Safari and Others Hang. Is there a good way to diagnose which process is being a trouble maker?

Question

I have a peculiar problem that has been developing for some time now.
Current Symptoms:
  Safari (Any Version 5.0-Current) will load but WebProcess.app Opens to 100%
           on one core of CPU (Non-Responsive) and no web-pages will load.
  VLC.app launches in the same fashion, one process pegs to 100%.
  iMovie.app hangs.  Not crashing, but failing to successfully launch.
  Apple Script saved as an application behaves in the same way.
Attempted Diagnosis:
      I'm currently running OS 10.7.3 on a Early 2009 Mac Pro.
     I have tried:
  Deleted Preferences, and Saved Application States. Then realized the
problem can't be in ~/Lib/Prefs. because it also is a problem on a clean user
profile I created to check. So I also looked in /Sys/Lib/Prefs. with no Success.
  I have run disk permissions more times that I can count. 
                This comes up with regularity but solves nothing:
  Group differs on “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.
  Repaired “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”
  Permissions differ on “usr/lib/ruby”; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x .
  Repaired “usr/lib/ruby”
  Reinstalled 10.7.3 from the Combo Updater from apples website.  No Help.
  I did find launching any affected App from the Unix Exe File in the .app
         bundles (So it launches in terminal)  will open them and allow them to
         runwithout issue (yea! temporary fix)! 
Finally I booted with -x into Safe Mode.  There the problem vanished.  Hooray
        it's another piece of  software or an extension I have loaded (Could  be any over
        the past 6 months or so)!
So, I rebooted and tried to launch Safari immediately. It worked!  Only after a
        minute or so, when the GUI and background Apps had finished
        loading, the problem returns.
What I need help with:
Is there any good way to tell what application is causing the problem or what
these four apps have in common?  I have looked at Console Logs, Crash Reports,
etc. etc. but admittedly am not sure what to look for.  I would be happy to post logs
or reports or more detailed info, if it would help.
Otherwise Thank-you to anyone who reads this and has any good ideas short
of a fresh install. Cheers!

Answer 1

Hi...
Reinstalled 10.7.3 from the Combo Updater from apples website.
The only way to reinstall the Mac OS X or repair the startup disk running v10.7.3 Lion, is to use Lion Recovery The combo update does not do that.
How much free space on the startup disk? Not enough free space can account for the problems with your apps.
Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure there's a minimum of 15% free disk space.
and no web-pages will load.
Try using OpenDNS as suggested here >  Safari 5.0.1 or later: Slow or partial webpage loading, or webpage cannot be found
Use OpenDNS for better speed, more security, includes anti phishing filters, prevents browser redirects, and it's free.
Open System Preferences / Preferences then select the Network tab. Click the Advanced tab then click the DNS tab.
Click +
Enter these addresses exactly as you see them here.
208.67.222.222
Click +
208.67.220.220
Then click OK.
edited by:  cs