Level 1

39 points

Finder and Desktop slow to load after logging in

A friend asked me to help with her late 2011 i7, 17 inch MacBook Pro, which is using 10.11.4.

The Finder is very slow to load after log in. The Dock shows very quickly but everything else takes a very long time. The Finder menu seems to wait for any desktop items to get loaded first, which also takes a long time, then it appears soon after that but when I click on a menu item I get the spinning beach ball. Initially, she had 12 photos on her desktop so I placed them all in a folder in her Pictures folder, so the Desktop is clean (actually, I have three items now, explained below, but I had it clean and the results were the same). Still no improvement.

She has no Login Items and no applications start up after login. I guess the only thing getting loaded are extensions and other system stuff.

I just did a test. After I restarted and entered the user account password, upon hitting enter the Dock shows immediately, then at 20 seconds the Finder menu appeared, at 35 secs the three desktop items (two plist files and a folder of cache files I placed there) appeared, and at 58 secs the menu bar right side icons appeared. After this I click the Apple menu and I get the spinning beach ball for a couple of secs. As I continue to use the Mac the responsiveness improves.

Each startup is a little different it seems. The previous startup the menu bar right side icons appeared at 35 secs and the Finder menu showing at 55 secs.

After things get loaded the responsiveness improves the more I use it and after several minutes it acts normal.

She has 4GB of RAM and Activity Monitor shows 3.58GB Memory Used after login.

As a comparison, I have a 2008 Core 2 Duo MacBook, which also has 4GB and is using 10.11.4. When I logged in it took 10 secs to show the Dock, Finder menu, and 23 desktop items, all at the same time. Then at 40 secs to load Mail, Safari, and Activity Monitor. Activity Monitor shows 2.84GB Memory Used. This is much better than her newer “faster” MacBook Pro. Why??

I have also added a second user account to the MBP and it is also slow with similar results as the normal user account.

She was using iCloud Photo Library with a large Photos Library (168GB) and it was updating very slowly and was only half completed. I turned this process OFF while I worked on her laptop and didn't seem to have any effect. Loading is still slow.

I have done all the standard troubleshooting things I can think of with no positive results;

• Ran Malwarebytes Anti-malware for Mac (none found)

• Started in Safe mode. Finder and Desktop slow to load in Safe mode, too.

• Emptied the ~/Library/Saved Application State folder

• Mac was indexing when I got it so I forced another indexing of the drive and let it finish

• Deleted cache files using Onyx

• Removed com.apple.desktop.plist and com.apple.finder.plist files from ~/Library/Preferences

• Reset PRAM

• Reset SMC

• Re-installed El Capitan

For the inquiring minds out there I ran EtreCheck and here are the results;

EtreCheck version: 2.9.11 (264)

Report generated 2016-04-22 09:56:11

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime 3:12

Performance: Good (my comment - this was right after the Finder and Desktop loaded after a restart. I ran another EtraCheck check several minutes after another restart and it reported “Performance: Excellent”)

Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: Computer is too slow

Description:

Finder and Desktop slow to load after logging in

Hardware Information:ⓘ

MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2011)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,3

1 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4-core

4 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]

BANK 0/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 40

Video Information:ⓘ

Intel HD Graphics 3000

Color LCD 1280 x 800

AMD Radeon HD 6770M - VRAM: 1024 MB

System Software:ⓘ

OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 (15E65) - Time since boot: less than an hour

Disk Information:ⓘ

APPLE HDD HTS547575A9E384 disk0 : (750.16 GB) (Rotational)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

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

Macintosh HD (disk1) / : 748.93 GB (540.43 GB free)

Core Storage: disk0s2 749.30 GB Online

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-8A8 ()

USB Information:ⓘ

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Thunderbolt Information:ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper:ⓘ

Mac App Store and identified developers

System Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] 8 Apple tasks

[loaded] 166 Apple tasks

[running] 64 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[not loaded] 44 Apple tasks

[loaded] 162 Apple tasks

[running] 83 Apple tasks

Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (2013-03-30) [Support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (2016-03-09) [Support]

Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (2016-04-05) [Support]

[loaded] com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist

[loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist (2016-03-09) [Support]

[loaded] com.malwarebytes.MBAMHelperTool.plist (2016-04-19) [Support]

User Launch Agents:ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (2013-03-30) [Support]

Other Apps:ⓘ

[running] com.etresoft.EtreCheck.117792

[loaded] 407 Apple tasks

[running] 159 Apple tasks

Internet Plug-ins:ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 21.0.0.213 - SDK 10.6 (2016-04-13) [Support]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (2016-03-12)

Flash Player: 21.0.0.213 - SDK 10.6 (2016-04-13) Outdated! Update

PepperFlashPlayer: 21.0.0.213 - SDK 10.6 (2016-04-19) [Support]

Default Browser: 601 - SDK 10.11 (2016-03-12)

3rd Party Preference Panes:ⓘ

Flash Player (2016-04-05) [Support]

Time Machine:ⓘ

Skip System Files: NO

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 748.93 GB Disk used: 208.50 GB

Destinations:

TM BACK-UP [Local]

Total size: 3.00 TB

Total number of backups: 7

Oldest backup: 1/16/15, 5:07 PM

Last backup: 5/14/15, 12:25 PM

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 3.00 TB > (Disk size 748.93 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU:ⓘ

6% WindowServer

3% mds_stores

1% kernel_task

1% mdworker(6)

1% fontd

Top Processes by Memory:ⓘ

412 MB kernel_task

225 MB mdworker(6)

82 MB WindowServer

70 MB Spotlight

66 MB Finder

Virtual Memory Information:ⓘ

135 MB Free RAM

3.86 GB Used RAM (642 MB Cached)

0 B Swap Used

Diagnostics Information:ⓘ

Apr 22, 2016, 09:50:14 AM Self test - passed

Apr 19, 2016, 02:54:10 PM ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/suggestd_2016-04-19-145410_[redacted].crash

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreSuggestions.framework/Versions/A/Support/ suggestd

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Posted on Apr 22, 2016 8:29 AM

24 replies

Esquared

Level 6

12,415 points

Apr 24, 2016 3:08 AM in response to plcmms

Frequent reboots are unnecessary, especially on a MacBook.

