Indexing, TM backup and the multi-Colored Pinwheel

Hi All.
I seem to be getting a lot of multi-colored pinwheel hangs on my 6 month old MacBookPro and I can't tell if it is due to Parallels 6 being installed or what.
I sometimes get Finder to be 101.3 (or close) % of CPU. I also have a vm_prl that pegs out at 100% CPU which I know is a Parallels issue I need to solve.
Question:
Does anyone know why Finder would get up to 100% CPU and is it a problem possibly related to the slowness of the computer?
Also, I noticed that Mac is "indexing" my 1 TB external drive when I plug it in. Is it possible that this (or my Time Machine via Wifi backups) are causing the slowdown and what to do about it.
Thanks from the newbie to Mac.
- Jon

Hotwheels22 wrote:
Hi James.
I am going to print this out and study it. It may take me a couple of days to respond but I'm hoping you will be around so I can follow up.
Yup. I don't stray very far, or for very long, anymore.
I'm not sure if this changes your input but I do seem to have had a lot of issues over the last six months and it has been really hard when I combine the Parallels slow downs/issues with the Apple problems. For instance, I get major slowdowns when Parallels is not even open which causes me concern.
I don't do Windoze, so can't address that directly. But if it's truly shut down, it shouldn't affect the performance of OSX.
Plus there have been a whole host of notifications and errors that just seem to keep me bogged down when combined with these slowdowns.
Forgive me, but that's like telling your auto mechanic that your car is making all sorts of funny noises.
Without some idea of what they are, nobody can do much. That's why I suggested you have a look at your logs. There are probably some pretty good clues lurking there.
I mean, I may be at the end of my rope with this and also at a point where other items have stopped moving enough to tackle it. Other than my time and effort - is there another reason not to go ahead and try and get a fresh install? It's been recommended at the Genius Bar at least once and it was recommended on the Parallels forum just yesterday (with the rationale that I am a new Mac user and when you add the complexity of Parallels on top it /is/ possible to mess up something with the Mac OS...).
Depends on what you mean by "fresh install." You can get a fresh copy of OSX fairly easily, without touching anything else. That may be worth a try.
Some folks may say (or mean) a "clean install," which doesn't exist on OSX, but they usually mean erase and reinstall everything. That's the drastic step I'd do only as a last resort.
If you want a fresh copy of OSX, just start up from your Snow Leopard Install disc and install OSX. Unless it's the same version as you're now on, before using any apps, download and install the 10.6.5 "combo" update. That's the cleverly-named combination of all the updates to Snow Leopard since it was first released, so installing it should fix anything that's gone wrong since then, such as with one of the normal "point" updates. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1324 (if you're on 10.6.4, http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1048 ). Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards.

Similar Messages

  • What's the multi colored pinwheel I get when I work on my mac book pro?

    What's the multi colored pinwheel I get when I work on my mac book pro?

    Zyriab wrote:
    it means the system is busy and you have to wait before it will respond to mouse clicks or key presses by you.
    Sligh correction here. Sometimes it is the system; but sometimes it is just a specific app, while the system will continue to accept user input, and you may switch to a different app.
    The 'official' name is the spinning wait cursor. Go to
    <http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html>
    for a few more details and troubleshooting techniques (if necessary).

  • What does the multi colored pinwheel mean and how do you get rid of it?

       I THINK IT MEANS THE COMPUTER IS TIED UP IN SOME FASHION. OTHER THEN WAITING IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO GET RID OF IT?

    How To Speed Up, Clean Up And Revive Your Mac
    http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/03/how-to-speed-up-clean-up-and-revive-your-ma c/
    How can I speed up imac
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3908688?start=0&tstart=0
    How do I speed up my iMac
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3732175?start=0&tstart=0

  • After my Mac turns on the rainbow colored pinwheel starts running and I cannot do anything. How do I get rid of this?

    After my Mac turns on the rainbow colored pinwheel shows up and everything freezes. I need help please!

