What happens after I reinstall Mac OSX

Question

Level 1

12 points

What happens after I reinstall Mac OSX

I've been having problems with my Mac since I bought it nearly 3 years ago. It takes so long to open up and I have problems sometimes waking it up after sleep (even if it's only been asleep for a couple of hours). I have a late 2013 Mac 21.5 inch.

It's been suggested by the help team that I reinstall Mac OSX and them drag and drop the files I want from my time machine back onto the Mac.

Does this mean that I have to, in essence, completely set up my Mac again from scratch, or will it remember my users, passwords, document viewing/sharing permissions etc etc? I need to know what I might be letting myself in for as I use the Mac every day for work and can't afford for it to be out of action for a day or so while I get it all back functioning again.

Please help - I'm scheduled to do all of this with a technician tomorrow morning...

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), late 2013

Posted on Oct 19, 2016 8:47 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,595 points

Oct 19, 2016 10:02 AM in response to janie_burmy

Hi, let's try a different angle first. 🙂

to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

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Answer 2

janie_burmy Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 19, 2016 10:04 AM in response to BDAqua

I haven't got a clue what you mean? What have I done wrong?

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,642 points

Oct 19, 2016 10:27 AM in response to janie_burmy

He means to click the EtreCheck link in his post and then download and run the report. Then copy and paste the complete report to your reply so we can look for any obvious problems with your iMac.

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Answer 4

janie_burmy Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 19, 2016 10:33 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks - I'd never heard of Etre Check before - but here goes...doesn't seem to show anything odd to me ut then I'm not an expert....

EtreCheck version: 3.0.6 (315)

Report generated 2016-10-19 18:31:26

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime 2:27

Performance: Excellent

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

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

Problem: Beachballing

Hardware Information:ⓘ

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)

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

iMac - model: iMac14,3

1 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 4-core

8 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

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

Video Information:ⓘ

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - VRAM: 1024 MB

iMac 1920 x 1080

System Software:ⓘ

OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G1004) - Time since boot: about one hour

Disk Information:ⓘ

APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 disk0 : (1 TB) (Rotational)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 999.35 GB (645.24 GB free)

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

USB Information:ⓘ

Western Digital My Passport 0830 2 TB

EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

My Passport (disk1s2) /Volumes/My Passport : 2.00 TB (1.07 TB free)

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. MacBook Air SuperDrive

Thunderbolt Information:ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper:ⓘ

Anywhere

Kernel Extensions:ⓘ

/Applications/Kies.app

[not loaded] com.devguru.driver.SamsungACMControl (1.4.18 - SDK 10.6 - 2014-03-26) [Support]

[not loaded] com.devguru.driver.SamsungACMData (1.4.18 - SDK 10.6 - 2014-03-26) [Support]

[not loaded] com.devguru.driver.SamsungComposite (1.4.18 - SDK 10.6 - 2014-03-26) [Support]

[not loaded] com.devguru.driver.SamsungMTP (1.4.18 - SDK 10.5 - 2014-03-26) [Support]

[not loaded] com.devguru.driver.SamsungSerial (1.4.18 - SDK 10.6 - 2014-03-26) [Support]

System Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] 7 Apple tasks

[loaded] 156 Apple tasks

[running] 76 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[not loaded] 45 Apple tasks

[loaded] 156 Apple tasks

[running] 90 Apple tasks

Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist (2016-10-18) [Support]

[loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist (2016-10-18) [Support]

User Launch Agents:ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist (2016-05-21) [Support]

User Login Items:ⓘ

Dropbox Application (/Applications/Dropbox.app)

Photo Stream URL SMLoginItem (/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PhotoStreamAgent.app)

Photo Stream URL SMLoginItem (/Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Simon and Jane’s iMac/2016-03-15-151518/Macintosh HD/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PhotoStreamAgent.app)

Internet Plug-ins:ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 21.0.0.242 - SDK 10.6 (2016-05-22) [Support]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (2016-07-09)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 15.017.20053 - SDK 10.11 (2016-09-14) [Support]

