Spinning beach ball appears at random for a radom period of time

Hi,
The spinning beach ball seems to appear at random: resizing crops, browsing through the lib, adjusting exposure. The frequency of appearance is pretty annoying. The ball spins for 10 to 60 seconds.
Anyone experiencing the same?
rgrds rgr

I did installed MenuMeters. I just plugged in my camera and before I could click 'import' the ball was spinning. Later in the same session it spinned for some long periods while renaming a project and opening the file-menu.
Every time the ball spins, the paging rate goes through the roof: 1k+/s with both a blue nand red arrow. At the same time, the free memory is 650 (also reported by MenuMeters). Why would Mac OS X page so much while there is lots of memory available?
rgrds rgr

Similar Messages

The movies from my Iphone 5 are not coming across on Apple TV. The little spinning beach ball appears like it is thinking. It use to work but quick working a month ago.

The movies from my Iphone 5 are not coming across on Apple TV. The little spinning beach ball appears like it is thinking. It use to work fine but quick working a month ago. I mirror from my phone to the Apple TV. Still images and everything I do on the phone is mirrored on to the TV except when I want to show a YouTube video or any video and then the screen on the phone and the TV screen go black and the spinning beach ball appears. The videos open right up on the phone if I do not have mirroring on and going through the Apple TV. I just downloaded the latest update to the phone it did not fix the problem. Please help. Thanks, Elvis G

Hello Elvis G,
After reviewing your post, I have located an article that can help in this situation. It contains a number of troubleshooting steps concerning device issues. You may want to consider a reset, then testing to see if the issue is resolved:
Turn your iOS device off and on (restart) and reset
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
How to reset
You should reset your device as a last resort and only if you can't restart it.
To reset, press and hold both the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo.
Thank you for contributing to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
BobbyD

Macbook pro has slowed considerably and spinning beach ball appears lots

My Macbook pro has slowed considerably and spinning beach ball appears lots recently.
After I installed 10.5.7 it started happening. When I open anything including system prefs and apple apps the ball appears. I'm on 10.5.8 and it seems to be either as slow or slower. Startup is a bit faster now, but it'll go to the beach ball before I even do anything remotely intensive on the system.
My computer is almost 3 years old but I don't install any weird software on it and have 30% of my system disk free. I'm an audio guy and use logic, pro tools and generally keep my computer clean.
I've tried starting another user account to check if its my original user that has the issue, but thats just as slow too.
Please help...
Thanks
Oh yeah, I repaired disk permissions too but it hasn't seemed to have changed anything

Thanks for the reply Dale.
I have just tried that and Disk Utility said my MAc HD appears to be ok....????
So I don't really understand what else I can do...
I tried using Onyx a couple of months ago but it seemed to make things worse and more temperamental.
If there is a next level of solutions I could try it would be much appreciated.
This is what appears when I verify or repair the permissions... I doesn't change if I repair them though.....
Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library/Preferences".
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library".
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root".
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/AirPort Base Station Agent.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "Applications/Utilities/AirPort Utility.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "Library/Application Support/ProApps/Internal Plug-Ins/BrowserKit/iLife.bkplugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BrowserKit.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources ", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/DVD.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/FRSettings.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/FRSources.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Movies.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Music.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Photos.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Podcasts.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/TV.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ProKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Leopard Panels.bundle/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "usr/lib/ruby", should be lrwxr-xr-x , they are drwxr-xr-x .
Permissions differ on "Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/InternetUtilities.bundle/Contents/ CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunesHelper.app/Contents/CodeResou rces", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
ACL found but not expected on "Applications/TextEdit.app".
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/RemoteDesktop.menu/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
ACL found but not expected on "Applications/Time Machine.app".
Permissions verification complete
Thanks for your help
Owen

Firefox always hangs. Spinning Beach Ball appears. Must Force Quit repeatedly. Have re-installed and refreshed with no change. How to fix?

Every time firefox is launched, the spinning beach ball appears, sometimes immediately, sometimes within a minute or two, every time. Must force quit. I have re-installed Firefox and also have refreshed with no change. Unless this is fixed, Firefox is unusable. I am running OSX 10.9.5 on a 17" MacBook Pro.
I cannot access any information through Firefox, because t always hangs.

