iMac Late 2012 Running very slow

Ok.... after erasing the hard drive I reinstalled High Sierra as described here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204904

Using Migration Assistant to restore from Time Machine backup (the MacOS Utilities window didn't show) my iMac seems pretty much as before - apps slow to open, spinning wheel of doom all the time and things crashing (Adobe InDesign, though I have read that 5.5 is no longer supported with High Sierra so it might be a separate issue).

I downloaded Microsoft Office 2016 and reinstalled, it takes at least 5 minutes for Word to open, if it doesn't crash.

I downloaded and reinstalled Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, both of which take about the same time as before to open, let's say it's pretty slow. Safari is also slow.

So... is my mistake that I restored my files and data from Time Machine, therefore putting everything back as it was before I erased the drive? If so, what should I do if I try again?

Thanks!

Me again .. I've uninstalled those three applications, emptied trash and restarted, but I'm still having problems. Adobe apps are crashing and everything else is still very slow to open. Any other suggestions would be great. What do you think about reinstalling the operating system? I've backed ups all my files to external drives and Time Machine.

Thanks again.

Thanks for your quick response, I had a horrible feeling at the time this wasn't the way to do it, though from all the articles I read this was what the advice was! Anyway, here's the EtreCheck report:

EtreCheck version: 4.1 (4A162)

Report generated: 2018-03-03 15:33:14

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 15:45

Performance: Poor

Problem: Computer is too slow

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

Stuck iCloud - This machine has a large number of pending iCloud transfers.

Poor performance - EtreCheck report took over 10 minutes to run. This is very unusual.

Minor Issues:

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

Kernel extensions blocked - There are blocked kernel extensions awaiting user approval.

Clean up - There are orphan files that could be removed.

Unsigned files - There is unsigned software installed. It appears to be legitimate but should be reviewed.

System modifications - There are a large number of system modifications running in the background.

Hardware Information:

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)

iMac Model: iMac13,1

1 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-3330S) CPU: 4-core

8 RAM At maximum

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 ok

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M - VRAM: 512 MB

iMac 1920 x 1080

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 1.00 TB (Mechanical)

Internal SATA 3 Gigabit Serial ATA

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

disk0s2 - N**********e (Journaled HFS+) 999.35 GB

disk0s3 - Recovery HD (Journaled HFS+) [Recovery] 650 MB

disk1 - Western Digital My Book 111A 1.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk1s1 32 KB

disk1s3 - A***o (Journaled HFS+) 1.00 TB

disk2 - Western Digital Ext HDD 1021 2.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk2s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk2s2 - I****s (Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+) 2.00 TB

disk3 - JMicron USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge 1.50 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk3s1 - M***************e (Journaled HFS+) 1.50 TB

disk4 - Western Digital My Book 1230 4.00 TB

External USB 5 Gbit/s

disk4s1 - T*********e (Journaled HFS+) 4.00 TB

Mounted Volumes:

disk0s2 - N**********e 999.35 GB (743.25 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /

disk1s3 - A***o 1.00 TB (614.01 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/A***o

disk2s2 - I****s 2.00 TB (325.46 GB free)

Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/I****s

disk3s1 - M***************e 1.50 TB (959.63 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/M***************e

disk4s1 - T*********e 4.00 TB (615.83 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/T*********e

Network:

Interface en5: iPhone

Interface en1: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

One IPv4 address

One IPv6 address

Interface en6: iPad

iCloud Quota: 67.99 GB available

iCloud Status: 23371 pending files

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 (17D102)

Time since boot: About 4 hours

System Load: 2.03 (1 min ago) 2.00 (5 min ago) 2.04 (15 min ago)

Security:

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.divx.uninstall.player.plist

Executable: /bin/bash -c if [[ ! -e "/Applications/DivX Player.app" ]] ; then open "/Library/Application Support/DivX/Uninstall DivX for Mac.app"; fi

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.divx.uninstall.preferences.plist

Executable: /bin/bash -c if [[ ! -e "/Applications/DivX/DivX Preferences.app" ]] ; then open "/Library/Application Support/DivX/Uninstall DivX for Mac.app"; fi

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

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

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/cn.com.zte.PPPMonitor.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/ZTE/PPPMonitord

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.divx.dms.agent.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/DivX/DivXMediaServer.app/Contents/MacOS/DivXMediaServer

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/SwitchBoard/SwitchBoard.app/Contents/MacOS/launch.switchboard

