spinning beach ball on wake up

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Level 1

14 points

spinning beach ball on wake up

I recently upgraded to High Sierra on my 2016 MBP. Since then, almost every time after a long sleep, like overnight, I get the spinning beach ball and it does not recover. Force quitting applications does not help and often doesn't work because any action on the computer is super slow. Only solution is to force shut down and restart. This morning, the computer wouldn't wake up and forced me to reinstall High Sierra. Anyone else having these issues?

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Jul 16, 2018 12:41 PM

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Answer 1

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Jul 17, 2018 5:01 PM in response to bethgrim

Hello bethgrim,

Thanks for reaching back out. I apologize if I wasn't clear in the previous reply. You will need to check each setting provided below. Disable them, then try to wake the Mac and see if any are causing the Mac to hang or not fully wake up. For example, check if Enhanced Notifications are enabled, and if they are, try turning them off. Sleep and wake the Mac. As an alternative, you can go through each setting, Network Activity, Enhanced Notifications, and Bluetooth, disable everything, and then let the Mac sleep. Try waking it up, and see if the issue remains. Please go through each setting listed here:

If your Mac wakes unexpectedly

Your Mac might wake for these activities:

Network activity that uses the Wake on Demand feature. Examples of network activity include iTunes sharing, photo sharing, printer sharing, file sharing, and using Back to My Mac.

Enhanced notifications from FaceTime, Messages, and other apps and services.

Bluetooth activity. To prevent Bluetooth devices from waking your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Bluetooth. Click the Advanced Button, then deselect "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer."

If you have a MacBook Pro (2016 or later) or MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, 2017), note that these models are designed to start up when you open their lids or connect them to power.

If your Mac doesn't wake when you expect

Your Mac might pause a few seconds before it wakes up. If it doesn't seem to wake at all, check for these possibilities:

Your screen brightness might be turned down.

If you're using an external display, your display might be turned off.

Your Mac might be in safe sleep. To wake from safe sleep, press the power button.

Check for a sleep indicator light, if applicable, and make sure that your Mac isn't turned off.

If you still have issues after checking those settings and disabling them and testing if they are the cause of your "beach ball" issue, please try these next troubleshooting steps here:

If the previous steps don't work

These additional steps may help identify or resolve the issue:

Reset the SMC.

Reset NVRAM.

Disconnect external devices other than your Apple keyboard, mouse, and display. If that resolves the issue, gradually reconnect your devices, testing each time, until you find the device that is interfering with sleep. Then check the documentation that came with the device, or contact the device manufacturer.

Start up in Safe Mode to see if the issue is related to non-Apple startup items, login items, or kernel extensions.

Try to isolate the issue by using another user account.

If you still see the issue, contact Apple Support.

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

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Answer 2

rose_10

Community Specialist

Jul 17, 2018 3:30 PM in response to bethgrim

Hello bethgrim,

Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities for help with your MacBook Pro not waking up properly. I recommend trying the troubleshooting provided in the following help article:

If your Mac doesn't sleep or wake when expected

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

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Answer 3

Jul 17, 2018 3:53 PM in response to rose_10

Same thing happened to me on Sunday, and a hard boot got me to a prompt asking me for the HDD password (which I don’t encrypt!).

I did noticed the Volume‘s partition had changed from macOS Extended (Journaled) to CoreStorage Logical Volume.

My only choice was to restore from Time Machine.

Today, I just got back from work and I find my iMac asleep. When I tried to wake it up, it just showed a spinning beach ball. After waiting for several minutes, I powered it off and then back on. The booting process has taken a very long time.

This problem started after I installed the latest macOS 12 update.

This is getting annoying!

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Answer 4

Jul 19, 2018 10:35 AM in response to bethgrim

I have a 2016 model Macbook Pro (with Touch Bar), running High Sierra (10.13.3), and I have this problem too on wake up. Sometimes it's just a black screen with a spinning beach ball for 10 minutes before the login screen appears. The keyboard illuminates, the Touch Bar activates with various virtual buttons, but the screen and the main interface are locked up.

Then when I type in my password, it is still moving so slowly that I can see the ••••• dots appear one by one, seconds apart. Sometimes it takes so long to process the login that the screen goes to sleep again, and I have to retype the password again.

I just purchased this Macbook, direct from Apple, last November. This is garbage behavior from what should be a top-flight, smooth-running machine.

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Answer 5

bethgrim Author

Level 1

14 points

Jul 19, 2018 11:51 AM in response to MoonJ.

Nothing in the "doesn't wake up" list is applicable, but I might be making progress from the first list. I turned off file sharing, printer sharing, bluetooth waking up computer and detached both external drives. First day after, beach ball that eventually recovered, second day no beach ball. I can only test one thing per day, because the beach ball is only there after an overnight sleep. I think I'll try adding one thing back in to see if I can isolate the problem.

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Answer 6

Jul 19, 2018 12:07 PM in response to bethgrim

Good approach, and for the record, the beach ball only happened with "overnight sleep" for me too.

Also for the record: I already had Bluetooth turned off, and all Sharing in System Prefs turned off, and no drives or any other peripherals attached. Even in that state, I was still getting 10 minutes of beach ball before seeing the login screen.

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Answer 7

bethgrim Author

Level 1

14 points

Jul 19, 2018 12:20 PM in response to Dr. Marble

I'm already on 10.13.6, but hopefully it works better for you. I'm wondering if it's a drive. I had already been disconnecting my Time Machine back up drive because it wakes itself up and I can hear it spinning when I'm falling asleep. The last 2 nights I've also been disconnecting a second drive where I store photos for work. We'll see.

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Answer 8

bethgrim Author

Level 1

14 points

Jul 30, 2018 10:03 AM in response to bethgrim

I have no idea if my issue is actually resolved. I suspect File Sharing is the cause. I got some no-beach-ball wake ups and then it returned. I turned off File Sharing, woke up to a beach ball and File Sharing had turned itself back on. This happened 3 times. Over the weekend, it was turned off and stayed off... no beach ball.

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Answer 9

Jul 30, 2018 11:33 AM in response to bethgrim

The problem with my iMac was caused by it’s hard drive going bad.

Interestingly, S.M.A.R.T. didn’t detect the problem earlier, as in 4 days earlier when I had the same issue and I had to restore from Time Machine.

This time after several attempts to check with Disk Utility, it finally reported it as failed.

So I replaced it with a spare drive I had laying around, and haven’t had an issue since then.

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Answer 10

bethgrim Author

Level 1

14 points

Jul 17, 2018 3:52 PM in response to rose_10

Nothing in the article covered what to do if you wake your computer up to a spinning beach ball.

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Answer 11

Jul 19, 2018 12:04 PM in response to Dr. Marble

I have just now updated the OS to 10.13.6, so I will see if that changes anything.

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spinning beach ball on wake up

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