Frequent and random beachball moments in Pages (nothing else)

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Level 1

8 points

Frequent and random beachball moments in Pages (nothing else)

Hi,

When I am in any doc, whether I have only one open or a few docs, I will get the beachball last for 10-20 seconds every few minutes or once or twice an hour. This will happen even when Pages is the only program open. Rebooting doesn't make a difference. I tried to pay extra attention to see what I'm doing in case there's something (like adding a table) that makes it happen, but there's nothing I have noticed beside simply using Pages. I can be typing, changing the font, inserting a page break, etc.

I can be running a game on one screen and Photoshop in another, while listening to a radio channel on Apple Music and I won't get the beachball. This has to a Pages-only issue for me.

Any advice, tips, help is appreciated.

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016), macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), eGPU with 4K monitor.

Posted on Aug 15, 2018 2:20 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 15, 2018 4:58 PM in response to Skeff22

You haven't told us what version of Pages.

Nor what your documents consist of.

Nor whether they are saved in the iCloud which means Pages has to reach across the Net for every Read/Save.

Try it with just a blank Word processing document open, nothing else. Still have the problem?

Chances are you have too many objects in your documents. Pages 5/6/7 all do a terrible job of juggling lots of objects in the one document because of auto-alignment and simply figuring out where everything should be positioned.

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Answer 2

Aug 17, 2018 3:35 PM in response to Skeff22

Obvious thing to test is save your document to your hard drive.

If the problem has gone away, there is your answer.

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,662 points

Aug 17, 2018 3:06 PM in response to Skeff22

The state of the network connection between your router/cable modem (i.e. you have no control over it), and the iCloud server can have a direct impact on Pages wait states (beach ball) for the network connection to resolve. This can also be caused by a network outage forcing traffic to take another (slower) route, an ongoing large download, or streaming audio or video on the same network segment (yours) while using Pages with that iCloud connection.

Word is bread and butter to MIcrosoft, while Apple piddles away at Pages, which it gives away for free. Pages will beach ball even if you are working on a local document.

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Answer 4

Skeff22 Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 17, 2018 2:52 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Hi,

Latest version: 7.1 (5683).

Document is text, with four 5x5 tables that have text in them. There are no images or anything else you cannot create from scratch within Pages.

The docs I create and use are in iCloud. I keep my Finder window up as the iCloud Drive item in the favorites bar will show a progress wheel anytime a save occurs. The beachball will show up when there is is progress wheel (nor any network traffic in Activity Monitor).

This doesn't happen on Word or any other Microsoft Office product. (I make an effort to keep my Office use to a minimum, so I don't want it sounding like I use both Pages and Word equally.)

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Frequent and random beachball moments in Pages (nothing else)

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