Could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? That's a standard diagnostic tool to deactivate extensions and some advanced features of Firefox. More info: [[Troubleshoot Firefox issues using Safe Mode]].
''If Firefox is not running:'' Hold down the option key when starting Firefox.
''If Firefox is running:'' You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:
* "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
* Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
and OK the restart.
''Both scenarios:'' A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (''not'' Refresh).
Any less crashy?

Spinning Beach Ball Delay with "Look for Shared Photos" Checked

We installed iLife '06 on our school computers - all 500 of them - this fall. It is version 6.0.4. However, upon launch, there is a long delay of about 2-4 minutes with a spinning beach ball that we've determined takes place because iphoto is looking for shared libraries. We have one shared library on the network at this time, but sometimes teachers turn on sharing, or have in the past.
Last year, we were using iPhoto '04 and had no problems like this at all -shared libraries appeared immediately, just as quickly as shared libraries in itunes still do.
Has anyone experienced this - is there a known issue? Or should I look for a network problem.

Solved this problem myself. It was a dns issue. For some reason, when iphoto looks for shared photo's, it does a reverse lookup on the ip of any machine it finds that has sharing turned on. If there is no reverse lookup zone on your dns server running OS X then it locks up as it repeatedly sends the request. Simply creating a reverse zone for the ip address range of your clients makes the bug go away. Why it needs to do a reverse lookup is beyond me.

Spinning beach ball appears often

...especially when I am entering information into forms. The ball can appear almost every keystroke.

I feel your terrible pain. Waiting for answers?

Why do I get a spinning beach ball of death waiting for...

When I open a window or select/search for a fhile I get the spinning beachball of death while one of the four hard drives spins up. Is there a way to get around this since I'm guessing Finder is spinning all available connected drives to do it's function?

PS: also, add more RAM, 4 x 1GB should be minimum set. 4 x 2GB cost is only slightly more.
Might want to 'upgrade' and move your system to a new drive as well.
10.6.3 is from March 2010, over a year old and may as well stay current.
Those MacPro1,1 are popular still go strong, and 5355s are cheap and popular way to improve performance and give it another 2-3 yrs.

Solution to iPhoto spinning beach ball for Book projects with too many unplaced photos

