Application quit unexpectedly/spinning beach ball

Question

In recent weeks I am encountering problems never encountered before---frequent "application quit unexpectedly" and the spinning beach ball. Can anyone suggest why this might be happening now and offer some possible remedies. Thanks

Answer 1

Welcome To  Discussions Pathetic!
Is it the 15" or the 17" iMac?
Is the RAM original or added?
How much free space is available on the 80GB Hard Drive?
Insufficient available space, can cause performance issues, system corruption, and possible loss of data.
Depending on Mac system usage habits, it is a general recommendation, to keep 10% to as much as 20%, of the Total capacity, available at all times.
Review the articles, authored by Dr Smoke, linked to below.
Problems From Insufficient RAM And Free Hard Disk Space
Freeing Space On Your Mac OS X Startup Disk
Do you ever run any routine Maintenance procedures, as suggested in the articles linked to below?
Mac OS X 10.3/10.4: System Maintenance, authored by Gulliver
Maintaining Mac OS X, authored by Dr Smoke
Is the Mac shutdown overnight, or does it run 24/7?
If you turn the Mac off nightly, the Background Maintenance Tasks, are never run.
These can also be run, using a Third-Party utility, or manually using Terminal, to run the CRON Commands.
I use MacJanitor, when necessary.
INSTRUCTIONS TO RUN CRON MANUAL COMMANDS
Quit all applications/programs.
Navigate to HD > Applications > Utilities.
Double click on Terminal, to open.
At the prompt, type:
sudo periodic daily
Press Return.
Enter your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.
This will execute the daily script that is sheduled to run every night.
When completed, repeat this procedure, but change the command to:
sudo periodic weekly
This one rebuilds a database or two, and usually takes somewhat longer to complete. It is scheduled to run once a week.
Repeat again, with command:
sudo periodic monthly
Or they can all be run in one pass, which is preferable, with this command:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
When the tasks complete, and return to the prompt, you may quit Terminal.
Restart the Mac, and run Repair Permissions.
TO REPAIR PERMISSIONS ON THE STARTUP DISK
1.Open Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities, and select the startup disk in the left column.
2.Click First Aid.
3.Click Verify Disk Permissions to test permissions or Repair Disk Permissions to test and repair permissions. (I never "Verify". Just run "Repair".)
Rerun RP, until the only messages reported, are listed here Spurious Permissions Errors Using: 10.3.x, authored by Michael Conniff.
When "Repair Permissions" is complete. Quit "Disk Utility".
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