Spinning Beach Ball - no desktop icons

Today, while I was moving between Word and Safari, at some point I got the never-ending spinning beach ball of death. I eventually force quit and restarted. Everything came up but the desktop icons -- like my HD icon and the files on my desktop -- and the beach ball continues to spin and won't quit. I have restarted several times and it's always the same thing.
I can open software by going into the dock and even get online. However, if I try to use the Finder it won't let me and I am locked into the spinning ball. I read these forums and didn't see any problem identical to this with the spinning beach ball of death. I tried repairing the permissions and repaired the disk. I have 1 GB RAM so I think that's not the issue.
Help!
PowerBook G4 15" Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I tried the things regarding deleting Finder preferences from the X Lab, but that didn't work.
I took my PowerBook into the Genius Bar tonight and the Genius took a look at it. He said sometimes too many files on the desktop or a corrupt file on the desktop can cause the Finder to not respond. I didn't have that many files on the desktop, but remembered downloading a PDF from an email shortly before the problem. He worked on it in the single user mode until he could access my desktop files. We deleted the PDF just for good measure. After he worked some other magical things having to do with my desktop folder and the permissions, and then repairing the permissions -- everything is working great. Whew.
PowerBook G4 15" Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Similar Messages

Spinning beach ball on desktop of macbook pro of 2013 is not stopping

After downloading a .pdf file from the internet on the desktop, when I wanted to see the name of file, I am encountered with a spinning beach ball which is not stopping. It occured once more in this week. And immediate after 3 months of purchase of the MacBook Pro it appeared for the first time, which compelled me to reinstall OS X 10.9.1 and then, be updated.
Why?
I shall appreciate if anyone can help me out of this recurring problem of Spinning Beach Ball.

Check out: Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball/freezing & crashing
Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball
Have you read for possible solutions over in the "More Like This" thread over here?----------------------->
=================
If you are still under warranty and/or have AppleCare, call them. Let them deal w/it.
OOW: Take your Mac to your local Apple Store or an AASP. Diagnostic testing is FREE!

Spinning beach ball and no Finder icons

I am trying to troubleshoot this problem:
My brother was trying to move a lot of JPGs (3,500 of them!) by dragging from one folder to another, but he missed the target folder and they started appearing on his desktop. The only way he could think of to kill the process was to Restart.
After restarting, the system seems to load normally EXCEPT all the icons on his desktop are missing (including the ones for his hard drives) AND the Finder cursor is the spinning beach ball.
Mail, Safari, etc, will load and function normally, but he can't use the Finder. Activity Monitor shows the Finder using high 90s of %CPU.
So far we have tried: Restarting in Safe Mode, Repairing permissions, and running Disk First Aid from the Install DVD - with no problems found and no helpful results.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
gw

HI Gary,
Besides trashing the Finder plist file which would have been my first idea first also, try deleting this one too: com.apple.desktop.plist /Users/YourName/Library/Preferences. Open the Preferences folder, locate that file and drag it to the Trash, empty the Trash and reboot. Your Mac will create new pref files for you.
Also.. thought of something else. Go to a clear space on your Desktop so it says Finder in the Menu. Now click Command + Option + Esc on your keyboard. A Force Quit window will open. Select Finder in the list and click Relaunch.
*** Performance tip: Keep the Desktop clutter-free (empty, if possible) ***
Mac OS X's Desktop is the de facto location for downloaded files, and for many users, in-progress works that will either be organized later or deleted altogether. The desktop can also be gluttonous, however, becoming a catch-all for files that linger indefinitely.
Unfortunately - aside from the effect of disarray it creates - keeping dozens or hundreds of files on the Desktop can significantly degrade performance. Not necessarily because the system is sluggish with regard to rendering the icons on the desktop and storing them in memory persistently (which may be true in some cases), but more likely because keeping an excessive number of items on the Desktop can cause the windowserver process to generate reams of logfiles, which obviously draws resources away from other system tasks. Each of your icons on your desktop is stored as a window in the window server, not as an alias. The more you have stored, the more strain it puts on the window server. Check your desktop for unnecessary icons and clear them out.
Keeping as few items as possible on the Desktop can prove a surprisingly effective performance boon. Even creating a single folder on your Desktop and placing all current and future clutter inside, then logging out and back in can provide an immediately noticeable speed boost, particularly for the Finder.
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

I accidentally quit my CC on my Macbook pro and now the cloud icon is grayed out and every time I hover over it with the mouse I get the spinning beach ball of death on the icon. I have no idea how to open it because when I use spotlight search to open it

I accidentally quit my CC on my Macbook pro and now the cloud icon is grayed out and every time I hover over it with the mouse I get the spinning beach ball of death on the icon. I have no idea how to open it because when I use spotlight search to open it it gives me a message saying "Creative Cloud is not open anymore" help!

Since you didn't include any pertinent info such as the Mac model and OS version you are running, here is some general information:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Depending on which OS yours came with originally - and which OS you are now running - you would either need your original install disks - you can call Apple for replacements by giving them your serial number. Or you may be able to reinstall the OS by using recovery (again, depends on which model/which OS).

3G no longer shows up on desktop, spinning beach ball on iTunes launch

After playing with my new 3G all day, which included several successful syncs with iTunes, the iPhone no longer shows up on the desktop. iTunes launches automatically but just sits there with the spinning beach ball. Have to Force Quit. The iPhone also no longer displays Sync In Progress. Repaired Permissions, restarted, tried various combinations of plugging/unplugging the iPhone with no success. Any ideas?

I am having this problem too, but I just leave it plugged in and eventually it pops up. It has taken up to 3 minutes.
How long have you given it?

Safari Spinning Beach Ball after 10.5.5, Camera Raw Update, and Rmt Desktop

Safari is having real problems after remote desktop and camera raw update. Safari is totally unusable. Spinning beach ball forever and brings the entire machine to a hault. Hope someone can help with a fix soon
I zapped the pram. Tried deleting safari preferences. Cleaned out all the caches and histories. Rebuilt the permissions. Reset safari and reboot many times. No love.
I am now in the process of reapply the combo updater for 10.5.5, and repairing thee premissions one last time.

Hi,
If Safari continues to misbehave, Save your Bookmarks by using File/Export Bookmarks and any other personal information you have stored. Delete the Safari and app, download and reinstall:
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
Make sure and run Disk Utility from your Applications/Utilities folder and Repair Disk Permissions BEFORE and AFTER each and every update or upgrade.
Carolyn

ITunes 7.7 Update and iPod classic = Spinning Beach Ball

Just upgraded to the new iTunes 7.7 (iphone 2.0 and app store support). After, I plugged in my ipod classic and it took almost 5 minutes of the "spinning beach ball" to recognize the ipod. I check and it says my software (1.1.2) is up to date. I ejected and tried it again. Same thing. Once recognized, the ipod classic seems to work fine in iTunes, but still not sure about all options.
Anyone else upgrade iTunes and find the same thing happening?
Note: No option to sync ipod classic games any more. A new "Applications" designation listed in iTunes 7.7 (which has my purchased games listed), but no way to "sync" them or resync them if there were to be an issue or if I wanted to remove the game now and sync it again later...

