My MacBook is often running very slowly and also often displaying the "beachball"

Thank you very much for your advice and suggestions, I have implemented both of those and rebooted and will now take note of it's performance. I had no idea what to do and really appreciate your prompt response, I'll now pay for EtreCheck as it certainly assisted in getting resolution.

Thanks again,

Ian

Thanks again Macjack and Eric Root. Whilst straight after removing CMM from Launch Agents and editing etc hosts to the default version I thought the beachball and slow plow performance was rectified, but alas, that wasn't the case. I've been using it each day since (or trying to) and have had both the spinning/still beachball and totally unresponsive performance for several minutes at a time each day, I'v been particularly using Mail and Safari and Mail seems to be the worst, either sending a new message or replying to a message it usually "hangs".

Are you able to suggest other steps I can take, I have now subscribed to EtreCheck so can run as many of those reports as required.

Ian

Thanks again Macjack.

I hadn't previously booted into Recovery and run Disk First Aid but I did so and it didn't appear to find anything untoward or if it did it fixed it.

Then I ran another EtreCheck Report (results below) and it took quite a lot longer than the previous reports I ran over the last 7 days.

I see also that it says that the/etc/hosts/ file is corrupt although I did edit it a week ago so it reads as the default version.

Thanks also for your suggestion of increasing the amount of RAM it has, whilst it does have the max. Apple say it will support (4Mb) other vendors do suggest it can have up to 16Mb; I would upgrade to 16Mb if I can get the MacBook to operate reliably as it is virtually unusable at the moment. It was OK with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion El Capitan and Sierra and only seems to have been playing up since I installed High Sierra about 8 weeks ago, but that might be a coincidence I realise.

Look forward to your comments on this and the EtreCheck Report below.

Ian

EtreCheck version: 4.2.1 (4C020)

Report generated: 2018-05-06 23:56:21

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 12:48

Performance: Poor

Problem: Beachballing

Description:

A week ago I posted an issue with my MacBook, going very slow with long stoppages whilst showing a spinning or still “beachball”. The Community gave me 2 things to correct and I did them but it is still exhibiting about the same level of problem. They then suggested I boot into Recovery and check the disk which I have just done then run another EtreCheck report.

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

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.

Upgradeable RAM- This machine has upgradeable RAM that would help its performance.

Heavy RAM usage- This machine is using a large amount of RAM.

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

Corrupt hosts file- Hosts file is corrupt.

Vintage hardware- This machine may be considered vintage.

Hardware Information:

MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010) - Vintage!

MacBook Model: MacBook7,1

1 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Duo) CPU: 2-core

4 GB RAMAt maximum

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 2 GB DDR3 1067 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 2 GB DDR3 1067 ok

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 357

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce 320M - VRAM: 256 MB

Color LCD 1280 x 800

Drives:

disk0 - WDC WD7500BPKX-00HPJT0 750.16 GB (Mechanical)

Internal SATA 3 Gigabit Serial ATA

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

disk0s2 - M**********D (Journaled HFS+) 749.30 GB

disk0s3 - Recovery HD () [Recovery] 650 MB

Mounted Volumes:

disk0s2 - M**********D 749.30 GB (509.51 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /

Network:

Interface en0: Ethernet

Interface en5: iPad

Interface en4: iPhone 2

Interface en1: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

One IPv4 address

Interface en3: iPhone

Interface en2: Bluetooth PAN

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 (17E202)

Time since boot: Less than an hour

System Load: 6.12 (1 min ago) 22.76 (5 min ago) 20.35 (15 min ago)

Configuration Files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 0 - Corrupt!

Security:

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.amazon.sendtokindle.launcher.plist

Executable: /usr/bin/stkLaunchAgent.sh

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.brother.LOGINserver.plist

Executable: /Library/Printers/Brother/Utilities/Server/LOGINserver.app/Contents/MacOS/LOGIN server

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CS5ServiceManager/CS5ServiceManager.app/Contents/MacOS/CS5Service Manager -launchedbylogin

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE/PDApp/UWA/UpdaterStartupUtility

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE/PDApp/UWA/UpdaterStartupUtility

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/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

Kernel Extensions:

/Library/Extensions

[Loaded] Soundflower.kext (MATT INGALLS, 2.0b2 - SDK 10.10)

System Launch Agents:

System Launch Daemons:

Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

User Launch Agents:

User Login Items:

Wondershare TunesGo Helper Application (?

(~/Library/Application Support/Wondershare TunesGo/Wondershare TunesGo Helper.app)

WD App Manager Application (?

(/Applications/WD App Manager/WD App Manager.app)

com.adobe.SwitchBoard.monitor.plist MachInit (?

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

Internet Plug-ins:

JavaAppletPlugin: 15.0.1 (installed 2013-06-06)

FlashPlayer-10.6: 29.0.0.140 (installed 2018-04-10)

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2018-04-16)

Flash Player: 29.0.0.140 (installed 2018-04-10)

obePDFViewer: 10.1.7 (installed 2013-06-14)

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.3.4 (installed 2013-05-24)

iPhotoPhotocast: 7.0 (installed 2013-05-24)

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player (installed 2018-03-27)

Time Machine:

Skip System Files: No

Mobile backups: No

Auto backup: Yes

Volumes being backed up:

M**********D: Disk size: 749.30 GB - Disk used: 239.78 GB

Destinations:

P****c [Network] (Last used)

Total size: 3.89 TB

Total number of backups: 0

Oldest backup:

Last backup:

M****************e [Network]

Total size: 3.89 TB

Total number of backups: 44

Oldest backup: 2017-07-12 14:43:21

Last backup: 2018-05-04 21:08:05

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):

2018-05-06 23:34:14 Last Shutdown Cause: 3 - Hard shutdown (once)

2018-05-04 21:32:27 EasyWeather.app CPU (5 times)

2018-05-03 13:53:34 iPhoto.app Crash (2 times)

End of report

Hello again Macjack and Racerhomie,

I hadn't thought of a failing hard drive because none of the diagnostics I used indicated that and it's only about 12 months old with a 5y warranty. I decided rather than reformat the HDD and use the CCC clone I had on an external HDD to copy back to the internal drive, that I would purchase a SSD and use the CCC clone to copy it back to the new SSD, as racerhomie suggested. I bought a new Crucial SSD and after some problems in initialising it I was able to copy the contents of the original internal HDD to the SSD satisfactorily. The result is an amazing increase in performance, despite only using it for a few hours today (the re-install took several hours over last night) I haven't seen any instances of "beachballing" or slow performance. An Etrecheck scan showed it is performing well with the original problems no longer showing.

So thank you again very much for your advice and prompt responses to my questions, my MacBook has gone from being virtually useless and unsaleable to a very responsive and fast machine. I think the investment in an SSD was very worthwhile in view of the increased performance.

Thanks again, you were instrumental in rectifying a fairly difficult (to me) problem.

Regards,

Ian

Thanks Macjack, will do and I'll let yoyo know.

Thanks again,

Ian