Choppy Expose/Spaces in Snow Leopard

've been a rather happy snow leopard user since it was out and following the release of performance update 1.0, the experience with my MBP (mid-2009) has been fantastic so far.
For some strange reason, my mac started experiencing choppiness in some transition animations- particularly in expose and spaces yesterday afternoon so I decided to do restart my system. Perplexingly, the problem persisted. I have tried resetting PRAM, repaired disk permissions but to no avail.
Is anyone experiencing the same issue or perhaps could offer some advise? Thanks!

Yeah definitely. I have at least 40% of free HDD space to begin with.
Actually, the way the problem started was rather abrupt- I was simply typing a document on Word and noticed a lag in animation so I decided to give the system a restart hoping it'd go away. But nothing seemed to remedy the issue.

Similar Messages

Why is Expose lagging for Snow Leopard only in my account, not in guest account? How do i solve it?

I installed an itunes update and somehow my 'expose' starts to lag, not being as smooth as before. I don't know how this can be linked to me updating itunes but somehow i think it is. Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

Expose requires a lot of system resources and it is posible that you may have a program or programs on your account that are running in the background using a lot of these resources. If you open Activity Monitor and look at the tabs on the bottom and if you click on CPU and Memory and notice that FREE does not have a lot of space than that might be the issue and if you look above that on the charts you may see some apps that are using a lot of these resources and you may wish to close them.
Stephen C.

Applications not showing in Spaces on Snow Leopard

I have looked in the forums and haven't found anything specific to my issue. I can't tap F8 because it starts music in my iTunes, so I set it up with right click on my mouse (yep using a mouse). When the spaces applications show up on my screen in squares, only Firefox shows up,and the others show up as blue squares with nothing in them. How do I get them to show up? I have the applications assigned to different spaces, not the same one. I have spaces enabled as well. What am I doing wrong or not doing?

I def. need some help here. I have seen some people open this and read it to see what is going on, but no replies. I still see blue squares where there should be showing my applications I have selected. Am I doing something wrong? Any advise would be appreciated!

Am running Tiger 10.4.11; just got Snow Leopard 10.6.3 (regular OS disk, not an upgrade); when I install Snow Leopard, will it wipe everything? overwrite Tiger? Do I need to make backups of applications and files to reinstall after Sno Lprd loads? thx!

Am running Tiger 10.4.11; just got Snow Leopard 10.6.3 (regular OS disk, not upgrade). When I install Snow Leopard, will it wipe everything? overwrite Tiger? Do I need to make backups of applications and files to reinstall after Snow Leopard Loads? thanks!

Hi Donald,
No it doesn't erase anything by default, it does what we used to call an Archive and Install feature, which can give you a new OS, yet preserve your files and settings if you have enough room on your HD...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
But it does it automatically unless you specifically erase the Disk, but will replace Tiger completely for the OS & several Apple Apps like Safari, Mail, etc, yet preserve your old settings for those!
If you think you may need Tiger to run any APPs that do not work in SL/10.6, then clone or backup first.
I would recomend 2 things before installing though...
Make sure you have enough RAM & HD space.
Snow Leopard/10.6.x Requirements...
General requirements
   * Mac computer with an Intel processor
    * 1GB of memory (I say 2GB at least)
    * 5GB of available disk space (I say 30GB at least)
If it's a core Duo & not a Core2Duo, then it'll only run in 32 bit mode.
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the new Mac OS X SL/10.6 Install Disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

If I would update Snow Leopard to Mavericks, would I have this?

Hello, everybody!
As I got no real experience comments from people who updated Mac OS from Snow Leopard to Mavericks on a MacBook White Unibody, on this discussion, now I'm trying to be more concise, and ask you for more specific questions on the matter.
So, if I would updated to Mavericks, Would I have…?
VoiceOver Voices in different languages, as they come from factory since Lion, or stayed just with the English ones I have now?
Full Screen capability of all apps at the same time? Now, it's like my PC has only one "Full Screen", so, when you open one app on Full Screen, all the others go to windows.
The newest versions of iLife, iWork, Photo Booth, Stickies…? Now, I have Garage Band 6.0.5, iPhoto 9.2.3, iMovie 9.0.4; iWork 9.1, Photo Booth 3.0.3, Stickies 7.0
iChat, iWeb, iDVD, Front Row, X11… as I have now, or would them be erased or changed for other apps? Or I would not be capable for running them, as the Power PC apps I have and can run now?
Chess app in Spanish too, as it comes from factory since Lion, or it still remains only in English, as now?
Spanish dictionary on Disctionary app? Now I only have English and Tesaurus on my Mac, and the capability of searching on wikipedia on internet from the app?
Timer Coalescing, App Nap, Compressed Memory, GateKeeper, app's sandboxing, Automatic Versions… or any of those is not allowed on my MacBook White unibody?
The ability to see the complete miniature windows opened on the same desk as easy as sliding up four fingers on the trackpad (as I can see now the ones opened on the same "Space")?
To update my RAM? Now I have 2 Gb, and I saw it is exactly the requirment of Mavericks. I'm not sure which was the requirement of Snow Leopard, which actually runs pretty fine.
This is enough now for helping me to take or not the decission. Thank you all.