I'm having the same problem. Last night I wanted to update my iPhone to 2.0 so I had to update iTunes first. When I connect my iPhone, everything works fine (thank God). But quite a different story when I connected my 80 GB classic today. Spinning beachball, iPod icon appears on desktop and in Finder, but iTunes does not show my iPod.
I've tried everything I can think of from resetting my iPod to reinstalling iTunes. Nothing has worked for me.
Is there no fix to this yet? Has anyone solved the problem? Are we suppose to wait for Apple to solve this problem?
Dirk

Print error - there was a problem connecting to the server - spinning beach ball

This has happened pre-yosemite and since. It used to only happen at home but now also happens at work. Every time I try to print, I get a spinning beach ball and a long delay until I get an error message saying there was a problem connecting to the server. At home, after clicking OK, I get a second spinning beach ball session with same error. Once I click OK second time, I get print window and can print. At work, it's only one session of spinning beach ball. The office problem occurred after upgrading to yosemite. I've deleted and added the printers without resolution. I've repaired permissions. The home problem has been going on for at least a year, probably a couple. Using a macbook pro.

There are many possible causes for this issue, and it may be very hard to resolve without wiping your account clean of everything except documents as a last resort. Please take each of the following steps that you haven't already tried. Back up all data before making any changes.
If you get the alert in the login screen before you log in, stop here and ask for instructions.
Step 1
If you get the alert as soon as you log in, it's probably caused by one of your login items or by software that otherwise loads at startup or login. Ask if you need help identifying it. Known offenders are "1Password" and "Adobe Resource Synchronizer."
Step 2
If there's an icon representing the server in the sidebar of a Finder window, hold down the command key and drag it out.
Step 3
In the Finder, press the key combination command-K or select
          Go ▹ Go to Server...
from the menu bar. In the upper right corner of the window that opens is a Recent Servers popup menu represented by a clock icon. From that menu, select
          Clear Recent Servers…
and confirm. Test.
Step 4
Open the Printers & Scanners pane in System Preferences and delete any network devices you no longer use. If in doubt, delete them all and add back the ones you want.
Step 5
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the text to the Clipboard by pressing command-C:
~/Library/PDF Services
In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return. A folder may open. If it does, move the contents to the Desktop, or to a new folder on the Desktop. Log out and log back in. Test. If there's no change, put the items you moved back where they were and continue.
Step 6
Open the folder
~/Library/Preferences
as in Step 5 and move the file named "loginwindow.plist" items in that folder to the Trash, if it exists (it may not.)
Log out and back in again, and test.
Step 7
Other possible causes are references in the iPhoto, iTunes, or iMovie library pointing to the server, bookmarks in the Preview application, and PDF files created by Adobe Acrobat with embedded scripts.
Try rebuilding the iPhoto library, if applicable.
Step 8
Resources such as images or sounds stored on the server may have been added to various applications. Examples would be pictures added to Contacts and custom sounds added to Mail. The range of possibilites here is practically infinite, so I can't be more specific. You might get a hint by launching the Console application and looking for error messages that appear at the same time as the alerts.
Step 9
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to start up. Start up in safe mode. Test. After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem.
Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Step 10
Triple-click the line below to select it:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Utility.app
Rght-click or control-click the highlighted text and select
          Services ▹ Open
from the contextual menu.* The application Directory Utility will open.
In the Directory Utility window, select the Directory Editor tool in the toolbar. Select Mounts from the Viewing menu in the toolbar, and/Local/Default from the node menu, if not already selected. On the right is a list of names and values. By default, the list is empty. If it's not empty, post a screenshot of the window and stop here.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). Open a TextEdit window and paste into it (command-V). Select the line you just pasted and continue as above.
Step 11
Open the following file as you did in the last step:
/etc/auto_master
It will open in a TextEdit window. The contents should be exactly this:
# Automounter master map
+auto_master          # Use directory service
/net               -hosts          -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home               auto_home     -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers     -fstab
/-               -static
If there are any other lines in the window, post them. Otherwise, close the window.

My mac is running slow, the spinning beach ball constantly appears. it seems that when i am in the apple store with fast wifi its a bit better. genius at the apple store checked the hard drive, it's all fine. what can it be?

my mac is running slow, the spinning beach ball constantly appears. it seems that when i am in the apple store with fast wifi its a bit better. genius at the apple store checked the hard drive, it's all fine. what can it be? can it be a software issue with the wifi?
also i noted that it has only been doing this since quite recently, before it was fine
please help!

First, back up all data immediately, as your boot drive might be failing.
Step 1
This diagnostic procedure will query the log for messages that may indicate a system issue. It changes nothing, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|find tok|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|timed? ?o' | tail | open -ef
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Normally the command will produce no output, and the window will be empty. If the TextEdit window (not the Terminal window) has anything in it, stop here and post it — the text, please, not a screenshot. The title of the TextEdit window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that.
Step 2
There are a few other possible causes of generalized slow performance that you can rule out easily.
Disconnect all non-essential wired peripherals and remove aftermarket expansion cards, if any.
Reset the System Management Controller.
Run Software Update. If there's a firmware update, install it.
If you're booting from an aftermarket SSD, see whether there's a firmware update for it.
If you have a portable computer, check the cycle count of the battery. It may be due for replacement.
If you have many image or video files on the Desktop with preview icons, move them to another folder.
If applicable, uncheck all boxes in the iCloud preference pane. See whether there's any change.
Check your keychains in Keychain Access for excessively duplicated items.
Boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, and run Repair Disk.
If you have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, disable automatic graphics switching in the Energy Saverpreference pane for better performance at the cost of shorter battery life.
Step 3
When you notice the problem, launch the Activity Monitor application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the icon grid.
Select the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor window.
Select All Processes from the View menu or the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected.
Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for User, System, and Idle at the bottom of the window.
Select the Memory tab. What value is shown in the bottom part of the window for Swap used?
Next, select the Disk tab. Post the approximate values shown for Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec (not Reads in andWrites out.)
Step 4
If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out this step.
Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Activity Monitor. Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Select the 50 or so most recent entries in the log. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combinationcommand-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V). You're looking for entries at the end of the log, not at the beginning.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some personal information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting. That should be easy to do if your extract is not too long.