AdobePDFViewer: 15.017.20053 - SDK 10.11 (2016-09-14) [Support]

Flash Player: 21.0.0.242 - SDK 10.6 (2016-05-22) Outdated! Update

Default Browser: 601 - SDK 10.11 (2016-07-09)

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.6.9 - SDK 10.6 (2016-10-16) [Support]

Silverlight: 4.1.10329.0 (2014-06-07) [Support]

JavaAppletPlugin: Java 8 Update 73 build 02 (2016-03-13) Check version

Safari Extensions:ⓘ

AdBlock - BetaFish, Inc. - https://getadblock.com (2016-07-30)

Save to Pocket - Read It Later, Inc. - http://getpocket.com/ (2015-11-06)

avast! Online Security - AVAST Software - http://www.avast.com (2014-07-18)

iMedia Converter Deluxe - iSkysoft Studio - http://www.iskysoft.com (2013-10-14)

3rd Party Preference Panes:ⓘ

Flash Player (2016-05-09) [Support]

Java (2016-03-13) [Support]

Time Machine:ⓘ

Mobile backups: OFF

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 999.35 GB Disk used: 354.11 GB

Destinations:

My Passport [Local]

Total size: 2.00 TB

Total number of backups: 93

Oldest backup: 22/04/2015, 18:21

Last backup: 19/10/2016, 17:35

Size of backup disk: Adequate

Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk used 354.11 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU:ⓘ

27% mdworker(7)

4% WindowServer

2% kernel_task

1% fontd

0% cloudpaird

Top Processes by Memory:ⓘ

4.98 GB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent(51)

795 MB kernel_task

647 MB Safari

164 MB Dropbox

139 MB softwareupdated

Virtual Memory Information:ⓘ

58 MB Free RAM

7.94 GB Used RAM (1.04 GB Cached)

28 MB Swap Used

Diagnostics Information:ⓘ

Oct 19, 2016, 04:31:15 PM Self test - passed

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

250,595 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:04 AM in response to janie_burmy

When you restart Safari, how much time does it take Safari to eat up all your RAM?

You can view this in Activity Monitor.

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Answer 6

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,642 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:10 AM in response to janie_burmy

AT some point you had Avast antivirus installed, Mac OS does not need av or ANY other third party "maintenance" app installed. Your system would likely benefit by an erase and install of Mac OS and then manually installing your third party apps and restoring your data files.

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Answer 7

janie_burmy Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:25 AM in response to BDAqua

Baby steps please - how do I do this please? I've found the monitor, but what bit do you need to know from it please?

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Answer 8

janie_burmy Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:17 AM in response to rkaufmann87

So that's what is planned for tomorrow from my description do you think? Can't I just uninstall Avast (although I can't find it anywhere)? And if I do add in all my third party apps manually, how do I know which are third party ones if I can't remember? Is it all of the apps that don't automatically load with the Mac install?

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Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

250,595 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:31 AM in response to janie_burmy

First quit Safari.

Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on Real Memory by clicking on that tab.

Start Safari, how fast does it build up & how much does it use to start with?

Have you visited a lot of Flash sites in the past?

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Answer 10

janie_burmy Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:34 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks - I did as you said and my cpu went from around the 97 mark down to 32 within seconds of opening Safari (I had a few pages open) an then few more seconds back to 60 then recovered to 97 within about 2 minutes. Kernel task at 1.23gb taking up most of real memory but the Safari 647 mb. I haven't a clue what all this means.

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Answer 11

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,642 points

Oct 19, 2016 11:49 AM in response to janie_burmy

janie_burmy wrote:

So that's what is planned for tomorrow from my description do you think? Can't I just uninstall Avast (although I can't find it anywhere)? And if I do add in all my third party apps manually, how do I know which are third party ones if I can't remember? Is it all of the apps that don't automatically load with the Mac install?

Yes you can uninstall Avast.

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Answer 12

janie_burmy Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 19, 2016 12:23 PM in response to rkaufmann87

It looks like I already have uninstalled it as I can't find it. How did you know I had had Avast, or was it just an inspired guess? Was there something on Etrecheck that told you?

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