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.divx.uninstall.converter.plist

Executable: /bin/bash -c if [[ ! -e "/Applications/DivX Converter.app" ]] ; then open "/Library/Application Support/DivX/Uninstall DivX for Mac.app"; fi

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Kernel Extensions:

/Library/Application Support/Roxio

[Not Loaded] TDIXController.kext (1.6)

/Library/Extensions

[Blocked] SystemAudioRecorder.kext (Wondershare Software Co., Ltd, 1.1.0 - SDK 10.9)

/System/Library/Extensions

[Not Loaded] AmbrosiaAudioSupport.kext (4.1.2 - SDK 10.7)

[Not Loaded] Soundflower.kext (1.5.3 - SDK 10.6)

[Not Loaded] ZTEUSBCDCACMData.kext (ZTEDriver_MacV1.3.1)

[Not Loaded] ZTEUSBMassStorageFilter.kext (ZTEDriver_MacV1.3.1)

[Not Loaded] Kodak_PrinterDock_Merge.kext (1.0.0)

[Not Loaded] MicrosoftMouse.kext (6.1)

[Not Loaded] Pen Tablet.kext (Pen Tablet 5.3.0-3 - SDK 10.8)

[Not Loaded] Wacom Tablet.kext (Wacom Tablet 6.0.5-2)

Startup Items:

AdobeVersionCueCS2 Path: /Library/StartupItems/AdobeVersionCueCS2

HWNetMgr Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr

HWPortDetect Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect

System Launch Agents:

System Launch Daemons:

Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

User Launch Agents:

User Login Items:

iSkysoft Helper Compact Application

(~/Library/Application Support/Helper/iSkysoft Helper Compact.app)

iTunesHelper Application (Apple, Inc. - installed 2018-03-03)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

com.adobe.SwitchBoard.monitor.plist MachInit

(/etc/mach_init_per_user.d/com.adobe.SwitchBoard.monitor.plist)

Internet Plug-ins:

Unity Web Player: UnityPlayer version 2.5.6f5 (installed 2013-07-29)

OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin: 12.2.7 (installed 2013-07-29)

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: 2.3.4.1 (installed 2013-07-29)

Musicnotes: 1.16.13 (installed 2013-07-29)

RealPlayer Plugin: Unknown

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (installed 2018-03-03)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 17.012.20098 (installed 2018-02-24)

DivX Web Player: 3.8.6.14 (installed 2018-01-18)

FlashPlayer-10.6: 28.0.0.161 (installed 2018-02-06)

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2018-01-19)

Flash Player: 28.0.0.161 (installed 2018-02-06)

iPhotoPhotocast: 7.0 (installed 2013-07-29)

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.7.7 (installed 2018-02-12)

AdobePDFViewer: 18.011.20038 (installed 2018-02-24)

CANONiMAGEGATEWAYDL: 2.0.0.7 (installed 2013-07-29)

Silverlight: 5.1.30514.0 (installed 2014-07-24)

CANONiMAGEGATEWAYLI: 2.0.0.3 (installed 2013-07-29)

Scorch: 6.2.0 (installed 2013-07-28)

JavaAppletPlugin: 15.0.1 (installed 2013-10-25)

Safari Extensions:

Time Machine:

Skip System Files: No

Mobile backups: No

Auto backup: Yes

Volumes being backed up:

N**********e: Disk size: 999.35 GB - Disk used: 256.09 GB

Destinations:

T*********e [Local] (Last used)

Total size: 4.00 TB

Total number of backups: 174

Oldest backup: 2015-03-26 01:33:10

Last backup: 2018-03-02 16:48:58

Top Processes by CPU:

Top Processes by Memory:

Top Processes by Network Use:

Top Processes by Energy Use:

Virtual Memory Information:

Software Installs (past 30 days):

Clean up:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.ARM.df0ab5bbe6f698196fcc21e3c1e66dcb758bd911f4d 637272d9d8109.plist

/Applications/Adobe Acrobat X Pro/Adobe Acrobat Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Updater/Adobe Acrobat Updater Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Acrobat Updater Helper

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist

/Library/Application Support/Tablet/WacomTabletDriver.app/Contents/MacOS/WacomTabletDriver

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.wacom.pentablet.plist

/Library/Application Support/Tablet/PenTabletSpringboard

Executable not found

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-03-03 15:16:59 EtreCheck.app Crash