app nap - appears to work with Mavericks according to Apple:
http://www.apple.com/osx/advanced-technologies/
I've been looking for it again. You say App Nap would work on my macbook white, it seems it wouldn't, according to:
http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/
Power Nap
Supported by the following Mac models:
MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
MacBook Pro with Retina display
iMac (Late 2012 or newer)
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Mac mini (Late 2012)
At least, one question less :-). I'm not quite as sure with all the rest of new odd and eds…
PPC apps haven't been supported since Lion was introduced (2011).
Your iLife will be updated;
iWeb has been discontinued. So has iDVD, but if you have it installed, it still works. Front Row was discontinued. No idea about X11.
PowerPC applications are supported on Snow Leopard, my actual OS. As apple does not mention anything about on http://www.apple.com/osx/http://www.apple.com/osx/advanced-technologies/, I can easily guess that same thing could happen with other apps, like FrontRaw, iWeb or the others apps I mentioned. For me, it sounds strange that apple offers its best ultimate OS just for free. I think there's something hidden for user like me, with Snow Leopard., for instance, not to update Voice over Voices, PhotoBooth or anything else…
I'd like to be completely sure of what i'd have, for example if I'd have spanish dictionary and VoiceOver voices before updating. If not, probably it does worth to do so.
Sorry, but how do you propose having more than one app at full screen at a time?
By means of something we call SPACES on Snow Leopard, and you called MISSION CONTROL, if I'm not wrong, on Lion and upper. You can switch among different desks running every one a different app on FullScreen, can't you?
By the way, which OS did your macbook pro come with from factory? the one that is running mavericks now.

Tiger to Snow Leopard... not enough RAM??

I just purchased Snow Leopard and was trying to install it onto my Mac Book that currently has Tiger. It keeps telling me that I don't have enough free RAM to install SI but no matter how much space i free up it still won't work... what do i do?

Hi jessyt: If the error message is "Not enough RAM" freeing up space is not what you ned to do. You need to increase the RAM in your computer, not the HArd Drive space. Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1gB of RAM. To find what is in your computer go to the Apple in the top left corner, click and select "About this Mac" The first screen should show the amount of installed RAM.
Hope this helps
Stedman

Just upgraded from Tiger to Snow Leopard - slow slow slow

macbook has slowed - molasses in winter slow.
slow to switch aps, slow to save, aps freezing requiring force quit.
have 1Gb ram and plenty disk space - 15Gb+

Snow Leopard should work fine on your system. First, if you're still at 10.3, install the 10.6.8 combo update from: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399 . Use Disk Utility to repair permissions, then install the combo update, then repair permissions again.
Next, you have 15GB empty hard drive space ... you want 10% to 15%+ free for systems usage. If it's below 10%, then you need to free up space, otherwise the system will crawl.
Download Smart Utility from http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php . It will give you insight into the health of your hard drive.
Run the Apple hardware test to see if there are any obvious hardware issues. Find the original OS X disks, and insert the one that says 'AHT Version x.x' in small print on the label. Reboot holding the alt/option key down (might work holding the D key down too), choose the Apple hardware test, and when prompted choose the extended test. While in the extended test, you might push command and L to make it loop several times. Sometimes hardware issues don't show up on one run.
This FAQ may help too: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html

Virtual desktop for Snow Leopard?

I like the Spaces in Snow Leopard, but those are not real separate desktops. For Leopard there was some cool software (never used it, but its exactly what i am looking for):
http://www.yousoftware.com/desktops/desktops.php
But for Snow Leopard, it doesn't work. Other similar software also doens't support Snow Leopard.
Does anybody know some Virtual desktop supporting software for Snow Leopard?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but spaces is really only spaces in wich you can put different programs in. Not different desktops, with seperate files on echt desktop, different backgrounds, maybe different docks.
I don't think there's ever been a virtual desktop application for the Mac that allowed for separate files on each desktop, nor different docks.
This app
http://thecocoabots.com/hyperspaces/
adds many features to the basic Spaces. For other docks you can explore apps like
http://www.dragthing.com/
Regards
TD

1 OSX Lion Mission Control vs Snow Leopard Expose can't we combine the two (by leaving older Expose options inside) and get Apple back to leaping forward again?