Problem with Spinning Beach Balls

I am hoping someone can help me diagnose my issue and help me understand the log below. About every other month on my MBP I run into system slow down and spinning beach balls. I run disk utility and it tells me my disk is corrupted and needs to be repaired. I run Disk Warrior and the disk is repaired and problem goes away. For awhile. Only to return in a month or two. Getting tiring to have to keep doing this.
I needed to repair it again this am. The log of Disk Warrior (copied below) seems to suggest something is wrong with a file called .Mobilebackups under the HD. When I search the HD I cannot find this file nor do I do any mobile backups of my phone. How can I permanently resolve this?
Thanks in advance for any help.
DiskWarrior has successfully built a new optimized directory for the disk named "Macintosh HD." The new directory is ready to replace the original directory.
Notes:
All file and folder data was easily located.
Comparison of the original and replacement directories indicates that there will be changes to the number, the contents and/or the attributes of the files and folders. It is recommended that you preview the replacement directory and examine the items listed below. All files and folders were compared and a total of 21,365,288 comparison tests were performed.
• Errors, if any, in the directory structure such as tree depth, header node, map nodes, node size, node counts, node links, indexes and more have been repaired.
Disk: "Macintosh HD"
Repaired the Available Disk Space of the Volume Information Location: "Desktop"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-26-070154/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-26-070154/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-27-075245/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-27-075245/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Camera Uploads"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-26-070154/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/ Dropbox/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-28-080754/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "MAMP_MAMP_PRO_2.0.5.zip.download"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-27-075245/Volume/Users/sadelman/Downloads/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-063631/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-080149/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-163310/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-28-080754/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Applications (Parallels)"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-205449/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "{f7566142-994b-4ed7-bfd2-aa2024ef5428} Applications.localized"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-205449/Volume/Users/sadelman/Applications (Parallels)/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-205449/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-213408/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Applications (Parallels)"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-213408/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "{f7566142-994b-4ed7-bfd2-aa2024ef5428} Applications.localized"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-213408/Volume/Users/sadelman/Applications (Parallels)/"
Folder: "Parallels"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-213408/Volume/Users/sadelman/Library/"
Folder: "{f7566142-994b-4ed7-bfd2-aa2024ef5428} Applications Menu.localized"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-213408/Volume/Users/sadelman/Library/ Parallels/Applications Menus/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-221036/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Dropbox"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-221036/Volume/Users/sadelman/Desktop/"
Folder: "Applications (Parallels)"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-221036/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "{f7566142-994b-4ed7-bfd2-aa2024ef5428} Applications.localized"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-29-221036/Volume/Users/sadelman/Applications (Parallels)/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-30-062629/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Documents"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-30-063217/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "Applications (Parallels)"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-30-063217/Volume/Users/sadelman/"
Folder: "{f7566142-994b-4ed7-bfd2-aa2024ef5428} Applications.localized"
Repaired Custom Icon Flag
Location: "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups/Computer/2012-05-30-063217/Volume/Users/sadelman/Applications (Parallels)/"
Explanations:
Custom Icon Flag: Every folder has a flag that indicates whether or not it has a custom icon. Repairs ensure that the icons of these folders will be properly displayed.
Volume Information: Every disk has information that describes its contents. Repairs prevent problems such as wasted disk space and applications not functioning properly.
Disk Information:
Files: 769,328
Folders: 192,999
Free Space: 62.83 GB
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Block Size: 4,096
Disk Sectors: 623,463,232
Media: TOSHIBA MK3255GSXF
Time: 5/30/12 6:53:15 AM DiskWarrior Version: 4.2

The file .MobileBackups indicates that you have Time Machine turned on but your Mac is not connected to the backup drive so it makes temporary copies for when you connect back to backup drive.
These tempoary backups can eat up all of your free space which will slow down your Mac.
How much free space do you have?
You should consider either turning off Time Machine or connecting to the backup drive on a more frequent interval.
Allan

Address Book - spinning beach ball.

We have an older Mac in the shop which is still running 10.3 and every time you start up the Address Book application all you get is a spinning beach ball if you click on any of the cards. The only thing you can do is force quit.
So far I've tried the following things:
1. Repairing permissions.
2. Deleting the AB prefs.
3. Moving the Address Book folder in the User Preference Panes to the desktop (so the Address Book would start without any cards).
4. Moving the Address Book app to the desktop.
So far nothing has worked. Even starting the app without the contacts, as soon as you click on anything you get a spinning beach ball and are forced to quit.
Suggestions...?
Tx.
MJX.

Hi MJX!
Is Address Book the only application that is troublesome?
Exactly which model Mac G4 is it?
Which version number of Panther 10.3.x is it upgraded to?
What is the Processor speed?
What size is the Hard Drive, and how much space is available?
How much RAM is installed, and is it original or added?
What happened between the last time the AB functioned successfully, and when it didn't?
Have you made any changes, like upgrading the system, updated or installed any applications or programs, etc?
Have you disabled, deleted, or added any Fonts?
Are you able to startup from the system install disc to run Repair Disk?
Is the Mac shutdown overnight, or does it run 24/7?
Have you ever run any routine Maintenance procedures?
THESE ARE THE STEPS FOR USING DISK UTILITY TO REPAIR YOUR HD
1.Insert the System Install disk, Mac OS X CD-ROM disk, or Restore DVD disk, then restart the computer while holding the C key. Use the System disk, of the OS, that is currently installed.
2.Once started up from CD or DVD, on the Menubar at the top of the screen, choose Disk Utility from the Installer contextual menu.
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from disc to access Disk Utility.
3.Click the First Aid tab.
4.Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5.Select your Mac OS X volume, if necessary.
6.Click Repair. If DU reports errors it has fixed, re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported.
7.Repeat steps 5 & 6, but select the Hard Drive this time. It's usually the first listed with the manufacturer's model number. Make note of the S.M.A.R.T. status.
8.When finished, select Quit Disk Utility from the Installer menu.
9.Select Quit Installer from the Installer menu.
10.In the resulting pop-up window, choose restart.
11.After the computer has restarted, you can eject the CD.
ali b

Spinning "Beach Ball" in Finder

I have a 2007 MacBook Pro running OS10.9.5. I recently noticed that whenever I double-click on an icon in the Finder the "spinning beach ball" occurs for about 20 seconds. Afterwards, the page will then load. This problem does not occur in any app; only the Finder.
I wold appreciate any thoughts as to why this issue occurred all of a sudden. Thank you kindly.

