iMac Unusably slow after High Sierra Upgrade

Hi everyone, I hope no one minds if I jump on this. I'm having the same problems on a 2013 retina macbook pro. Not quite to the same extent as the original poster, but it's a real drag. Everything lags. Immediately after installing HS it started to operate at about 60% speed and has never gone back. Here is the etrecheck report. There doesn't seem to be anything serious. But I don't know.

EtreCheck version: 4.2.1 (4C020)

Report generated: 2018-05-03 14:29:44

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 2:49

Performance: Excellent

Problem: Computer is too slow

Description:

slow since upgrading to high Sierra

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.

Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.

High battery cycle count - Your battery may be losing capacity.

Unsigned files - There is unsigned software installed. They appear to be legitimate but should be reviewed.

32-bit Apps - This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)

MacBook Pro Model: MacBookPro10,1

1 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-3635QM) CPU: 4-core

16 GB RAM Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR3 1600 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR3 1600 ok

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 806

Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1536 MB

Color LCD

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - VRAM: 1024 MB

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE SSD SD256E 251.00 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

Internal SATA 6 Gigabit Serial ATA

disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk0s2 () 250.79 GB

disk1s1 - Macintosh HD (APFS) 250.79 GB (132.73 GB used)

disk1s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] 250.79 GB (41 MB used)

disk1s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] 250.79 GB (1.02 GB used)

disk1s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] 250.79 GB (1.07 GB used)

Mounted Volumes:

disk1s1 - Macintosh HD 250.79 GB (115.78 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /

Encrypted

disk1s4 - VM [APFS VM] 250.79 GB (115.78 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /private/var/vm

Network:

Interface en4: iPhone

Interface en0: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

One IPv4 address

Interface en3: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 (17E202)

Time since boot: Less than an hour

System Load: 1.81 (1 min ago) 2.04 (5 min ago) 1.06 (15 min ago)

Security:

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

32-bit Applications:

44 32-bit apps

Kernel Extensions:

/Applications/Parallels Desktop.app

[Not Loaded] prl_hypervisor.kext (Parallels International GmbH, 13.3.0 43321 - SDK 10.9)

[Not Loaded] prl_netbridge.kext (Parallels International GmbH, 13.3.0 43321 - SDK 10.9)

[Not Loaded] prl_usb_connect.kext (Parallels International GmbH, 13.3.0 43321 - SDK 10.9)

[Not Loaded] prl_vnic.kext (Parallels International GmbH, 13.3.0 43321 - SDK 10.9)

System Launch Agents:

System Launch Daemons:

Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

User Launch Agents:

User Login Items:

Xperia Companion Agent Application (?

(/Applications/Xperia Companion.app/Contents/Frameworks/Xperia Companion Agent.app)

Getflix Application (Getflix Pty Ltd

(/Applications/Getflix.app)

AdobeResourceSynchronizer Application (Adobe Systems, Inc.

(/Applications/Adobe Acrobat DC/Adobe Acrobat.app/Contents/Helpers/AdobeResourceSynchronizer.app)

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 17.012.20098 (installed 2018-02-24)

AdobePDFViewer: 18.011.20038 (installed 2018-02-24)

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2018-04-18)

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (installed 2018-04-28)

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.1.0 (installed 2018-02-05)

Safari Extensions:

Time Machine:

Time Machine Not Configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

Top Processes by Memory:

Top Processes by Network Use:

Top Processes by Energy Use:

Virtual Memory Information:

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-05-02 22:18:26 Adobe Photoshop CC 2018.app Crash (3 times)

End of report

Yep, I have this problem too.

I just upgraded to High Sierra a couple of days ago.

I can't even backup my computer to get to stage 1. of the solutions.....it's been preparing to backup since 7am and it's now 10.30

Indeed, but both working perfectly until the update, which is my point really (probably poorly made, I'm so fed up at having to shell out cash on a new laptop and desktop, so close together!) Neither were main machines and so haven't been used a lot. I've had Macs last longer than 5 years (my G4s seemed to go on for years!)

Not factual, at all...I fully reformatted a 2010 21"iMac (Core i3, 4GB RAM) -so ZERO 3rd party utilities- updated the OS, and pretty much created a BRICK. Well over 20 minutes to boot, NO app loads in less than 10 minutes...etc, etc...essentially, it is a "spinning beachball extravaganza"! Flew too close to the sun, I guess, but perhaps Apple should have made it impossible to update such an old computer if they knew it would create issues?? Not like this would be difficult to do for any contemporary software engineer...

As an avid Apple user since the days of the Apple II, I am a a bit shaken...Steve Jobs wouldn't stand for this.

Once I get the proper firewire-thunderbolt cables, I will be using Carbon Cloner to bring this thing back to the good old days of Yosemite...ya, that's old, but at least it still works!

In general there is no reason for an OS to slow down a computer. It is expected that all the computing power of the CPU is for the owner's needs. It means after the OS did all indexing and updating, the idle task must be idle and 100% of the computing power should be available. This is not the case with the OS update from Apple: the huge NUMBER OF PEOPLE CLAIMING THE COMPUTER IS MUCH SLOWER, IS EVIDENCE THAT APPLE HAS SLOWED DOWN THE COMPUTER INTENTIONALLY. I also tried all the measures described above and the computer is as slow as it can be. Specially it is infuriating that there is a time lag: after I type something, it takes a second to see the text on the screen. This is ridiculous. All the measures described above should have been fixed by Apple when the OS was updated, why should we do all these technical tricks?