That being said: the hardware test doesn't always give reliable results, especially when it comes to testing the startup disk. You could pickup the free trial of SMART Utility, to see if there might be wrong with it: https://www.volitans-software.com/apps/smart-utility/.

Eric Root

Level 10

685,593 points

Apr 24, 2016 2:20 PM in response to plcmms

More RAM might help. The 2 places I’ve seen recommended most to buy reliable RAM are below. I have purchased RAM several times from Other World Computing and have always been very satisfied with the product and service. They have on-line instructions on how to replace the RAM. OWC has also tested RAM above what Apple states is the maximum. I now have 6GB installed on a early 2008 iMac supposedly limited to 4 GB and noticed an improvement.

Crucial

Other World Computing

plcmms Author

Level 1

39 points

Apr 24, 2016 2:27 PM in response to Esquared

Thanks for the suggestion, Esquared.

I downloaded SMART Utility and opened it and it showed the drive's "Overall SMART Status Passed". No errors. In the Test section I ran the Short test and I ran the "Long" test...3 hrs long...and it passed that, too. So it looks like the drive is good...I guess.

This MacBook Pro has 4GB of RAM. My MacBook, which I am comparing login times with, also has 4GB, too. I'm wondering...

When I login with my MacBook I immediately check Activity Monitor and the Memory Used is about 2GB. When I do the same thing with the MacBook Pro the Memory Used is about 3.5GB. Obviously more stuff is being loaded on the MBP. Could this be requiring more time to load these files into RAM and displaying the menu and desktop items? I think it should still be logging in quicker, though.

Do you think I should recommend getting 8GB RAM since it is apparent that the 4GB is almost full just with the basic stuff getting loaded after login?

After login and waiting for everything to appear on the screen it kind of feels like there are no cache files and it's taking time to create new cache files, but this can't be because login takes a long time every time.

I don't know, I'm just at a loss as to what could be causing this. About the only thing left is RAM...that's why I mention it.

Interesting. I just read the post from Eric and he thinks increasing RAM might be a good idea. I'm posting this anyway since I've already written it, in case you have some comments.

horstp

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2016 8:44 AM in response to plcmms

I have the very same issue on an iMac (late 2013) which I have upgraded to 16 GB RAM, so lack of RAM is definitely not an issue.

Jul 11, 2016 9:03 AM in response to horstp

Slow startup and log in times are par for the course in machines with traditional ("rotational") hard drives in El Capitan (as it was in Yosemite, at least). AFAICT the only effective solution is to use an SSD as a boot drive.

If you can upgrade to an SSD the impact is phenomenal (and prices have come down significantly, so you are no longer breaking the bank to add one).

A 2010 MBP with an SSD starts up and is ready to work in a few seconds, whereas a 2011 iMac with better specs, more RAM but an HD instead of SSD takes a loong time.

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Jul 11, 2016 9:38 AM in response to plcmms

4GB of RAM is fairly low these days. OS X will try to keep frequently used data in RAM to make things faster. This makes it difficult to compare across different models with different amounts of RAM.

If you want to check memory usage open /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor & look at the Memory tab. The 'memory pressure graph' at the bottom will show orange or red when memory is low. If it is green do not worry about it. Orange in the graph is a minor concern if you have it constantly under normal usage.

The Mac will be slow if the memory graph is red - that is when swap is being created. Swap is when no memory is free, so the OS writes it back to disk. This can be painfully slow on a spinning hard disk like this Mac has. A SSD will improve performance if you can afford to do that upgrade.

Frankly your startup timings seem quite normal to me - spinning disks are just slow. It will take a few minutes to startup & login. Your example seems to add up to 2 minutes for the login process - what is wrong with that?

I'm not convinced there is anything abnormal here beyond people forgetting how long startups take on non SSD based disks!

You should also consider that deleting caches via Onyx can cause slower reboots & startups. The caches are their for a reason, these utilities should be a last resort, ideally avoided by novices.

Also you want to avoid leaping to the 'reinstall OS X' stage before you have checked the state of the hard disk. Have you run Disk Utility to see if the HD is OK? Boot into recovery mode & verify/ repair the boot disk…

OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support

Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks - Apple Support

horstp

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2016 11:11 AM in response to Drew Reece

Cannot confirm. I have two iMacs running El Capitan 10.11.5, and they behave very differently in this respect:

iMac mid-2010 / 16 GB RAM / 1 TB HD

time between Dock has loaded and computer is ready to use: between 90 and 130 seconds

iMac late-2013 / 8 GB RAM / 3 TB HD

time between Dock has loaded and computer is ready to use: less than 10 seconds

As you can see, the difference is massive, and very clearly the problem is not the traditional/rotational hard drive.

heikor2

Level 1

8 points

Aug 24, 2017 4:50 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Imagine the hd is ok and it is not much slower.

Aug 24, 2017 7:30 AM in response to heikor2

heikor2 wrote:

Imagine the hd is ok and it is not much slower.

You can imagine anything you want. The HD might be ok, but it is for sure *much slower* than a current SSD.

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Finder and Desktop slow to load after logging in