So I am a web/software developer and I am having major beef with OSX Lion's Mission Control. While I think Mission Control and Application Windows are interesting additions to the multi-tasking nature and scheme of the OS, removing the older Expose Spaces and All Windows is a huge mistake. Couldn't Apple have just left all of the old stuff in? Then the system would be complete. As pretty as Mission Control and Application Windows is, the older Snow Leopard Spaces and Expose moved much faster and tamed all of my apps in a very efficient way.
Here is why Mission Control is not as fast as Spaces and Expose:....
1. With Spaces all of the desktops and their connected monitors were consolidated to one monitor in which you can easily see everything going on from a birds eye view. You cloud easily drag open windows between them freely and even swap spaces. This was huge because you could see everything. You could even activate All Windows over Spaces and see everything..Mission Control will group everything but you can't move programs across desktops unless it's the main desktop to the little desktop. Nor can you move windows across monitors. This is frustrating. Also the desktop are split to their respective monitor so I no longer have a birds-eye key-map access.
2. All Windows is so necessary and slick. Mission Control or Application Windows can't quite keep up. If I have a cluttered desktop and hit all windows, I can get any window at any time no matter how buried it is. Application Windows is useful but only applies to the focused application…but what if it's buried? I have to activate mission control first, select one of the windows from the program group, then activate Application Windows to get to that window. Also if there are many windows open for an application, Mission Control cannot replace All Windows because they stack and you can't quite tell which of the windows you want is accessible in that stack.
The bottom line is, put both of them together! Keep the old functionality as an option, because truth be told, the old way of doing things is still considerably faster under heavy work loads. I would use the Snow Leopard expose features more often. There is still room for Application Windows and Mission Control, but even after re-training myself I feel I'm moving at 70% of the multitasking speed that I used to move at before using Snow Leopard Expose. I mean this legitimately, I develop using multiple OS's along with video chat and instead of being a leap forward, Lion is a step backward and that just isn't like apple, everything Apple has done has been leaps and bounds forward. Let's leap forward and not only have all the sweet new features that Lion offers, but combine with the productive features that really moved and maybe just integrate into Lion's style. Bottle that and you have something sweeter than Yoohoo.

I completely agree with airbnboy. I used to be able to quick organised different windows within the same app to different spaces (now "desktops" for no apparent reason). This worked very smoothly in expose/spaces. I'd use one gesture to get to spaces, then another for expose, and I'd have all my windows in all spaces visible.
Now, I can't even see all of my windows in specific to one desktop! The best I can do is double scroll to see *some parts* of the windows on a desktop. So now, selecting a window for a specifc app is huge pain.
Worse than this, on moving windows from a desktop to another in, Mission Control will change the ordering of the stacks (per app, not the windows in the stacks). Umm, what is the possible benefit there?
So, now there is no use of spatial memory - e.g. Window X for App Y was in the top left of all my windows in the top left space, and I want to move it now. It's no longer possible to see all app windows in a specific "desktop", and much more effort is required to move windows around.
Great, well done Apple. Can we please, please have Expose and Spaces back as an option? Or at the very least, some way to view all windows for a specifc app on a specific desktop - and by "view", I mean see the whole window, not just a tiny indicator of the window, or a slightly expanded stack that may not give enough context.
The only reason I "upgraded" to Lion was to get XCode 4.2.

Can apple, in it's largesse, bring back Expose, as it was in Snow Leopard?

I'm a professional photographer, and one of the most useful features in Snow Leopard for me was Expose. Many times, I have several photos in process at the same time, as many as a dozen shots. Expose made it easy for me to see all of them at a glance, which helped me to quickly pick out "winners", check for consistent colors, and click on a photo for additional work. By comparison, Mission Control, or Spaces, or whatever it's called does not neatly arrange individual windows across several applications the way Expose did; does actually - I still use Expose in Snow Leopard, and it's rather tedious to transfer files back and forth from one Mac to the other in my office/studio just so I can use Expose. It would be great to bring it all back to my primary Mac that runs Mountain Lion. So, Apple, if you are reading this (it is said key Apple employees do read discussions like these), PLEASE bring back Expose. It was one of the coolest, convenient, and most user friendly out of all of your numerous innovations!

Hello,
Apple employees do not read very often the messages here.
The only (and official) way is to send a suggestion via this page :
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Expose not working in Snow Leopard

I can't get Expose to work from my keyboard or my mouse, except by one method - bringing the cursor to one corner of the screen. Going through preferences for Expose has not helped, nor have the preferences and settings for my keyboard or mouse (both are Logitech products). It used to work fine, so this seems to be a problem with Snow Leopard. Any advice?