Thank you for your kind advice! However, there is still the following argument: you (and many others) claim that the old software is much more "unsafe" than the new one. However you have *much more risk* with the new software for the following reasons: I measured that after I click on an icon to open an application on MacBookPro with the High Sierra update, it takes about 1 second lag until the coloured umbrella starts rotating, the rotating takes about 3 seconds, then it takes one more second after the umbrella is off and the application starts. Totally it takes 5 seconds to start any application. The clock speed on MacBook Pro is 2.6 Gz. It means 5 seconds gives 1.3E10 clock cycles. Considering that a C instruction is in average 5 computer clocks, the OS executes in 5 second some C code of 2.6E9 instructions. Now this is a *huge program*! It can be a convolution neural network that learns everything about your life or whatever. Why is a "safe" OS executing 2600000000 lines of code without my permission?

I have no idea about some of the computerspeak information of which you state.

I am an over 20-year USER of Macs. Not a programmmer.

If online Internet security is of no worry to you on a 9-year old system with using a 9-year old email application with an either a 9-year old Safari Web browser that hasn’t seen any security updates in over 3-4 years OR a newer, third party web browser that has not seen a security update since last May, 2017, then there is nothing I can tell you to convince you that your decision to roll back to an unsecure Mac OS is an unwise one.

As I stated in an earlier post, no one in this post wants help.

All of you just want to whine, moan and complain and point fingers at Apple and do whatever.

Most everyone here does not want to take responsibility for not properly prepping their Macs accordingly before attempting to install either Sierra or High Sierra.

That is why long-time contributors, like myself, for the most part, have stopped offering their long-term experience and knowledge to users in this thread.

No one here wants to “hear” it.

I have pointed out an option to purchase and run a Mac OS that is, at least, better secure online then you are currently using.

Those with more experience than you can advise all they want in this posting, but if no one takes any of the advice their given...

Good Luck to You!

Dear Michael,

Sorry if I wrote something unpleasant to you! I am very grateful for all help I can get. I came on this site to find a solution to my problem and not to complain about Apple. But of course we all have high expectations on Apple.

My problem is that I have two other Mac computers (a MacBook Air and a recent 12" Macbook) which have the same OS (High Sierra), they have the same setups and the same applications as the MacBook Pro from 2014. These other two computers work well with Mac Sierra, only the MacBook Pro has the problem, although it has better specifications and it should run faster. As I wrote you, the lag on the keyboard is very annoying: when I type something it takes seconds until a character appears on screen. Sometimes is faster, sometimes much slower. The Activity Monitor does not show any task increasing its processor load when I start typing, so it appears the delay is due to some deep OS task switching problem and not to some running application. Even as I write this text, I have these delays. For an OS manufacturer, such behaviour should be unacceptable: the mouse and keyboard should have high task priority to have a responsive system. What I explained in my previous post is that a processor has time to execute billions of line of code during such a delay. Who has highest priority on my own computer me or Apple?

Thank you for your help!

Hi,

Just in case: Please (everybody) note that (almost) none of us here is Apple (corporate) programmer nor spokeperson. We are users like you. And (very) often annoyed like you by these "cosmetic" changes made by Apple on (undoubtedly, seen the price we have paid) OUR workspaces...

Regards to all.

You are right, this might be a point, I have 8GB RAM but this is soldered on MacBook Pro and I cannot add more. However I found that I use a "scaled mode" for the graphics and there is a warning there in "System preferences"/"Displays" that a non-default mode might affect performance. I changed to default. Now maybe the computer is faster. But it is still not as fast as before upgrading. I know this for sure since I measured performance with a benchmark program from Matlab and I have a rock solid proof that the change of the OS reduced the 2D, 3D and some computational performance by 18-19%. Before upgrade the Matlab performance was 38 points, after upgrade 32 points with the normal resolution and 30 points with the higher resolution (higher figure is better). So the change in resolution has small effect (1-2%). I will dig now into the Unix of my Mac to find out how is the OS using the 18% that is missing. Please let me know if you have some details about that since I would prefer to skip this research. Thank's. The lag when typing is still present, but it is perhaps less long.

Mine is also running extremely slow since this High Sierra upgrade, And it automatically did the update, what a joke.. I will be taking it in and see if the Mac experts can do something. I wish it had never upgraded 😟

Key words in your reply - "that actually understands computers." Most people don't and that's what Apple is relying on and always has. Having worked with computers since the '70 and run two software development companies (Windows and Mac) I do, and have no choice but to load the latest on one or more of my computers for testing. One of the good things about Microsoft is that in the past they have advised people about hardware compatibility BEFORE they load a new OS. But that doesn't generate (force) as many new hardware sales now does it. Just an observation.

Thanks for the reply & I agree.

That's why it's also hard to just look at the masses for "works fine for me" because in my field, we do care about the speed. A 5 second delay multiplied by hundreds of times a day can really throw you off vs. a casual user just browsing the internet. So for people that notice speed and can't have increased slowdowns in their workflow (for no reason other than OS) then it is a huge thing and they should be aware that it is very likely that High Sierra will slow you down and cause issues vs. regular Sierra. (Once again, at least on the 2013 & before Macs - I have heard newer Macs are completely fine.)

When I deselect the Desktop & Documents Folders, then click ok, I don't get the scary message. Instead it just lets me exit. When I look again, the Desktop & Documents Folders option has been reselected. Any suggestions?

I have also switched to Windows 10. All computers are synced, beautiful interface and snappy even on older machines. If I want to change a HD to an SSD, a few screws and done. Go to YTube and search Rossman.