    Be sure to make an appointment before going to avoid a long wait:
         http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

  • Can i make the setting and keyboard background black ? , because i have vision problem and the white color is too bright and cause pain and headache for me . thanks

    can i make the setting and keyboard background black ? , because i have vision problem and the white color is too bright and cause pain and headache for me . thanks

    Drmikekuna wrote:
    ... Sony AVCHD .. Canon SD ... Logitech .. Flip Mino HD. ..
    .. Certainly not the best idea for a professional but just fine for a guy who likes to edit for fun.
    that's were the fun stops on a MacOs-based system ..
    FC/e supports only a few 'standards': DV (as from miniDV cams), HDV (from miniDV devices), AVCHD (from most devices) and with a little trick, described on my website AVCHD-light (720p, as from many compact-stills) ..
    done.
    some Flips are supported by iMovie, which you can abuse as a converter tool.
    but 'non video standard' (=read 'video' as 'in TV') formats, resolutions and codecs ...
    a) manual conversion = less convenient
    b) loss of 'quality', e.g. when you blow-up tiny 480x320/15fps into video..
    FC/e is FC/pros lil' brother.. meant for a more.. adult workflow..
    if you like to wrestle with multi-formats, stay with Windows/Magix/..
    Windows=options, with a chance of getting lost
    MacOs=convenience, with a chance of getting restricted

  • Is there any way that I can get back my iPhoto?  After having hard disk replaced (no backup) and the operating system has been updated to Lion (no disc) I am wondering if iPhoto can be reinstalled with my Leopard discs?

    Is there any way that I can get back my iPhoto?  After having hard disk replaced (no backup) and the operating system has been updated to Lion (no disc) I am wondering if iPhoto can be reinstalled with my Leopard discs?

    As Niel pointed out, yes.  The disk probably will look like the MBP disk (4) in this screenshot;
    OT

  • When printing to the dye sublimation epson stylus pro 7700 using adobe illustrator it is required that I mirror the image.  When mirroring the image the print colors are muted.  Not mirrored and the print colors are perfect.  Any suggestions?

    When printing to the dye sublimation epson stylus pro 7700 using adobe illustrator it is required that I mirror the image.  When mirroring the image the print colors are muted.  Not mirrored and the print colors are perfect.  Any suggestions?

    CS5
    On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 9:49 AM, ADBEDesigner <[email protected]>

  • HT201406 I cant scroll my iphone or the touchscreen is not working and the invert color is on i wanted to off it i cant scroll it down  what will i do i need some help

    I cant scroll my iphone or the touchscreen is not working and the invert color is on i wanted to off it i cant scroll it down  what will i do i need some help

    Did you try recovery mode? iOS: Unable to update or restore
    Or How to put iPod touch / iPhone into DFU mode

  • HT1338 has anyone else had problems with their mail not loading properly and the multi gestures stopped working on their mac pro after new updates?

    has anyone else had problems with their mail not loading properly and the multi gestures stopped working on their mac pro after new updates?

    Have you tried calling Apple tech support?
    http://www.apple.com/contact/

  • How can I change the color in a search window for visited sites? I'm partially color blind and the default colors are very difficult to tell from one another.

    When I'm looking at a search engine results page, I would like the colors of visited results to be a color that is much more different than they are now. Like blue v.s. black or blue v.s. yellow.

    You can use the NoSquint extension to set font size (text/page zoom) and text color on web pages, including the visit color.
    *NoSquint: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/nosquint/

  • Used iTunes to restore from backup and the Apple ID that shows up is a very old one

    I have an iPhone 4s. I recently lost all of my contacts for some mysterious reason. I personally think it's a conspiracy by Apple to force me to upgrade to a new phone. Anyway, I hooked my phone up to my computer (Windows 7) and from iTunes I went to Devices, Restore from Backup. I know that within the last few weeks that I backed it up onto  iTunes but I cannot figure out from the newest iTunes how to find it. So I restored the backup but it backed up from November of 2012 (I am only assuming this because the most recent pictures that are in phone are from that date). It did restore my contacts from 2012 but there are no recent contacts in there plus I lost all my photos from November 2012 on. Which is no big deal. My problem is that the Apple ID that is showing up is from a very old account. The e-mail address is no longer even valid.I tried to delete iCloud from my phone so that I could put it back on with my new Apple ID but I cannot remember the password of my old id. When I go to reset my password for my old id and the security questions come up the first thing it asks for is my date of birth. When I put my date of birth in it says:
    The authentication information provided does not match our records. Please verify your personal information and try again.
    I know that I did not enter the wrong birth date when I first set up that account. So now I am stuck because I cannot get any further without that date of birth. I HOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP. PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
    PS-Not sure if this matters but I also upgraded to iOS 8 directly before I did the Restore From Backup.

