appear. If you don't see it within about ten minutes, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, press the key combination control-C or command-period to stop it. Then go to the next step.

12. When the test is complete, or if you stopped it because it was taking too long, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.

At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with the words "Start time." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "Process completed" message to appear in the Terminal window. Please wait for it and try again.

If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.

13. When you post the results, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "You are not authorized to post." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

14. This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I may not agree with them.

______________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2014, 2015 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

A

A program, or perhaps more than one, is at times using excessive memory, causing the whole system to be temporarily unresponsive. That can happen for two reasons:

A long-running process with a memory leak (a kind of bug)

Not enough memory for your usage pattern

Please note that if the cause is a memory leak, installing more memory will not help. That's likely if you already have more than 4 GB of memory. Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.

When you notice the unresponsiveness, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the View menu, if it's not already selected. Select the Memory tab.

If the graph at the bottom of the window is in the yellow or red zone, click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select

View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory

from the menu bar.

If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, or if kernel_task is using more than about 1.5 GB, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.

The processes named "Safari Web Content" render web pages for Safari. They use a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider them prime suspects.

Another process often implicated in memory leaks is "inkjet4" or "inkjet8," which is a component of the HP printing software. If it's present, force-quit the process in Activity Monitor to solve the problem temporarily. Empty the print queues in the Printers & Scanners preference pane (which has a slightly different name in each recent version of OS X.) If you don't use an HP printer, remove the software. Otherwise, if the problem is recurrent, update the software (which may not help) or contact HP support.

"Wired" memory should be a small part of the total. That memory is not swapped, but it makes less physical memory available which may then result in swapping. If you have a lot of wired memory, that's usually an indication of a memory leak in a third-party program that modifies the operating system at a low level. Ask for guidance in that case.

If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.

The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:

sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total

where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

B

Remove "AirParrot" and "DivX" (which serves no purpose), and quit "Dropbox." See whether there's an improvement.

Any third-party software that doesn't install by drag-and-drop into the Applications folder, and uninstall by drag-and-drop to the Trash, is a system modification.

Whenever you remove system modifications, they must be removed completely, and the only way to do that is to use the uninstallation tool, if any, provided by the developers, or to follow their instructions. If the software has been incompletely removed, you may have to re-download or even reinstall it in order to finish the job.

I never install system modifications myself, and except as stated in this comment, I don't know how to uninstall them. You'll have to do your own research to find that information.

Here are some general guidelines to get you started. Suppose you want to remove something called “BrickMyMac” (a hypothetical example.) First, consult the product's Help menu, if there is one, for instructions. Finding none there, look on the developer's website, say www.brickmymac.com. (That may not be the actual name of the site; if necessary, search the Web for the product name.) If you don’t find anything on the website or in your search, contact the developer. While you're waiting for a response, download BrickMyMac.dmg and open it. There may be an application in there such as “Uninstall BrickMyMac.” If not, open “BrickMyMac.pkg” and look for an Uninstall button. The uninstaller might also be accessed by clicking the Customize button, if there is one.

Back up all data before making any changes.

You will generally have to restart the computer in order to complete an uninstallation. Until you do that, there may be no effect, or unpredictable effects.

If you can’t remove software in any other way, you’ll have to erase and install OS X. Never install any third-party software unless you're sure you know how to uninstall it; otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.

Trying to remove complex system modifications by hunting for files by name often will not work and may make the problem worse. The same goes for "utilities" such as "AppCleaner" and the like that purport to remove software.

C

Although it wasn't connected when you ran the test, you have an external storage device that's malfunctioning. That device has to be replaced.

D

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions or are locked. This procedure will unlock those files and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Step 1

If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (triple-click, copy, and paste):

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.

The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)

Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.

Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

Utilities ▹ Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:

resetp

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select

 ▹ Restart

from the menu bar.

E

Back up all data.

Run the following command in the same way as before. It moves to the Trash "semaphore" files that have not been cleaned up by the system and may be interfering with normal operation. The files are empty; they contain no data. There will be no output this time.

find L*/{Con*/*/Data/L*/,}Pref* -type f -size 0c -name *.plist.??????? -exec mv {} .Trash/ \; 2>&-

Log out or restart the computer and empty the Trash.

If I erase and install OS X will this be the same as resetting it?

It depends on what you restore. If that's what you want to do, see below.

Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. One backup is not enough to be safe. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with Disk Utility. Preferably both.

Erase and install OS X. This operation will destroy all data on the startup volume, so you had be better be sure of the backups. If you upgraded from an older version of OS X, you'll need the Apple ID and password that you used, so make a note of those before you begin.

When you restart, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process in Setup Assistant. That’s when you transfer the data from a backup.

Select only users and Computer & Network Settings in the Setup Assistant dialog—not Applications or Other files and folders. Don't transfer the Guest account, if it was enabled.

After that, check the App Store for software updates.

If the problem is resolved after the clean installation, reinstall third-party software selectively. I can only suggest general guidelines. Self-contained applications that install into the Applications folder by drag-and-drop or download from the App Store are usually safe. Anything that comes packaged as an installer or that prompts for an administrator password is suspect, and you must test thoroughly after reinstalling each such item to make sure you haven't restored the problem.

I strongly recommend that you never reinstall commercial "security" products or "utilities," nor any software that changes the user interface or the behavior of built-in applications such as Safari. If you do that, the problem is likely to recur.

Any system modifications that you do choose to install must be kept up to date. None is required for normal operation.

Before installing any software, ask yourself the question: "Am I sure I know how to uninstall this without having to wipe the volume again?" If the answer is "no," stop.

Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it.