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.
Don't be put off by the complexity of these instructions. The process is much less complicated than the description. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.
2. If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.
There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. As I wrote above, it changes nothing. It doesn't send or receive any data on the network. All it does is to generate a human-readable report on the state of the computer. That report goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. If you prefer, you can act on it yourself without disclosing the contents to me or anyone else.
You should be wondering whether you can believe me, and whether it's safe to run a program at the behest of a stranger. In general, no, it's not safe and I don't encourage it.
In this case, however, there are a couple of ways for you to decide whether the program is safe without having to trust me. First, you can read it. Unlike an application that you download and click to run, it's transparent, so anyone with the necessary skill can verify what it does.
You may not be able to understand the script yourself. But variations of the script have been posted on this website thousands of times over a period of years. The site is hosted by Apple, which does not allow it to be used to distribute harmful software. Any one of the millions of registered users could have read the script and raised the alarm if it was harmful. Then I would not be here now and you would not be reading this message.
Nevertheless, if you can't satisfy yourself that these instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.
4. Here's a summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:
☞ Copy a line of text in this window to the Clipboard.
☞ Paste into the window of another application.
☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.
☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.
The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time. Details follow.
5. You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode, under the conditions in which the problem is reproduced. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.
6. If you have more than one user, and the one affected by the problem is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.
7. The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in the browser window, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/libexec;clear;cd;p=(Software Hardware Memory Diagnostics Power FireWire Thunderbolt USB Fonts SerialATA 4 1000 25 5120 KiB/s 1024 85 \\b%% 20480 1 MB/s 25000 ports ' com.clark.\* \*dropbox \*GoogleDr\* \*k.AutoCAD\* \*k.Maya\* vidinst\* ' DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES\ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH -86 "` route -n get default|awk '/e:/{print $2}' `" 25 N\\/A down up 102400 25600 recvfrom sendto CFBundleIdentifier 25 25 25 1000 MB com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent 464843899 51 5120 files );N5=${#p[@]};p[N5]=` networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder|awk ' NR>1 { sub(/^$[0-9]+$ /,"");n=$0;getline;} $NF=="'${p[26]}')" { sub(/.$/,"",$NF);print n;exit;} ' `;f=('\n%s: %s\n' '\n%s\n\n%s\n' '\nRAM details\n%s\n' %s\ %s '%s\n-\t%s\n' );S0() { echo ' { q=$NF+0;$NF="";u=$(NF-1);$(NF-1)="";gsub(/^ +| +$/,"");if(q>='${p[$1]}') printf("%s (UID %s) is using %s '${p[$2]}'",$0,u,q);} ';};s=(' /^ *$|CSConfigDot/d;s/^ */ /;s/[-0-9A-Fa-f]{22,}/UUID/g;s/(ochat)\.[^.]+(\..+)/\1\2/;/Shared/!s/\/Users\/[^/]+/~/g ' ' s/^ +//;/de: S|[nst]:/p;' ' {sub(/^ +/,"")};/er:/;/y:/&&$2<'${p[10]} ' 1s/://;3,6d;/[my].+:/d;s/^ {4}//;H;${ g;s/\n$//;/s: [^EO]|x([^08]|02[^F]|8[^0])/p;} ' ' 5h;6{ H;g;/P/!p;} ' ' ($1~/^Cy/&&$3>'${p[11]}')||($1~/^Cond/&&$2!~/^N/) ' ' /:$/{ N;/:.+:/d;s/ *://;b0'$'\n'' };/^ *(V.+ [0N]|Man).+ /{ s/ 0x.... //;s/[()]//g;s/(.+: )(.+)/ (\2)/;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;s/\n\n//;/Apple[ ,]|Genesy|Intel|SMSC/d;s/\n.*//;/\)$/p;' ' s/^.*C/C/;H;${ g;/No th|pms/!p;} ' '/= [^GO]/p' '{$1=""};1' ' /Of/!{ s/^.+is |\.//g;p;} ' ' $0&&!/ / { n++;print;} END { if(n<200) print "com.apple.";} ' ' $3~/[0-9]:[0-9]{2}$/ { gsub(/:[0-9:a-f]{14}/,"");} { print|"tail -n'${p[12]}'";} ' ' NR==2&&$4<='${p[13]}' { print $4;} ' ' END { $2/=256;if($2>='${p[15]}') print int($2) } ' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 21 22`" 'NR!=2{next}'"`S0 37 17`" ' NR!=5||$8!~/[RW]/{next};{ $(NF-1)=$1;$NF=int($NF/10000000);for(i=1;i<=3;i++){$i="";$(NF-1-i)="";};};'"`S0 19 20`" 's:^:/:p' '/\.kext\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' 's/^.{52}(.+) <.+/\1/p' ' /Launch[AD].+\.plist$/ { n++;print;} END { print "'${p[41]}'";if(n<200) print "/System/";} ' '/\.xpc\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' ' NR>1&&!/0x|\.[0-9]+$|com\.apple\.launchctl\.(Aqua|Background|System)$|'${p[41]}'/ { print $3;} ' ' /\.(framew|lproj)|\):/d;/plist:|:.+(Mach|scrip)/s/:[^:]+//p ' '/^root$/p' ' !/\/Contents\/.+\/Contents|Applic|Autom|Frameworks/&&/Lib.+\/Info.plist$/ { n++;print;} END { if(n<1100) print "/System/";} ' '/^\/usr\/lib\/.+dylib$/p' ' /Temp|emac/{next};/(etc|Preferences|Launch[AD].+)\// { sub(".(/private)?","");n++;print;} END { print "'${p[41]}'.plist\t'${p[42]}'";if(n<500) print "Launch";} ' ' /\/(Contents\/.+\/Contents|Frameworks)\/|\.wdgt\/.+\.([bw]|plu)/d;p;' 's/\/(Contents\/)?Info.plist$//;p' ' { gsub("^| |\n","\\|\\|kMDItem'${p[35]}'=");sub("^...."," ") };1 ' p '{print $3"\t"$1}' 's/\'$'\t''.+//p' 's/1/On/p' '/Prox.+: [^0]/p' '$2>'${p[43]}'{$2=$2-1;print}' ' BEGIN { i="'${p[26]}'";M1='${p[16]}';M2='${p[18]}';M3='${p[31]}';M4='${p[32]}';} !/^A/{next};/%/ { getline;if($5<M1) a="user "$2"%, system "$4"%";} /disk0/&&$4>M2 { b=$3" ops/s, "$4" blocks/s";} $2==i { if(c) { d=$3+$4+$5+$6;next;};if($4>M3||$6>M4) c=int($4/1024)" in, "int($6/1024)" out";} END { if(a) print "CPU: "a;if(b) print "I/O: "b;if(c) print "Net: "c" (KiB/s)";if(d) print "Net errors: "d" packets/s";} ' ' /r\[0\] /&&$NF!~/^1(0|72\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])|92\.168)\./ { print $NF;exit;} ' ' !/^T/ { printf "(static)";exit;} ' '/apsd|BKAg|OpenD/!s/:.+//p' ' (/k:/&&$3!~/(255\.){3}0/ )||(/v6:/&&$2!~/A/ ) ' ' $1~"lR"&&$2<='${p[25]}';$1~"li"&&$3!~"wpa2";' ' BEGIN { FS=":";p="uniq -c|sed -E '"'s/ +\$[0-9]+\$\$.+\$/\\\2 x\\\1/;s/x1$//'"'";} { n=split($3,a,".");sub(/_2[01].+/,"",$3);print $2" "$3" "a[n]$1|p;b=b$1;} END { close(p);if(b) print("\n\t* Code injection");} ' ' NR!=4{next} {$NF/=10240} '"`S0 27 14`" ' END { if($3~/[0-9]/)print$3;} ' ' BEGIN { L='${p[36]}';} !/^[[:space:]]*(#.*)?$/ { l++;if(l<=L) f=f"\n "$0;} END { F=FILENAME;if(!F) exit;if(!f) f="\n [N/A]";"file -b "F|getline T;if(T!~/^(AS.+ (En.+ )?text$|(Bo|PO).+ sh.+ text ex)/) F=F" ("T")";printf("\nContents of %s\n%s\n",F,f);if(l>L) printf("\n ...and %s more line(s)\n",l-L);} ' ' s/^ ?n...://p;s/^ ?p...:/-'$'\t''/p;' 's/0/Off/p' ' END{print NR} ' ' /id: N|te: Y/{i++} END{print i} ' ' / / { print "'"${p[28]}"'";exit;};1;' '/ en/!s/\.//p' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-M]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 39 40`" ' $10~/\(L/&&$9!~"localhost" { sub(/.+:/,"",$9);print $1": "$9;} ' '/^ +r/s/.+"(.+)".+/\1/p' 's/(.+\.wdgt)\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/\1/p' 's/^.+\/(.+)\.wdgt$/\1/p' ' /l: /{ /DVD/d;s/.