A few days ago I discovered the solution to this problem for a client using iPhoto 9.5.1 in OS X Mavericks 10.9.4.
=====
TRIED ALL KNOWN SUGGESTIONS BUT NONE HELPED
My client had already tried repairing, rebuilding etc. the iPhoto Library, and I tried OS X's Disk Verify and Repair Permissions plus emptied the cache folder in system Library and in the hidden user Library folder (option-key "Go" menu, Library). None of this helped.
CLUE TO PROBLEM
I noticed several of her iPhoto Book projects each had thousands of "unplaced" photos. In each of those cases, each Book project only had 10-50 "placed" photos used to order the book but thousands of "unplaced" photos. In a Book project, clicking on the bottom-right corner's "Photo" icon-button caused an extremely long lasting spinning beach ball making iPhoto unusable for long periods.
I discovered the problem by clicking once on an existing Book project's name in the left column of iPhoto, then letting go of the mouse with its arrow cursor hovering over the selected Book project name. Within 1-7 seconds, a little pop-up appears listing the total number of photos (placed + unplaced) in that Book project. For many Book projects, the total number was just several more photos than the number of "placed" photos, e.g., a Book with 25 photos showed "(37)" in the pop-up info by the hovering stationary mouse, meaning 37 total photos (placed + unplaced) are associated with that Book project.
BUT...
...some projects listed over 5,000 (five thousand) photos associated with a single Book project that had only placed 20-40 photos in the final printed book. One Book project had 6,070 and several other small book projects showed over 1,000 photos. In each Book project with a mass of unplaced photos, clicking the bottom-right "Photo" icon-button caused a very long-lasting spinning beach ball, almost certainly because iPhoto struggled to build a huge list of thumbnails for the mass of unplaced photos.
My client didn't understand how to efficiently add photos to a new Book project and was clicking on the pull-down menu in the right column that appears after clicking the Photo icon-button within the Book project. From the menu she chose "Last import..." or other menu choice that added a mass of "unplaced" photos to the Book project.
She didn't realize that after creating a new Book project, she could simply drag an individual photo or multi-selected group of photos or an event or "faces" group from its respective library section and drop it onto the Book project's name in the left column, thereby adding only a small group of "unplaced" photos.
USER SOLUTIONS
=====Delete mass of "unplaced photos" within a Book project
This works best for cleaning up smaller number of unplaced photos from completed Book projects.
Problems with solution:
- if the number of unplaced photos is huge, e.g., 6,070, the list of unplaced photos won't appear for a long, long time if ever.
- even if the list of unplaced photos finally appears, there's no way to select more than one thumbnail at a time, i.e., command-a for Select All doesn't work, nor do shift-clicks and command-clicks for multi-item selecting. You must click one photo then tap the "delete" key on your keyboard repeatedly and fast for this to be practical (note: delete key presses are cached here (meaning accumulated until it catches up processing them later); tapping the delete key like mad then waiting for iPhoto to catch up takes lots of patience.
====Delete an entire existing Book project containing a mass association of unplaced photos
This is practical if you've already printed your Book project and no longer need it. My client chose this method for Book projects with a mega mass of unplaced photos.
Problem with solution:
- for incomplete Book projects in progress with a mass of unplaced photos, you'd have to start over after deleting the whole thing.
NEED FOR IMPROVED IPHOTO FEATURE(S)
(1) The existing "Clear Placed Photos" button within a Book project might be useful, but it'd be even better to also have a button to "Clear Unplaced Photos,” and this button should be available outside of the section that struggles to display thumbnails of large numbers of unplaced photos. Clicking "Clear Unplaced Photos" would do the trick.
(2) An additional iPhoto behavior might help: iPhoto should warn with an option to cancel when adding a mass of photos to the "unplaced photo" section if the number of photos exceeds ??? (400??).
(3) Add another choice to iPhoto’s special startup Administrative window (Repair, Rebuild, etc.): "Remove unplaced photos from existing projects. (Doesn't destroy any photos in Library)"
Whew!

Like I mentioned in the post, corruption was probably ruled out by running all the Admin features at iPhoto startup (e.g., Rebuild, etc.). I also stated in my post that I also ran a Disk Verify and Repaired Permissions in OSX (via Disk Utility). I also emptied system Library cache files as I stated in my post.
I was paid to figure out the solution and am not getting paid to troubleshoot for Apple. The more unplaced photos there are in a Book project, the longer it takes to build thumbnails. It's an old general problem in computing when building lists on the fly.
The delay happened for all Book projects with lots of unplaced photos (almost*** certainly more than Apple imagined a user would use), and the beach ball delay was proportional to the number unplaced photos, which super large numbers of photos.
I very much doubt photos are corrupt. But Apple will probably figure it out. It was EASILY reproducible. Try it with different number of unplaced photos known not be corrupt (they display fine elsewhere and iPhoto's and Disk Utlity's admin Verify, Repair etc features show no problems).
I'm done with this.
My client's iPhoto works well now and she knows how avoid placing exorbitant numbers of unplaced photos into her project. I'm not getting paid to answer all this, so good night.
=======
***"Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends."
— A. C. Grayling

Spinning Beach Ball normal when syncing with itunes?

Just wondering if this is something that always happens to everyone - when syncing my iphone to itunes it will always stall for a few seconds and the spinning beach ball appears even though im using a brand new Macbook Air.
Is it normal? Will it always happen no matter what?
Thanks

Hi,
Since you haven't had your MBAir for long, make sure the system software is up to date.
Click the Apple () menu (top left in your screen) Software Update ...
And repair permissions.
Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done.
If you see any warnings re: SUID messages, they can be safely ignored, information here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448?viewlocale=en_US 
Restart the MBAir and restart your iPhone and try syncing to iTunes. Make sure the iPhone battery is charged to 100% before syncing regardless of whether or not it's connected to your MBAir.
Carolyn