2018-03-03 14:39:09 Safari.app Hang

2018-03-03 14:20:33 Microsoft Word.app Hang

2018-03-03 13:55:20 mdworker Crash

2018-03-03 13:34:07 Adobe InDesign CS5.5.app Crash

2018-03-03 10:23:18 Last Shutdown Cause: 3 - Hard shutdown

2018-03-03 09:32:44 WacomTabletDriver.app Crash

2018-03-03 09:26:00 PenTabletDriver.app Crash

2018-03-03 09:25:42 accountsd Crash

End of report

Thank you! So you suggest I set it up as a new machine, then add software one at a time. All my files are also on external hard drives as well as Time Machine so I can manually move them over. Best I get on with it (been snowed in for three days which is why I decided to tackle it, don't usually have the opportunity!)

Things are definitely running better but Lightroom took a minute to open, thankfully Word & Excel take between 10 & 20 seconds so much improved. I can see from the report that it's still not great though, any further suggestions would be welcome! I looked at increasing the RAM but I did a system check via Crucial and it says there's no upgrade available.

Thanks again!

EtreCheck version: 4.1 (4A162)

Report generated: 2018-03-04 11:11:42

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 9:51

Performance: Below Average

Problem: No problem - just checking

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

Stuck iCloud - This machine has a large number of pending iCloud transfers.

Minor Issues:

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

-

Small backup drive - Time Machine backup drive is too small.

Low performance - EtreCheck report took over 5 minutes to run. This is unusual.

Hardware Information:

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)

iMac Model: iMac13,1

1 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-3330S) CPU: 4-core

8 RAM At maximum

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 ok

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M - VRAM: 512 MB

iMac 1920 x 1080

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 1.00 TB (Mechanical)

Internal SATA 3 Gigabit Serial ATA

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

disk0s2 - N**********e (Journaled HFS+) 999.35 GB

disk0s3 - Recovery HD [Recovery] 650 MB

disk1 - Western Digital My Book 111A 1.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk1s1 32 KB

disk1s3 - A***o (Journaled HFS+) 1.00 TB

disk2 - Western Digital Ext HDD 1021 2.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk2s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk2s2 - I****s (Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+) 2.00 TB

disk3 - JMicron USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge 1.50 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk3s1 - M***************e (Journaled HFS+) 1.50 TB

disk4 - Western Digital My Book 1230 4.00 TB

External USB 5 Gbit/s

disk4s1 - T*********e (Journaled HFS+) 4.00 TB

Mounted Volumes:

disk0s2 - N**********e 999.35 GB (857.27 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /

disk1s3 - A***o 1.00 TB (614.01 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/A***o

disk2s2 - I****s 2.00 TB (324.98 GB free)

Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/I****s

disk3s1 - M***************e 1.50 TB (959.63 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/M***************e

disk4s1 - T*********e 4.00 TB (607.52 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /Volumes/T*********e

Network:

Interface en0: Ethernet

Interface en1: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

One IPv4 address

4 IPv6 addresses

Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

iCloud Quota: 66.90 GB available

iCloud Status: 1815 pending files

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 (17D102)

Time since boot: Less than an hour

System Load: 1.56 (1 min ago) 1.84 (5 min ago) 1.75 (15 min ago)

Security:

System Launch Agents:

System Launch Daemons:

Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

User Launch Agents:

User Login Items:

iTunesHelper Application (Apple, Inc. - installed 2018-03-04)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (installed 2018-03-03)

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2018-01-19)

Time Machine:

Skip System Files:

Mobile backups:

Auto backup: No

Volumes being backed up:

N**********e: Disk size: 999.35 GB - Disk used: 142.07 GB

Destinations:

T*********e [Local] (Last used)

Total size: 0 B

Total number of backups: 174

Oldest backup: 2015-03-26 01:33:10

Last backup: 2018-03-02 16:48:58

Top Processes by CPU:

Top Processes by Memory:

Top Processes by Network Use:

Top Processes by Energy Use:

Virtual Memory Information:

Software Installs (past 30 days):

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-03-04 10:18:32 Last Shutdown Cause: 3 - Hard shutdown

2018-03-04 10:09:31 Microsoft Word.app Hang

2018-03-04 06:58:35 bird Crash

2018-03-04 02:13:13 AAM Updates Notifier.app Crash

2018-03-03 21:02:30 Finder.app Hang

End of report

Fantastic thanks! I've fallen prey to alarmist posts re viruses etc! I'lll get on to removing them now ...