+: //;b0'$'\n'' };/s: /{ /V/d;s/^ */- /;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;/APPLE [^:]+$/d;p;' ' /^find: /d;p;' "`S0 44 45`" ' BEGIN{FS="= "} /Path/{print $2} ' );c1=(system_profiler pmset\ -g nvram fdesetup find syslog df vm_stat sar ps sudo\ crontab sudo\ iotop top pkgutil 'PlistBuddy 2>&1 -c "Print' whoami cksum kextstat launchctl sudo\ launchctl crontab 'sudo defaults read' stat lsbom mdfind ' for i in ${p[24]};do ${c1[18]} ${c2[27]} $i;done;' defaults\ read scutil sudo\ dtrace sudo\ profiles sed\ -En awk /S*/*/P*/*/*/C*/*/airport networksetup mdutil sudo\ lsof test osascript\ -e );c2=(com.apple.loginwindow\ LoginHook '" /L*/P*/loginw*' "'tell app \"System Events\" to get properties of login items'|tr , \\\n" 'L*/Ca*/com.ap*.Saf*/E*/* -d 1 -name In*t -exec '"${c1[14]}"' :CFBundleDisplayName" {} \;|sort|uniq' '~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 $' '.??* -path .Trash -prune -o -type d -name *.app -print -prune' :${p[35]}\" :Label\" '{/,}L*/{Con,Pref}* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist -exec plutil -s {} \;' "-f'%N: %l' Desktop L*/Keyc*" therm sysload boot-args status " -F '\$Time \$Message' -k Sender kernel -k Message Req 'bad |Beac|caug|dead[^bl]|FAIL|fail|GPU |hfs: Ru|inval|jnl:|last value [1-9]|n Cause: -|NVDA$|pagin|proc: t|Roamed|rror|ssert|Thrott|tim(ed? ?|ing )o|WARN' -k Message Rne 'Goog|ksadm|SMC:| VALI|xpma' -o -k Sender fseventsd -k Message Req 'SL' " '-du -n DEV -n EDEV 1 10' 'acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu' '-t1 10 1' '-f -pfc /var/db/r*/com.apple.*.{BS,Bas,Es,J,OSXU,Rem,up}*.bom' '{/,}L*/Lo*/Diag* -type f -regex .\*[cgh] ! -name *ag \( -exec grep -lq "^Thread c" {} \; -exec printf \* \; -o -true $ -execdir stat -f:%Sc:%N -t%F {} \;|sort -t: -k2 |tail -n'${p[38]} '-L {/{S*/,},}L*/Lau* -type f' '-L /{S*/,}L*/StartupItems -type f -exec file {} +' '-L /S*/L*/{C*/Sec*A,E}* {/,}L*/{A*d,Ca*/*/Ex,Co{mpon,reM},Ex,Inter,iTu*/*P,Keyb,Mail/B,Pr*P,Qu*T,Scripti,Sec,Servi,Spo,Widg}* -path \\*s/Resources -prune -o -type f -name Info.plist' '/usr/lib -type f -name *.dylib' `awk "${s[31]}"<<<${p[23]}` "/e*/{auto,{cron,fs}tab,hosts,{[lp],sy}*.conf,pam.d/*,ssh{,d}_config,*.local} {,/usr/local}/etc/periodic/*/* /L*/P*{,/*}/com.a*.{Bo,sec*.ap}*t /S*/L*/Lau*/*t .launchd.conf" list getenv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf\ globalstate --proxy '-n get default' -I --dns -getdnsservers\ "${p[N5]}" -getinfo\ "${p[N5]}" -P -m\ / '' -n1 '-R -l1 -n1 -o prt -stats command,uid,prt' '--regexp --only-files --files com.apple.pkg.*|sort|uniq' -kl -l -s\ / '-R -l1 -n1 -o mem -stats command,uid,mem' '+c0 -i4TCP:0-1023' com.apple.dashboard\ layer-gadgets '-d /L*/Mana*/$USER&&echo On' '-app Safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled' "+c0 -l|awk '{print(\$1,\$3)}'|sort|uniq -c|sort -n|tail -1|awk '{print(\$2,\$3,\$1)}'" '/S*/*/Ca*/*xpc* >&- ||echo No' );N1=${#c2[@]};for j in {0..9};do c2[N1+j]=SP${p[j]}DataType;done;N2=${#c2[@]};for j in 0 1;do c2[N2+j]="-n ' syscall::'${p[33+j]}':return { @out[execname,uid]=sum(arg0) } tick-10sec { trunc(@out,1);exit(0);} '";done;l=(Restricted\ files Hidden\ apps 'Elapsed time (s)' POST Battery Safari\ extensions Bad\ plists 'High file counts' User Heat System\ load boot\ args FileVault Diagnostic\ reports Log 'Free space (MiB)' 'Swap (MiB)' Activity 'CPU per process' Login\ hook 'I/O per process' Mach\ ports kexts Daemons Agents launchd Startup\ items Admin\ access Root\ access Bundles dylibs Apps Font\ issues Inserted\ dylibs Firewall Proxies DNS TCP/IP Wi-Fi Profiles Root\ crontab User\ crontab 'Global login items' 'User login items' Spotlight Memory Listeners Widgets Parental\ Controls Prefetching SATA Descriptors XPC\ cache );N3=${#l[@]};for i in 0 1 2;do l[N3+i]=${p[5+i]};done;N4=${#l[@]};for j in 0 1;do l[N4+j]="Current ${p[29+j]}stream data";done;A0() { id -G|grep -qw 80;v[1]=$?;((v[1]==0))&&sudo true;v[2]=$?;v[3]=`date +%s`;clear >&-;date '+Start time: %T %D%n';};for i in 0 1;do eval ' A'$((1+i))'() { v=` eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((3+i))'() { v=` while read i;do [[ "$i" ]]&&eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}" \"$i\"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}";done<<<"${v[$4]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((5+i))'() { v=` while read i;do '${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$1]}" "$i";done<<<"${v[$2]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};';done;A7(){ v=$((`date +%s`-v[3]));};B2(){ v[$1]="$v";};for i in 0 1;do eval ' B'$i'() { v=;((v['$((i+1))']==0))||{ v=No;false;};};B'$((3+i))'() { v[$2]=`'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}"<<<"${v[$1]}"`;} ';done;B5(){ v[$1]="${v[$1]}"$'\n'"${v[$2]}";};B6() { v=` paste -d: <(printf "${v[$1]}") <(printf "${v[$2]}")|awk -F: ' {printf("'"${f[$3]}"'",$1,$2)} ' `;};B7(){ v=`grep -Fv "${v[$1]}"<<<"$v"`;};C0(){ [[ "$v" ]]&&echo "$v";};C1() { [[ "$v" ]]&&printf "${f[$1]}" "${l[$2]}" "$v";};C2() { v=`echo $v`;[[ "$v" != 0 ]]&&C1 0 $1;};C3() { v=`sed -E "$s"<<<"$v"`&&C1 1 $1;};for i in 1 2;do for j in 0 2 3;do eval D$i$j'(){ A'$i' $1 $2 $3; C'$j' $4;};';done;done;{ A0;D20 0 $((N1+1)) 2;D10 0 $N1 1;B0;C2 27;B0&&! B1&&C2 28;D12 15 37 25 8;A1 0 $((N1+2)) 3;C0;D13 0 $((N1+3)) 4 3;D23 0 $((N1+4)) 5 4;D13 0 $((N1+9)) 59 50;for i in 0 1 2;do D13 0 $((N1+5+i)) 6 $((N3+i));done;D13 1 10 7 9;D13 1 11 8 10;D22 2 12 9 11;D12 3 13 10 12;D23 4 19 44 13;D23 5 14 12 14;D22 6 36 13 15;D22 7 37 14 16;D23 8 15 38 17;D22 9 16 16 18;B1&&{ D22 35 49 61 51;D22 11 17 17 20;for i in 0 1;do D22 28 $((N2+i)) 45 $((N4+i));done;};D22 12 44 54 45;D22 12 39 15 21;A1 13 40 18;B2 4;B3 4 0 19;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 5 11;A1 17 41 20;B7 5;C3 22;B4 4 6 21;A3 14 7 32 6;B4 0 7 11;B3 4 0 22;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 8 11;B5 7 8;B1&&{ A2 19 26 23;B7 7;C3 23;};A2 18 26 23;B7 7;C3 24;A2 4 20 21;B7 6;B2 9;A4 14 7 52 9;B2 10;B6 9 10 4;C3 25;D13 4 21 24 26;B4 4 12 26;B3 4 13 27;A1 4 22 29;B7 12;B2 14;A4 14 6 52 14;B2 15;B6 14 15 4;B3 0 0 30;C3 29;A1 4 23 27;B7 13;C3 30;D13 24 24 32 31;D13 25 37 32 33;A2 23 18 28;B2 16;A2 16 25 33;B7 16;B3 0 0 34;B2 21;A6 47 21&&C0;B1&&{ D13 21 0 32 19;D13 10 42 32 40;D22 29 35 46 39;};D23 14 1 62 42;D12 34 43 53 44;D12 22 50 32 52;D22 0 $((N1+8)) 51 32;D13 4 8 41 6;D12 26 28 35 34;D13 27 29 36 35;A2 27 32 39&&{ B2 19;A2 33 33 40;B2 20;B6 19 20 3;};C2 36;D23 33 34 42 37;B1&&D23 35 45 55 46;D23 32 31 43 38;D12 36 47 32 48;D13 20 42 32 41;D13 37 2 48 43;D13 4 5 32 1;D13 4 3 60 5;D12 26 48 49 49;B3 4 22 57;A1 26 46 56;B7 22;B3 0 0 58;C3 47;D22 4 4 50 0;D23 22 9 37 7;A7;C2 2;} 2>/dev/null|pbcopy;exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
8. Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste by pressing command-V. The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
9. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "Syntax error" or "Event not found," enter
exec bash
and press return. Then paste the script again.
10. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, press the key combination control-C or just press return three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.
If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.
11. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, there will be nothing in the Terminal window and no indication of progress. Wait for the line
[Process completed]
to appear. If you don't see it within half an hour or so, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, close the Terminal window and report what happened. No harm will be done.
12. When the test is complete, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.
At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with the words "Start time." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "Process completed" message to appear in the Terminal window. Please wait for it and try again.
If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.
13. When you post the results, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "You are not authorized to post." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
14. This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.
Copyright © 2014 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