Spinning beach ball in menu bar, sys pref does not work etc

Since last 2 days I have the following problem with Macbook:
1. When i hover the cursor over the menu bar, the beach ball appears. this is for the Mac menu items such as Airport, Spotlight, Fast switching, time & date and also for iStatmenus. However, Little Snitch menu bar indicator is not affected
2. Sysprefs also does not work. It opens up and immediately the beach ball appears and I can't click on any of the sys preferences
3. If i try to watch a video, then the video will not display, though the progress indicator will happily be progressing away (QT, VLC etc)
4. When i run in Safe mode, then everything seems to work ok (at least the menu bar, though the video part still doesn't work)
5. And also in Normal mode, Safari/Netscape Navigator/Camino et al hang & the beach ball appears, but in safe mode they work ok though very sluggish.
6. Though i can't be certain, I think all these problems began after iTunes crashed on me while running a podcast (?)
I have tried everything; repair prefs and repair disk, have run Tinkertool system2 to see if that would help but to no avail. I even downloaded and installed OS X 10.6.7 Combo update-didn't do any good.

I have been trying to deal with the same problem for the last week.
My machine is a MBP 17" 4 GB 2.6GHz, 250 GB alluminum.
1) I've immigrated my whole user apps and doc files to an IMAC 20" 2GB 2.66GHz 350 GB, and the system works just fine on the IMAC (I am using my system that used to be in the MBP right now).
2) I've over written everything on the HD with zeros and have done a clean install of SNOW LEOPARD on my MBP, but as the system got loaded, already before any working files or app files have been reinstalled, the spinning beach ball appears on the upper RIGHT portion of the menu bar and makes the system inoperable.
3) Done system update and made it into a 10.6.8 but the problem persists.
I've basically done what Ravindra had tried.
Please HELP.

My MacBook is very slow and constantly has the spinning beach ball of death!!!

In the last couple if weeks my MacBook has suddenly slowed down a LOT. Sometimes it takes ages for it to boot up when I turn it on and at other times not as long. Then once I log in, as soon as I click on something, the spinning beach ball appears and won't go away so I have to force it to restart.
It runs a little bit faster in safe mode and if I log in as a guest user, but it's still relatively slow.
So far I have tried the following:
- starting in safe mode
- resetting PRAM
- turning off then pressing ctrl, option, left shift and the power button for 10 seconds then turn it back on
- repairing disk permissions
I've been told that it might be best to reformat my mac, but in order to do this I need to back up. I bought a Seagate Back Up Plus 1TB and tried to use time machine. After a while a message popped up saying "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.". There is something on my hard drive, but I cant tell if my mac has fully backed up or not.
Any suggestions?

How large is your HD and how much space do you have left?
Check out the following & do the necessary:
User Tip: Why is my computer slow?
What to do when your computer is too slow
Speeding up your Mac
===========
Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball/freezing & crashing
Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball
Apple OSX and Time Machine Tips (Leopard - ML
Mac Basics: Time Machine
OS X Mountain Lion: Alternatives for backing up your Mac
User Tip: Most commonly used backup methods
Emergency backups you didn't know you had!

Spinning beach ball in iBooks Author

Why is it that the spinning beach ball appears so frequently when using this program!
It makes using it VERY frustrating and slows down my work flow.
Someone has replied to a similar problem and suggest 'chunking' your book.
This will not work for me though as the book is not very large.
Anyone else have this problem?

How large is your book?
How many images?
How much ram in your computer?
How much free space on your hard drive?
See Optimizing performance in your iBooks Author books
Ken

Spinning beach ball festival

Hi
After searching the forum for "spinning beach ball" related articles, finding few, perhaps missing the ones that would have been helpful, we'd like to submit the following situation to the expertise of this community.
Putting together video material on a PowerBook G4 with 1GB Ram and external HD LaCie FW800 300GB, and FCE 3.0. Individual shots appear correctly in the viewer; put together with In and Out points in the Timeline. Very simple editing - no effects, no filters, just putting one after the other.
When viewing the edit in the canvas (can be from 4' to 20'), the flow sometimes stops and after a couple of seconds a spinning beach ball appears. Have to Force Quit afterwards. Taught us to save before viewing in the Canvas.
The same edits, the timeline, exports to QuickTime with no problem, can be viewed in QuickTime, RealPlayer, etc. The combination of edits, 1 hour and 4 minutes, exports to QT with no problem, we are presently writing it to a DVD. But we'd really like to go back to the canvas to view and fine tune.
The SBB appear usually at the same locations. Some happen every time, others crop up and stay. We've made an install of FCE on a different machine, hoping it would reveal a machine dependant problem, but we have the SBB at the same locations.
What can we do ?
Thanks, Robert & Gill