I also use a Logitech keyboard and mouse (diNovo Edge and MX Revolution) -- both lost Expose functionality with the upgrade to 10.6.1 as you've described. I'm told (in a call to Apple Support) that this is due to changes in Expose/Spaces in the new OS, which are system wide; meaning that they work differently now, and the interface doesn't do what it used to do in Leopard.
However, the good news is (in another call, this time to Logitech), that an update to the software should be available in about two weeks. So, go to *Applications >> Utilities >> Logitech Update* and keep checking for the update from them.
Logitech told me that they weren't sure if the update would be automatically pushed, so you may have to keep checking manually.

Upgraded to snow leopard, now safari scrolls a page down when space bar is hit and sometimes crashes. Any ideas for a fix?

I just upgraded to the new snow leopard, now my Safari is acting loopy. At times, the page will scroll down when I hit the space bar. As I type this discussion the screen isn't paging down, but if I go to the tab where I have facebook loaded and hit the space bar, it acts as a page down key. I've had safari crash about 5 times tonight for no apparent reason. The delete key sometimes will act as a page back key. I really have no idea whats going on.
I've had keyboards go wacko on me before due to something being spilled on them or a wireless problem, but this keyboard is a wired keyboard and nothing was spilled on it. It's rather new and I'm quite certain it's not a keyboard issue.
No settings have been changed on the computer. The only thing different today from yesterday, is the fact that I upgraded to snow leopard.
Help would be pretty sweet.
Thanks,
Jason

I just upgraded to the new snow leopard, now my Safari is acting loopy. At times, the page will scroll down when I hit the space bar. As I type this discussion the screen isn't paging down, but if I go to the tab where I have facebook loaded and hit the space bar, it acts as a page down key. I've had safari crash about 5 times tonight for no apparent reason. The delete key sometimes will act as a page back key. I really have no idea whats going on.
I've had keyboards go wacko on me before due to something being spilled on them or a wireless problem, but this keyboard is a wired keyboard and nothing was spilled on it. It's rather new and I'm quite certain it's not a keyboard issue.
No settings have been changed on the computer. The only thing different today from yesterday, is the fact that I upgraded to snow leopard.
Help would be pretty sweet.
Thanks,
Jason

I am deleting files through my trash in my macbook pro (2010) and then emptying the trash can, but my hard disk space is not increasing! i recently upgraded to lion and the problem is new, wasn't the same with snow leopard! HELP!!!!!

i am deleting files through my trash in my macbook pro (2010) and then emptying the trash can, but my hard disk space is not increasing! i recently upgraded to lion and the problem is new, wasn't the same with snow leopard! HELP!!!!!
When i press command+I (Get Info) i see that there is 140 GB "Available Space" on my hard disk but when i click on my hard disk icon on the desktop, and then press "space" i only see 102 GB free!! What the f*???
Please HELP!!!!!! Getting second thoughts on Lion!!!!

Hi b,
Have you restarted yet?

I can't install Snow leopard on my hard disk which has 10.4.11 on and lots of space.

I can't install Snow leopard on my hard disk which has 10.4.11 on it and lots of space, I run the snow Leopard install disk and it says it cant be installed on my hard disk, which has 160 GB of space.

Which iMac? If it's a G5, the highest OS you can run is Leopard. Are you using the full retail copy of Snow, or a grey, machine specific disc from another computer? If it's the latter, that's the reason.
Message was edited by: WZZZ

How can I get Spaces in OSX lion to look like Spaces in OSX Snow Leopard

I bought a new MacBookAIR. Used time capsule to import all my settings. Perfect!
However, the new setup of Spaces, is beyond annoying and absolutely unable to work with.
Does anyone know how to get the classic view of Spaces back in OS Lion?
I loved working with that. The active programs were very easy to remember since they had their own 'visual space reference' (upper left, lower right).
Now you only have a row, of which you need to remember which screen is on what number of the row and you now need to swipe through all the d..mn pages instead of navigating intuitively to a specific part of the screen (middle left, lower right etc).
I absolutely hate the new setup and hope somebody has an answer to this....I certainly hope, as an Apple fan, this solution comes quick..for one of the most beloved features now is pretty much dead to me..
Thanks all!

I have installed to Mountain Lion and have the same problem.... I'm content about many things in Mountain
Lion, but lack of Spaces frustrate me.
Since you upgraded, you can downgrade.
How to revert your Mac to Snow Leopard
How to revert to a earlier OS X version

Choppy Expose/Spaces in Snow Leopard

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