What causes spinning beach ball upon waking from sleep

I have a 4 year old iMac that has recently developed an intermittent problem. If I put it to sleep, sometimes on waking up, the hard drive access seems to stop. I hear a tap sound as though it was trying to read the disk, but it gets stuck and a spinning beach ball appears instead of the cursor. I can move it around, but I cannot perform any actions. The ball will stay forever if I let it.
Another variation occurs shortly after wake-up, where I start to click on a file on the desktop or even an icon in the Dock. The name will become highlighted and then the same spinning beach ball appears.
The only cure for the behavior has been to shut it down and reboot. It then works fine.
The weird thing is that I have just been using it for 6 hours straight with out any hassles... until I will put it to sleep!
I have tried running Disk Utility from the Leopard System Disk as well as repairing permissions and I have used Disk Warrior 4 . It seemed to allow about 6-8 sleep cycles before the symptoms re-appeared.
I verified the disk and repaired the permissions again yesterday and all seemed OK. Yet today, when I started up from sleep. the system froze. The only cure so far is to never allow the hard drive to sleep. I put the display to sleep after 15 minutes but the hard drive continues to spin.
I am concerned that not sleeping the hard drive will do harm to it.
I am using OS 10.5.8 on a 233 Ghz Core 2 Duo iMac
I have Parallels 4 installed and cannot tell you if the problems started after a PC session.