    Hello risenhauer,
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    To reset your Apple ID password without knowing your security questions or have access to the email account, you will need to contact Apple Account Security in your country.  Links to contact can be found in the article below.
    Apple ID: Contacting Apple for help with Apple ID account security
    Take care,
    Alex H.

  • Online backup and the Redolog mechanism

    Hello,
    During a backup I understand that the redolog mechanism changes, so that when a block is changed for the first time after the backup commences, it's entire content is copied to the redolog files, rather than just the change vector.
    My question is, does this happen even when the oracle block size is the same as the operating system block size?
    My understanding is that the change in redolog mechanism is because a single oracle block can be made up multiple operating system blocks, so that within an oracle block a change can be done to a few blocks, then a read by the online backup, so that the oracle block read by the backup is inconsistent.
    But if the oracle block size was the same as the operating system block size, each change would be atomic, so the problem of having inconsistent oracle blocks would not arise. So the change in redolog mechanism would no longer be necessary. Does the redolog mechanism change anyway?
    Kind regards,
    Peter

    Hi Peter,
    I will try to make the issue more clear eventhough so much useful has been written and said in this thread !!
    During Online Backup the tablespaces enter the backup mode this has following effects:
    1) A checkpoint on TS level is triggered before the backup of this TS starts and DBWR writes all corresponding dirty blocks of this TS to data files.
    2) The SCN corresponding to TS Checkpoint remains Frozen in the headrers of all TS files until the end of backup mode.
    3) Every change in this TS is logged in the redolog on data block level instead of data record level ; not only the redo info for a modified record is written into the redolg but the whole 8 KB block containing this record ( immaterial whether OS block size is 8 KB or not). The reason for this granual logging is the possibility that
    CPIO or DD may copy an oracle block to the backup medium in smaller units than 8 KB while the block is being changed by DBWR which can lead to inconsistencies whithin such a block.
    Now When the backup later used for restoring the TS, all blocks written to the redo log during the backup mode overwrite therir "suspicious"versions saved directly in the backup of the data files.
    Hope this useful
    Regards
    Umesh

  • What do you when the computer stalls and the round color ball keeps turning and turning?

    What do you  do when Mac Pro freezes
    And the ball keeps turning and can't close it.

    That's normal if you have an external HD connected with Word files on it.
    It's spinning up the external HD to look for word files there.
    It's an absurd issue with Word itself...   I'm familiar with it

  • I am setting up a time machine backup to a external Hard drive.  I want to backup by Mac book Pro running OSX 10.8.5. I would like to Partition the disk and use one partition for Time machine backups and the other for my Lightroom backups. How to do this?

    I want to create a two partition disk. One partition for time machine, the other for Lightroom backup. Currently Time Machine is using the entire drive and it is doing the intial encryption and is about 29% complete after two days.  I've decided that I want to turn encryption off and partition the disk. So I do I start over?

    With the external drive attached, open Finder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility.  Select the external drive from the list in the left side panel of the DU window.  In the main window panel, click Partition in the buttons top center of that panel.
    Select the number of partitions you want and adjust their sizes.
    For the first partition, click to highlight the partition, then select the format, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then the partition table as GUID [both of those are the defaults].  Click Apply and it will ask to confirm and erase and format that partion...oh, give the partition a name, like Backup. 
    Then repeat those steps for the second partition..and remember to name it...something like Lightroom.
    Close Disk Utilitty and you are ready to send TM to the one partition, and do your backup of Lightroom to the second partition.

  • Time machine backups and the iTunes library

    hello
    if i download music from iTunes, i get a message always asking if i would like to back my purchases up to cds.
    shouldn't my time machine backup already be taking care of that?
    thanks
    Wade

    There are no tools available to partition a network drive. Only if you break warranty and remove the drive .. plug it into the computer can you partition it.
    Nor is moving itunes library a great idea. It has no backup whatsoever.. it is still designed as a target for Time Machine.
    See Pondini about mixing data and backups.
    Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

Maybe you are looking for