Q: Icon Service Agent Error - Frequent Spinning Beach Ball

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

Step 1

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.

Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”

While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your documents or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this behavior; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.

Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?

After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.

*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.

Step 2

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.

Please take this step regardless of the results of Step 1.

Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem.

Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.

Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.

The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.

Test while in safe mode. It will be slow, but there should be no beachballing. Same problem?

After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of Steps 1 and 2.

What happened when you took the steps I suggested?

Step 2?

This procedure will delete certain temporary and cache files. The files are automatically generated and don't contain any of your data. Occasionally they can become corrupt and cause problems such as yours.

Please back up all data and read this whole message before doing anything.

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

/var/folders/zz

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

          Services ▹ Open

from the contextual menu.* A folder named "zz" should open. Inside it are several subfolders, each with a long name beginning in "zyx". One of them has this name:

          zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000

Note that the name ends in a series of zeros. Leave that one alone, and move all the other subfolders of "zz" to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password. Restart the computer and empty the Trash.

The deleted folders will be recreated after you restart. That's not an indication that something is still wrong.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination  command-C. In the Finder, select

          Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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.

The test works on OS X 10.8 ("Mountain Lion") and later. I don't recommend running it on older versions of OS X. It will do no harm, but it won't do much good either.

Don't be put off by the complexity of these instructions. The procedure is easy to do right, but it's also easy to do wrong, so I've made the instructions very detailed. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.

2. If you don't already have a current backup, please 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 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 who understands the code 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 many times over a period of years. 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 general summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:

☞ Copy the text of a particular web page (not this one) 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.

These are not specific instructions; just an overview. The details are in parts 7 and 8 of this comment. The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time.

5. Try to test under conditions that reproduce the problem, as far as possible. For example, if the computer is intermittently 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 before running it. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.

6. If you have more than one user, and only one user is affected by the problem,, and the affected user 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. Load this linked web page (on the website "Pastebin") in Safari. Press the key combination command-A to select all the text, then copy it to the Clipboard by pressing command-C.

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

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name ("Terminal") 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 to activate it. Paste from the Clipboard into the window by pressing command-V, then press return. The text you pasted should vanish immediately.

9. 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. 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 the test is taking much longer than usual to run because the computer is very slow, you might be prompted for your password a second time. The authorization that you grant by entering it expires automatically after five minutes.

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.

10. 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:

    Test started

        Part 1 of 4 done at: … sec
        …
        Part 4 of 4 done at: … sec

    The test results are on the Clipboard.

    Please close this window.

The intervals between parts won't be exactly equal, but they give a rough indication of progress.

Wait for the final message "Please close this window" to appear—again, usually within a few minutes. If you don't see that message within about 30 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. You'll have incomplete results, but still something.

In order to get results, the test must either be allowed to complete or else manually stopped as above. If you close the Terminal window while the test is still running, the partial results won't be saved.

11. When the test is complete, or if you stopped it manually, quit Terminal. The results will have been saved 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 "close this window" message. 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.

12. 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 "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the software that runs this website. Please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.

13. When you're done with the test, it's gone. There is nothing to uninstall or clean up.

14. This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak for themselves, not for me. The test itself is harmless, but whatever else you do may not be. For others who choose to run it, I don't recommend that you post the test results on this website unless I asked you to.

15. The linked UNIX shell script bears a notice of copyright. Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

I'm not sure what happened there, but the script wasn't copied and pasted correctly. Please try again.

A

The machine is much slower than normal, and there have been two abnormal shutdowns in the last few days. A negative shutdown code may indicate a hardware problem. The precise meaning of the codes is not publicly documented.

If you haven't already done so, you can try resetting the System Management Controller. Otherwise, or if the reset has no effect, see below.

Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider. You may have to leave the machine there for several days.

Back up all data on the internal drive(s) before you hand over your computer to anyone. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional—ask if you need guidance.

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.

Keep your confidential data secure during hardware repair.

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

*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.

B

The test results show other issues. I suggest that you defer the remaining steps until after the hardware issue has been dealt with.

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.

Please 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 nosappnd,noschg,nosunlnk,nouappnd,nouchg {} + -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. You may be prompted to select a language, then the OS X Utilities screen will appear.

If you use FileVault 2, select Disk Utility, then select the icon of the FileVault startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another drive icon. Select Unlock from the File menu and enter your login password when prompted. Then quit Disk Utility to be returned to the main screen.

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.

C

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.

D

You, or someone else using your computer, hacked the system to redirect queries to Adobe servers. As a result, the Adobe update process is unable to function and is wasting resources. The file modified is /etc/hosts. To undo the hack, please start by backing up all data if you haven't already done so.

If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator.

Enter the following command in a Terminal window in the same way as before (by copy and paste):

sudo sed -i~ '10,$d' /etc/hosts

There will be no output this time. Quit Terminal.

There is now a copy of the old hosts file with the name "hosts~" in the same folder as "hosts". You can delete the copy if you wish. Don't delete the file named "hosts".

E

"CleanMyMac" is a scam and a common cause of instability and poor performance. Depending on what version you have, the developer's instructions may not completely remove it. Please follow those instructions, then do as below.

Back up all data before proceeding.

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

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Agent.plist

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

          Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu.* A folder may open with an item selected. If it does, move the selected item to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password.

Repeat with this line:

/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Agent

Restart the computer and empty the Trash.

You may also have to remove one or more of these items in the same way:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.helperTool.plist

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.volumeWatcher.plist

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Scheduler.plist

Never again install "CleanMyMac" or anything like it.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

          Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

F

"ZipCloud," sometimes named "JustCloud," is purportedly a cloud-storage client that either is, or is closely associated with, malware.

To remove ZipCloud, please start by backing up all data (not with ZipCloud itself, of course.)

This procedure works as of now, as far as I know. It may not work in the future. Anyone finding this comment a few days or more after it was posted should look for a more recent discussion, or start a new one.

Quit the "ZipCloud" or "JustCloud" application, if it's running, and drag it from the Applications folder to the Trash. Don't try to empty yet.

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

~/Library/LaunchAgents

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

          Services ▹ Open

from the contextual menu.* A folder named "LaunchAgents" should open.

In the folder, there may be one or more files with a name beginning as follows:

           com.jdibackup.

Move all such files to the Trash.

Log out or restart the computer and empty the Trash.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination  command-C. In the Finder, select

          Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

G

The following Safari extension(s) is/are malicious and should be removed in the Extensions pane of the Safari preferences window:

      Amazon Shopping Assistant

      Slick Savings

Never install any extension with the words "Spigot," "Conduit," "Genieo," or "Trovi" in the description.

H

In the sidebar of a Finder window, or on the Desktop, please select the icon of the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Open it. Inside, there is a folder named "lost+found". It contains one or more corrupt files that are wasting a lot of storage space. Back up all data, then drag the folder to the Trash and empty. You may be prompted for your administrator password.