HI Studio Guy,
Welcome to the forums. When ever your having trouble with a computer; it's really a good idea to back every thing up. If your not backing up; http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427 explains how to back up your computer to an external hard drive. (assuming your using 10.5 or 10.6)
You could try running a hardware test on the computer. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509
You could try a safeboot, it can repair lots of issues. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455
This article explains how to delete the sleep image; a bad sleep image can cause wake from sleep issues. http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/11/sleepimage-mac/
But if your hard drive is rapidly making a taping noise you may want to take it to a genius bar; they might recommend replacing the hard drive. http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

Mavericks Screen Capture causes spinning beach ball

Trained by experience never to install a brand new operating system on top of a perfectly functioning one (unless I want to risk many wasting times and losing productivity), to test out the new Mac OS, I installed Mavericks on an external FireWire drive by upgrading a fresh install of Snow Leopard, updated to its maximum version. Nothing else was on the volume, for I had used Disk Utility to securely erase and content and overwrite the volume with zeros.
Immediately after the Mavericks, I looked at the System Profile, taking some screen captures of selected windows. While Mavericks successfully captured the screens, it failed to display them when I selected one and hit the space bar. Instead, mavericks presented a perpetually spinning beach ball that prevented me from doing anything else on the Mac. I was forced to shut down.
Upon restart back into Mavericks, I encountered the same problem. I had to force power off again.
After rebooting into Mountain Lion on my internal hard drive, I ran a complete series of hard drive maintenance utilities involving all the tools I have, including Disk Utility, Drive Genius, Disk Warrior, and Tech Tool Pro. All ran successfully and reported no problems. I then capped things by running iDefrag to eliminate file fragmentation and to optimize the volume. With several hours of labor invested in preparing the external hard disk, downloading Mavericks' installer, running the Mavericks installer, performing all the pertinent maintenance routines I could think of, and finally optimizing the volume, which has no other software on it besides the new Apple operating system, I restarted the Mavericks volume. I then took a fresh screen capture, selected it, pressed the space bar, and I still got that infernal spinning beach ball.
I let it run for at least half an hour as I returned to watching a football game, hoping things would finally get cleared up. They did not. The ball still spun. I could not even get to the Finder to peek into the Force Quit command under the Apple icon. So, as originally condemned, I was compelled to hold down the power button to regain control of my computer, which this new, appropriately named operating system had wrested from me.
Anyone having a similar problem? Anyone aware of a sure-fire solution, other than to avoid relying on this new operating system, which must be my policy until such glitches get fixed?
At least you know now why I consider it unwise to install a brand new OS atop of one that has served you well.

OK, it’s Wednesday now, late afternoon, following a long yesterday, spent exclusively on getting Mavericks installed, a day which continued well into night, approaching the sun rise, until I collapsed. No one can tell me that the Mavericks installation is without errors! Your mileage may differ, if you’re lucky. But if you had to go through what I just did, you’ll long for the days of System 7, when all you had to do was shove a half-dozen floppy disks into a floppy drive to get your Mac up and running without such angst.
SHORT ANSWER:
After many twists and turns that Apple should have foreseen and not inflicted upon customers, I finally managed to get Mavericks installed on my external Firewire hard drive.
I did follow your lead, Baltwo, that the nature of the problem might lay in corrupt preferences files on the primary Account, but, as I attempted a couple of days, I modified your suggestion that I cherry-pick which plist files might be good vs. which might be corrupt, by deleting the whole **** account. A couple of days ago, my intuition told me that doing that was the wiser way to proceed; today I felt compelled to do exactly that, because I had no other choice.
The reasons I had to do that is elaborated upon below.
LONGER EXPLANATION and DETAILS:
As I explained in the message I composed on Tuesday morning, I felt so insecure that I did not obtain a well-functioning operating system that I had decided to start the installation all over from scratch.
It took all day Monday to again use Disk Utility to securely erase the volume and prepare it for the new installation. When I tried to short-cut the process by doing a Quick Erase, the volume refused to accept the installation of Snow Leopard 10.6.3 from the DVD. On top of that, I again encountered difficulties in installing Snow Leopard from the DVD, because the installer just could not close the deal. The gauge runs up to the 99% mark, and it hangs there saying that it is “Moving items into place.” Sure, it is!
I’m a patient guy, so I let the installer do its thing for about four hours while I watched the World Series game. (Yeah, Red Sox!) But by the time the game was over, so was my patience. I had to Force Power Off the Mac and restart it.
Since I have no confidence in an operating system whose installer failed to do its job properly, I felt that I had to do more. Before I did that, though, I did a Google search to find out if my experience was unique. It is not! The forums are full of people who have complained about this very same hanging problem ever since the Snow Leopard DVD was released. Great, I thought. Now what do I do?
I decided to the Apple support site and download the 1.x GB combo updater to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 in the hopes that the upgrade process would cure whatever issues cropped up during the incomplete installation by the DVD. After downloading that combo disk image, installing 10.6.8, restarting the Mac under 10.6.8, and getting all the software updates applicable to that version, a few tests, supplemented by a running a whole barrage of maintenance utilizes to fix permissions, repair the disk, rebuilt the directory, seemed to indicate that I did finally achieve a solid installation of Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and all its trimming.
To save myself any future agony of having to go through this kind of winding road installation again, I used SuperDuper to create a disk image of the entire volume. That disk image is stored on another Firewire volume, ready to burned at some future date onto a BluRay disc for safe-keeping and backup.
With Snow Leopard safely installed on the volume and sporting one user Account, I was ready to use the Mavericks installer package that I had downloaded last Saturday, when I first began this process, to upgrade to Apple’s latest and greatest OS. Unfortunately, the installation process failed in the same way that the Snow Leopard installer failed. The installer just could not get over the hump of closing the deal. Once I got the installer started, I went to bed.
Four hours later, the installer still had not completed its job, again getting to the 99% mark, and just hanging there. Again, I had to Power Off the Mac. Upon restarting with the Option held down, I elected to start up using the built-in Recovery feature.
That seemed to work, but only sort of. I was able to get a Mavericks desktop, but the User account had absolutely no privileges to do a **** thing. It could not open its own Home folder to see what was in it. It could not complete the screen capture process, because I had no permission to save the picture anywhere, like on the Desktop.
In System Preferences, I tried to increase the size of the cursor, but that failed. In Finder preferences, I tried to make the hard drives show up on the desktop, but that failed, too. I ran permissions in Disk Utility; that did no good. Nothing worked! I could not even change anything related to my User account, because I had no permission to do so. Imagine that: my only account was an Administer account to which I had no access. I would not have thought such a thing could be possible.
I was caught in a loop, stranded on a Mobius Strip, walking on the wild side, surfing the waves of a brand new operating system corrupted by its own installation process.
Not a good thing at all.
Since the first installment had also resulted in a bizarre set of user accounts ending up with QuickLooks being declared the winner of a new account the system decided to create for me, I think it is reasonably safe to conclude that there is some kind of a bug, or flaw, in the Apple upgrade / installation procedure that needs some attention by Apple system engineers. None of this kind of stuff I have delineated at some length should be happening to anyone who owns a Mac.
And, Baltwo, even though I had kept uppermost in my mind your suggestion about creating a new account merely to ferret out which preference files might be corrupt and which might be OK, I decided that I did not want to take any chances at all with this extremely messed User account, which had worked fine in Snow Leopard, but had somehow got corrupted during the upgrade. So, as before, I decided to (1) create a brand new Administrator account; (2) log out from the useless User account in which I had no privileges whatsoever; (3) log in with the brand new Adminstrator; and (4) delete that useless User account entirely, completely, and forever.
At first, I was a little hesitant about deleting the first Administrator account that existed in my Users and Groups pane. I did not even know if such a thing could be done. So, I referred to my David Pogue reference books, and I did a Google search for “Delete Home User Mac” to see what others knew about this. Everyone described the standard way to delete an account; no one even mentioned any prohibition about deleting the original User account. So, I went ahead and deleted it, without encountering the slightest problem in doing so. I even followed up with before and after Terminal commands to see if that useless User account was truly gone, and it definitely went poof. Since I lacked permissions to create any documents at all within that former Home folder, getting rid of it was easy. I think that the System was just as glad to trash it as I was.
Hopefully, whatever corruption occurred during the Mavericks installation and upgrade process was restricted to the preference files associated with that messed-up, original Administrator account so that I can begin exploring Mavericks with a perfectly pristine operating system. Before I start tweaking it or adding stuff to it, my next step will be to use SuperDuper to create a disk image of the entire volume, so that, in the future, I will have a clean set of system of file to install on this external Firewire volume, or on any other internal hard drive I choose to install Mavericks later on. A Bluray disc will contain that disc image for safekeeping when it’s time to remove it from the destination volume where it gets created.
As to the tardiness of my reply, it is caused by the exorbitant amount of time—four days!—it took me to trek along this twisting, winding path of installing Mavericks, as well as a glitch in the mismatch of similarly looking User Names associated with similarly looking Apple ID accounts and similarly looking User Names associated with nearly identical Email Addresses that do not convert from one to the other, as, for example, mac.com does to me.com.
As I learned from Apple Staff who responded to my report that I was being locked out of the Apple Discussions community, there are four pieces of information that must match up for each Apple ID account, and my data had slipped out of sync. Now I know why, during Apple’s changeover in the formatting of the Apple Discussions section, I lost all those “points” I had accumulated in helping others, not that I track such things, and I could not find where my previous discussions were.
That’s also why I may be able to award anyone points for helping me in this thread, but I’m dialing in under the “other” Apple ID, not the one I used to create this topic. Close readers will observe the slight difference.
Thanks a lot, Baltwo. You get the credit for pointing me in the right direction.

