Q: Sierra has sent my MacBook Air crazy
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Oct 19, 2016 4:10 AMby Luis Sequeira1,Restart in Safe Mode. It will be slow, but I bet it does not show any of those weird behaviors.
It could happen that then by restarting normally things are ok.
Or if they are not, it will prove that some of the third party software you have installed is not playing nice with Sierra.
The way to try and figure out is to run Etrecheck and post its report, so we can see what is there and perhaps notice some red flags.
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Oct 21, 2016 12:42 AMby Peter Best1,Thanks very much for the suggestion. I've started in Safe mode and the machine's behaving impeccably. Next I'll run Etrecheck. I'm a bit puzzled though, in that I have nothing on this computer that isn't totally whitebread standard issue stuff. No weird apps, just MAIL and PHOTOS and FIREFOX and the like. A friend who makes his living fixing Mac problems has a MacBook that works beautifully, but an iMac that's gone off with the pixies on Sierra. Surely Apple must have a list of suspect applications that they could share with us? My iPad Air and my phone are both misbehaving in minor ways that I suspect might be related to the newly-installed pressure functions. What would I know, especially when I'm kept in the dark?
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Oct 21, 2016 4:15 PMby Peter Best1,Luis: Here's the Etrecheck report. I can see the warnings but don't know how to proceed. Can you advise me please?
EtreCheck version: 3.0.6 (315)
Report generated 2016-10-22 10:03:20
Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com
Runtime 4:36
Performance: Good
Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.
Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.
Problem: Other problem
Description:
Cursor selecting sections of screen, automatically selecting multiple files, jittering all over the place.
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011)
[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]
MacBook Air - model: MacBookAir4,2
1 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2-core
4 GB RAM Not upgradeable
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: en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n
Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 307
Intel HD Graphics 3000
Color LCD 1440 x 900
macOS Sierra 10.12 (16A323) - Time since boot: less than an hour
APPLE SSD SM256C disk0 : (251 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)
EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB
Macintosh HD (disk1) / [Startup]: 249.80 GB (69.17 GB free)
Encrypted AES-XTS Unlocked
Core Storage: disk0s2 250.14 GB Online
Apple Inc. FaceTime Camera (Built-in)
Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Apple Card Reader
Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Mac App Store and identified developers
HWNetMgr: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr
HWPortDetect: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect
Startup items no longer function in OS X Yosemite or later
[not loaded] 9 Apple tasks
[loaded] 179 Apple tasks
[running] 67 Apple tasks
[killed] 16 Apple tasks
16 processes killed due to insufficient RAM
[failed] com.apple.ucupdate.plist (2016-07-31)
[failed] com.apple.watchdogd.plist (2016-08-30)
[not loaded] 37 Apple tasks
[loaded] 166 Apple tasks
[running] 80 Apple tasks
[killed] 19 Apple tasks
19 processes killed due to insufficient RAM
[not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (2016-07-12) [Support]
[not loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (2016-09-24) [Support]
[not loaded] com.fitbit.galileod.plist (2015-10-30) [Support]
[not loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist (2016-09-02) [Support]
[not loaded] com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.plugin.AntiTheft.daemon.plist (2016-08-07) [Support]
[not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2.Agent.plist (2015-02-07) [Support]
[not loaded] com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.Helper.plist (2016-08-07) [Support]
[not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Scheduler.plist (2016-07-10)
AdSanity Application (/Applications/AdSanity.app)
Dropbox Application (/Applications/Dropbox.app)
handyPrintUserDaemon Application (/Applications/handyPrint.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/handyPrintUserDaemon. app)
Fitbit Connect Menubar Helper Application (/Applications/Fitbit Connect.app/Contents/MacOS/Fitbit Connect Menubar Helper.app)
CleanMyMac 3 Menu Application (/Applications/CleanMyMac 3.app/Contents/MacOS/CleanMyMac 3 Menu.app)
NP_2020Player_IKEA: 5.0.94.1 - SDK 10.6 (2012-09-28) [Support]
FlashPlayer-10.6: 23.0.0.185 - SDK 10.9 (2016-10-12) [Support]
QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (2016-09-14)
Flash Player: 23.0.0.185 - SDK 10.9 (2016-10-12) [Support]
Google Earth Web Plug-in: 7.1 (2016-08-20) [Support]
RealPlayer Plugin: Unknown (2013-04-22) [Support]
Google Earth Web Plug-in: 7.1 (2013-10-08) [Support]
AdBlock - Michael Gundlach - https://getadblock.com (2015-09-08)
Flash Player (2016-09-24) [Support]
Auto backup: YES
Volumes being backed up:
Macintosh HD: Disk size: 249.80 GB Disk used: 180.63 GB
Destinations:
CHERRY'S TIME MACHINE [Local]
Total size: 2.00 TB
Total number of backups: 100
Oldest backup: 1/5/12, 2:47 pm
Last backup: 17/10/16, 8:20 am
Size of backup disk: Excellent
Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk size 249.80 GB X 3)
66% parentalcontrolsd
3% kernel_task
3% WindowServer
1% fontd
0% firefox
405 MB kernel_task
303 MB firefox
111 MB Finder
90 MB trustd(2)
90 MB assistant_service
77 MB Free RAM
3.92 GB Used RAM (872 MB Cached)
10 MB Swap Used
Oct 22, 2016, 09:49:50 AM Self test - passed
Oct 21, 2016, 06:35:54 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/firefox_2016-10-21-183554_[redacted].cpu_resour ce.diag [Details]
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
Oct 21, 2016, 06:28:39 PM ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/cloudphotosd_2016-10-21-182839_[redacted].cras h
/System/Library/CoreServices/cloudphotosd.app/Contents/MacOS/cloudphotosd
Oct 19, 2016, 08:06:02 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/firefox_2016-10-19-200602_[redacted].cpu_resour ce.diag [Details]
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Oct 21, 2016 4:47 PMby Peter Best1,Sadly, the problem seems to have recurred after a safe startup. Did the etrecheck report suggest anything useful? I'm wondering now whether it might have something to do with the trackpad. It's as if stuff is selected when the cursor passes it and screen pages can be locked to the cursor and move wherever it moves. I don't know what to make of the fact that this happened precisely at the moment I installed Sierra. That would suggest that the behaviour of the cursor might be related to software. Could the addition of pressure sensitivity be causing this? Any thoughts?
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Oct 21, 2016 11:19 PMby Cunnla,Try reinstalling from Internet Recovery: About macOS Recovery - Apple Support
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Oct 22, 2016 5:07 AMby John Galt,... I have nothing on this computer that isn't totally whitebread standard issue stuff. No weird apps, just MAIL and PHOTOS and FIREFOX and the like.
[not loaded] com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.plugin.AntiTheft.daemon.plist (2016-08-07) [Support]
[not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2.Agent.plist (2015-02-07) [Support]
Excerpted from Effective defenses against malware and other threats:
- Never install any product that claims to "clean up", "speed up", "optimize", "boost" or "accelerate" your Mac; to "wash" it, "tune" it, or to make it "shiny". Those claims are absurd.
- Such products are very aggressively marketed. They are all scams.
- They generally operate on the flawed premise that a Mac accumulates "junk" that needs to be routinely "cleaned out" for optimum performance.
- Trial versions of those programs are successful because they provide the instant gratification of greater free disk space.
- That increased space is the result of irreversible destruction of files, programs, or operating system components normally protected from inadvertent alteration or deletion. The eventual result will be unreliable operation, poor performance and random crashes that may not become evident for months or even years after their use, when updates to programs or OS X are eventually released.
- Memory "cleaners" that circumvent OS X's memory management algorithms work by purging inactive memory contents to mass storage, which can only result in degraded performance and accelerated hardware failure.
Any Mac that has ever been affected by "cleaning" garbage must be completely erased.
The above programs are no longer active, but they were not uninstalled correctly. The requirement to completely erase a system and reconfigure it is the eventual result of using them. You can try installing them again, for the sole purpose of uninstalling them correctly. While that will eradicate their "inactive" components, it will not reverse the effects of actually having used them – and only you can know what you did with them.
Could the addition of pressure sensitivity be causing this?
Your model Mac does not incorporate a Force Touch trackpad.
- Never install any product that claims to "clean up", "speed up", "optimize", "boost" or "accelerate" your Mac; to "wash" it, "tune" it, or to make it "shiny". Those claims are absurd.