Would recapturing be much of a problem? Just re-capture into a new project, no editing, and then see if that gives trouble. If so, try capturing each half only, separately into different new projects, to see whether the problem is linked to some frames in the footage. Or delete successively chunks of frames from a full capture and see if the problem disappears. More rigorously, (to avoid changing the length of the project when the length itself might be the source of the problem), delete chunks of frames and replace by copying and pasting other similar lengths. See if a different project of similar length does/does not give problems. (The "divide and conquer" approach.)

Spinning beach ball at login screen after upgrading to 10.4.8

Ok, I so used software update to install the 10.4.8 update (I know, big mistake, should have used combo update, etc.), and upon restart can't get past the login screen. After several seconds, the spinning beach ball appears and that's it. Been like that for hours.
Booted into single user mode and ran fsck, says that the volume is fine. diskutil stalls out in single user mode (can't place my hands on the install CD, otherwise I'd use diskutil fron that).
So, ideas?

I had this happen on my wife's iBook G4.. Here's what I did..
Remove the battery.. Unplug the power. Let it sit for a few seconds. (30 to be safe)..
Then plug it all back in
Turn it on and press APPLE-OPTION-P-R immediately after pressing the power button and hold it in for a LONG time.. even after you hear the chime.. keep holding it in for FOUR CHIMES and FOUR initialiations of the CD/DVD drive.
Then let go and let it boot.. you will then see the Apple Grey screen and it should boot normally.. Once it boots, repair permissions immediately.
At least that's what worked on her iBook, exact same problem.
Hope this helps.
Greg

Right clicking causing spinning beach ball

I am having trouble with accessing contextual menus via right clicking in several applications. I use Pathfinder and every time I right click on a file/folder the program hangs and need to force quit. I searched their forums/support site and saw several complaints about this since Snow Leopard. So I thought it was a PathFinder problem.
Now I noticed it happens also in Excel 2004, Evernote, iTunes 9.0.2.
I have not tested all my apps but it doesn't happen in Mail, Safari, Finder, Address Book, 1Password, etc.
In searching forums, etc. I have found complaints about many of these individual applications without any consistent resolution.
This seems like a bigger issue than an individual application.
I am running SL 10.6.2 and Mac Pro quad core Xeon
Any help, thanks.
Jim

Thanks a lot for the quick reply. This helped me isolate the problem. It appears that Pathfinder has a problem.
After I followed you suggestion I tried each of the applications that I was having problems with. First I tried Pathfinder because I have that starting at Login. I still got the spinning beach ball. I forced quit. Then tried iTunes - worked fine. Then I tried Excel - worked fine. Then I tried Evernote - worked fine. Tried Pathfinder again - spinning beach ball. This time I just left it and didn't force quit. I tried iTunes and Evernote - worked fine. Tried Excel - spinning beach ball.
So I rebuilt LaunchServices again and this time tried Pathfinder last. All other applications worked fine until I tried right clicking in Pathfinder then I started having right clicking problems in some other applications.
I am going to share this with the Pathfinder folks. Like I said I did see some complaints of this problems there. I didn't understand that it could cause me problems in the other apps.
btw - after rebuilding the LaunchServices as you suggested I also noticed that my login time was DRAMATICALLY reduced. I load about 10 apps at login and they all loaded very fast now. So that rebuild really helped with that also.
also - I use Onyx about once a month and run many of the recommended scripts. I noticed that they offer an option to rebuild LaunchServices. Do you know if this is the same thing as the command you recommended?
Thanks so much for your help.
Jim

Spinning beach ball appears at random for a radom period of time

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for