Spinning Beach Ball of Death... any way how to stop a process under 10.4.9?

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Level 1

14 points

Spinning Beach Ball of Death... any way how to stop a process under 10.4.9?

I remember the days when one could reliable and quickly interrupt any process that hung or took longer than expected by pressing “Command + .”. Since upgrading to MacOS 10.4.9 I experience mainly under Safari and other apps many instances where my Powerbook G4 simply hangs and processes a task for what seems to be an eternity. For no apparent reason. Pressing “Command + .” doesn’t do anything nor does “Command + Option + Escape” (how could it when the system is not responding) and usually I decide just to hold the on button down to force my Powerbook into action. Not healthy, I know, but we need to get in with our work. So, my question is: is there any other way to stop the spinning beach ball of death and interrupt a process?

Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Jun 12, 2007 3:41 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 12, 2007 3:49 PM in response to gryphonent

Oftentimes, only one application will be locked up with the SBBOD. If that's the case, you can open Activity Monitor (in the Applications>Utilities folder) and kill a process directly from there. Find the application that is locked up in the list of processes. Click the "Quit Process" button at the upper left.

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Answer 2

tommmy

Level 2

194 points

Jun 12, 2007 4:01 PM in response to gryphonent

Lance is correct.
Another solution is to press force quit in the pop up menu in the dock.
If that doesn't work use option click on the dock icon. That should force click the application as well.

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Answer 3

rtha

Level 1

10 points

Jun 12, 2007 5:58 PM in response to gryphonent

Clicking Command-Option-Escape brings up a box that will let you choose any application you have open and force quit it.

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Answer 4

Jun 12, 2007 6:22 PM in response to rtha

**** rtha!

Read the poster's question before you reply!!!

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Answer 5

gryphonent Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 13, 2007 12:46 AM in response to Lance Mitchell

Yeah... well... thanks for all thee advice, but as the above poster pointed out: I’ve tried these things already! Point is, if you get the spinning beach ball of death the processor truly hangs and there are only few milliseconds where you get control over what’s happening (the ball changes briefly into the pointer again). Therefore, opening another app, moving down to the dock, bringing up the force quit window... simply doesn’t work, because it involves CPU power that is not existing at this point. I’m looking for an immediate break, a command like we had under the old OS 7, 8, and 9 that brings the frontmost process to an immediate halt. Has anybody else these spinning beach ball problems since 10.4.9?

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Answer 6

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Jun 13, 2007 1:13 AM in response to gryphonent

You could launch the Activity Monitor, set it for all processes, and see what might be hanging up. In that app, you can select the hanger, click Quit Process, and either Quit or Force Quit it. That said, however, it appears you have major system problems which need attending to. First backup your machine to an external HD. I suggest a bootable backup/clone, using Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper!, etc. Then, boot with the install disk and run Disk Utility, repairing the disk and permissioins, and the Apple Hardware Test using the extended tests. If the disk passes those, boot back into the machine and see if the SBBOD problem's gone. If not, create a new admin user account, log into it, and check again. If gone, your original accounts corrupted—long an painful process to rectify. If not, then reinstall the latest COMBO update. If that doesn't fix things, then an Archive & Install, saving user and network settings, installation is in order.

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