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What is the spinning rainbow ball and how do I stop it?

What is the spinning rainbow ball and how to I stop it?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), iOS 11.1

Posted on Nov 12, 2017 7:13 AM

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1 reply

Nov 12, 2017 7:30 AM in response to darladoA

Hi,


That means your Mac is "thinking," that it's waiting for something (that normally shouldn't take that long).


If the computer is performing unusually slowly, though it isn't experiencing abnormally high CPU utilization, try resetting the SMC: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295.


Try booting into Safe Mode: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262 and see if the issue persists there.


There may be an issue with your hard drive or the directory structure on it. Open Utilities > Disk Utility > select your HD on the left (the first item on the list) > make sure S.M.A.R.T. status says “Verified” (if it doesn’t it means there is a hardware issue with the HD, or an impending one) > click on the second item on the list (which should be Macintosh HD or the name you named your internal HD) > click on “First Aid” > (depending on your OS, you may have to click on Repair Disk or Verify Disk) > click on “Run” > allow it to finish running > click on “Show Details” > look at the last few lines and see if it says something like "Appears to be OK" and/or “Operation successful;” if it repaired anything, run it again, until you get two clean runs in a row. Click on “Done,” go to the Disk Utility menu and select “Quit Disk Utility.”


If it says “Cannot be repaired” or something like it any time during the run, run it a few more times to see if Disk Utility can repair it. If not, click on “Done,” go to the Disk Utility menu, select “Quit Disk Utility.”

What is the spinning rainbow ball and how do I stop it?

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