High Sierra update slowdown

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Level 1

26 points

High Sierra update slowdown

I have a mid 2011 iMac which started with Mountain Lion, has been upgraded every time a new "improved" system has rolled out and has just been updated to High Sierra. The reason I have done this is simply that it will be the last update this machine will accept and hopefully will be supported for a few years yet by Apple.

Booting up now takes 10 to 15 mins. Why? This is a 64 bit machine and shouldn't take this long. I have also noticed that most of the (64 bit) compatible software - Apple and others - takes longer to load. Is there a solution to this please?

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Oct 13, 2018 6:57 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

DavJam Author

Level 1

26 points

Oct 21, 2018 8:02 AM in response to VikingOSX

This issue has now been resolved as far as I can tell.

The situation got steadily worse with the iMac not responding at all for anything up to an hour (when I got tired of waiting and rebooted). When I shut down I noticed that the screen went black with a rotation beachball and the external HD I use for time machine continued to run for a long time. On rebooting the Time Machine settings dialog indocated that the backup had not been done since I updated to High Sierra. The reason was not obvious but I re-selected the HD as the Time Machine's drive and immediately it started backing up. Since this event everything has run normally.

My advice to anyone doing the update to HS - check your Time Machine settings - this update messes Time Machine settings. I consider this a bug. I could have lost a huge amount of data during those four or five days!

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

122,567 points

Oct 13, 2018 7:24 AM in response to DavJam

You could run Disk Utility > First Aid, or How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac - Apple Support

It is possible the drive could pass both tests in which case you would have to have it diagnosed at an Apple Store or AASP.

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Answer 3

Oct 14, 2018 1:58 PM in response to DavJam

I would suggest that you download EtreCheck, run it, copy to the clipboard, and then in an editor session here, paste the results. Aside from not showing any of your privacy related information, it will tell us what “stuff” your Mac has accumulated across all of those upgrades, and will reveal out of date, and other installation items that may be contributing to the bog factor. This application will also discover malware and offer to remove it.

The other tool that we recommend is the free Malwarebytes, which is a purpose-built Mac anti-malware tool. That is all it does, and is not an anti-virus tool — which you should not be running on your Mac. Malwarebytes will offer to remove any malware that it discovers. I use it, and would recommend running it before EtreCheck.

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Answer 4

DavJam Author

Level 1

26 points

Oct 14, 2018 1:51 PM in response to dialabrain

Ok, thanks.

i do find it rather a coincidence that faults like this (if it is the HD) appear immediately after major upgrades of the OS. I think similar events like this have taken place after every OS update this machine has had since the start (Mountain Lion). In the past the problem has usually faded away with further incremental releases.

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Answer 5

Oct 21, 2018 10:25 AM in response to DavJam

A Time Machine drive that was not ejected properly may have damage to it that requires First Aid to repair. As long as this is not done, the drive may mount, but Time Machine backups will not succeed.

I have observed that a Shutdown is delayed until a currently running Time Machine backup has finished. Until then, you will observe a black screen with spinning gizmo.

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Answer 6

DavJam Author

Level 1

26 points

Oct 21, 2018 10:46 AM in response to VikingOSX

This HD is never ejected, so i Can’t see how this is possible. Unless - shutting down the iMac improperly by hitting the power button...? This occasionally happens when the iMac becomes unresponsive for some time. This used to cause big issues on my old Windows based machine and I see no reason why this should be different on a mac!

the backup is now working properly, so maybe it doesn’t need First Aid. Does this action delete files if they are damaged?

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