Spinning Beach Ball / frozen finder / SugarSync / MacBook

I'm putting this up with this title to help hopefully many who encounter this:
Just got a 2012 MacBook Air, Refurbished, 8 MB RAM, 256 GB. It's refurbished by Apple. I run SugarSync. On my third day, the finder beach ball started spinning almost every time I clicked on the Apple menu or the Finder icon in the dock or any folder on the desktop. I couldn't get down to force-quit finder without first clicking on a program's open window and then on the Apple menu. Restarting doesn't solve it, either. The other thing that was occurring was that my Air was running very hot, the fan was running hard, and the battery was racing to be at 10%.
Thanks to macjack, I seem to have a solution. I've just retitled the information so others can find it better. Here it is:
1. Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login items and delete SugarSync ( - ) as a login item (don't worry, this doesn't delete the program and you can always add it back as a login item with the ( + ) after all the steps below to solve the problem.
2. Quit the SugarSync program (to do this, click on its icon on your top menu bar and select Quit).
3. Go to Username/Library/Preferences folder, and trash the SugarSync "plist" file, which is: com.sharpcast.SugarSync.plist (this is the corrupted file that's causing your finder problem; and, don't worry, a new, clean plist file for SugarSync with all your information left untouched will be created the next time you open SugarSync).
4. Empty your trash; then restart your computer.
5. Upon restart, open the SugarSync program and you should now have no Finder, spinning-beach-ball problems. The fan should be off now and battery power creeping slowly down instead of racing to 10%.
6. Finally, put SugarSync back on your Startup at Login list by going to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login items, hitting the ( + ), and navigating to choose it.
You should be beach-ball free now, with no intense battery drain, heat, and fan.
Hope that helps.

I'm putting this up with this title to help hopefully many who encounter this:
Just got a 2012 MacBook Air, Refurbished, 8 MB RAM, 256 GB. It's refurbished by Apple. I run SugarSync. On my third day, the finder beach ball started spinning almost every time I clicked on the Apple menu or the Finder icon in the dock or any folder on the desktop. I couldn't get down to force-quit finder without first clicking on a program's open window and then on the Apple menu. Restarting doesn't solve it, either. The other thing that was occurring was that my Air was running very hot, the fan was running hard, and the battery was racing to be at 10%.
Thanks to macjack, I seem to have a solution. I've just retitled the information so others can find it better. Here it is:
1. Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login items and delete SugarSync ( - ) as a login item (don't worry, this doesn't delete the program and you can always add it back as a login item with the ( + ) after all the steps below to solve the problem.
2. Quit the SugarSync program (to do this, click on its icon on your top menu bar and select Quit).
3. Go to Username/Library/Preferences folder, and trash the SugarSync "plist" file, which is: com.sharpcast.SugarSync.plist (this is the corrupted file that's causing your finder problem; and, don't worry, a new, clean plist file for SugarSync with all your information left untouched will be created the next time you open SugarSync).
4. Empty your trash; then restart your computer.
5. Upon restart, open the SugarSync program and you should now have no Finder, spinning-beach-ball problems. The fan should be off now and battery power creeping slowly down instead of racing to 10%.
6. Finally, put SugarSync back on your Startup at Login list by going to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login items, hitting the ( + ), and navigating to choose it.
You should be beach-ball free now, with no intense battery drain, heat, and fan.
Hope that helps.

Spinning Beach Ball - no desktop icons

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