Beachball constantly appearing

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cptcpt299 Author

Level 1

0 points

Beachball constantly appearing

MacBook Pro 13 inch early 2011

2.7 GHZ i7

4 GB RAM

OS X 10.11 El Capitan

A couple days ago, whenever I was just using Chrome or any other applications on my Mac, the beachball started coming up for about 20-30 seconds at a time, in no specific time intervals, sometimes 2-3 minutes in between occurances or even 5 minutes. If I am watching a video on Quicktime, the video and audio freezes for about 10-20 seconds. I tried to see if there was a software problem, but whenever I checked the Activity Monitor, there didn't seem to be any app taking up a significant portion of the CPU. I checked the Console and discovered I got the disk0se I/0 error that seems to occur whenever there is a slowdown in my computer and the beachball occurs.. Have tried using the FIist Aid option in the new Disk Utility, and every time I use it, it claims the drive is completely fixed, but the issue keeps recurring. I can restart the computer and boot up fine, but am continuing to encounter the beachball periodically.

Are there any possible fixes to this issue that doesn't involve replacing a hard drive?

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 7, 2015 1:40 PM

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Answer 1

Huss417

Level 1

40 points

Oct 7, 2015 1:42 PM in response to cptcpt299

Same issue when watching a video using VLC it freezes/pauses same with beachball happening. Not sure if you use Time Machine but if you do next time you have the issue look at time machine and see if a back up has started running. I finally figured out the issues are with my hourly backup it slows and freezes whatever I am doing. I posted a separate question on this and hopefully someone will have an answer.

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Answer 2

Oct 7, 2015 2:53 PM in response to cptcpt299

If you have not done so, backup your important data in case the startup disk fails.

See if you can run the Apple Hardware Test

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Oct 7, 2015 4:51 PM in response to cptcpt299

The startup drive is failing, or there is some other internal hardware fault.

Back up all data on the drive immediately if you don't already have a current backup. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional—ask if you need guidance.

Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

If privacy is a concern, erase the data partition(s) with the option to write zeros* (do this only if you have at least two complete, independent backups, and you know how to restore to an empty drive from any of them.) Don’t erase the recovery partition, if present.

Keeping your confidential data secure during hardware repair

Apple also recommends that you deauthorize a device in the iTunes Store before having it serviced.

*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.

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Answer 4

Oct 26, 2015 1:50 PM in response to cptcpt299

This did it for me: OSX : When OSX f***’ed my daily work because of systemstatsd

I've had Disk I/O-Errors in Console & this annyoing beach ball driving me nuts - no way to get things and work done. But booting in SafeMode, running DiskUtil and also Apple Hardware Test tells me, that drive has no problem. So I've been digging through Google for over a week and finally found that routine regarding "systemstatsd". Pasted this 3 lines in Terminal and the "systemstatsd"-process stopped. All is restored... fully functional system with best performance ever... and no disk I/O errors in console anymore!

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