Super slow and spinning wheel

Hello,
My IMac that I bought in 2010 doesn't respond well to my mouse. My mouse has full batteries.
Right when I start it up, the white scren starts blinking very subtely.
About 10 seconds after I login that spinning wheel appears and never stops...for hours... What is going on?
I tried restarting it, pressed the shift button as I start it. Nothing is working.
What should I do?
HELP!

Hello,
Have you blown the dust out lately?
See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029
Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?
How much RAM & free Disk space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.
In the Memory tab of Activity Monitor, are there a lot of Pageouts?
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts (Users & Groups in later OSX versions)>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed. Or an errant process eating up RAM.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons

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MacPro is slow and spinning wheel shows up every other click

It's been a couple of days that my MacPro is running slow and the spinning wheel keeps showing up.
is there any way to fix this or should I take it to Apple store?

When you see a beachball cursor or the slowness is especially bad, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console 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 and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.
Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.
Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

IMac really slow and spinning wheel

Hey so my iMac is being really slow. When I go to click on something it will stall and show the spinning wheel for about 30 seconds to a minutes and then flash a gray screen and do what it is that I clicked on. Is there a way to fix that or what is wrong with it?

It could be many things including a defective hard drive.
General Mac maintenance: Tips to keep your Mac in top form
General purpose Mac troubleshooting guide: Isolating issues in Mac OS X
Creating a temporary user to isolate user-specific problems: Isolating an issue by using another user account
You could also try
OnyX for Mac
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx
http://helpdesk.hsc.unt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mac-OS-X-10.6-run-OnyX.pd f
If none of this helps post back

Mid-2010 MacBook Pro: freezing and spinning wheel

Hi there,
I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro (I know, old) that's been in very good condition. I upgraded my OS to Mavericks in May, which is when it started being slow and crashing/freezing around twice a week. For example, just doing normal things like surfing the web or checking the Airport or battery life will suddenly freeze the cursor which will then turn into the spinning wheel of death. Sometimes I can wait it out if it's a few minutes but sometimes I have to manually turn off the computer and then turn it back on when it's been hours of no change or improvement. I know it's probably best to downgrade back to Snow Leopard but I'd really like to keep my OS. Are there other things I can do to optimize my Mac? I've tried keeping fewer files on the desktop and emptying out the trash often and it seemed to help for a while. Other suggestions?
Thanks for reading!

Wow, that post looks like a mess...I will try to make it more readable.
Thanks for your reply. I had to wait a few days for the problem to crop up again. I followed your instructions to the best of my ability. The thing is that the problem (i.e. freezing and spinning wheel) happened at 8:19 and the closest messages in the Console were are time stamped 8:17 and 8:25. So I will put them here for you to look at if you don't mind:
2014-09-03 8:17:00.034 PM com.apple.usbmuxd[22]: _SendAttachNotification Device 6c:3e:6d:35:85:8d@fe80::6e3e:6dff:fe35:858d._apple-mobdev2._tcp.local. has already appeared on interface 5. Suppressing duplicate attach notification.
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: [EWOULDBLOCK][vnode:0xffffff80243e1780][original:0xffffff80243e1780][callback: 0 count:263 ] onaccessctl_check:1827 result:0 disconnected:0
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: current scan list:
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: (pid 37 [mtmd], vnode 0xffffff80243e1780 [/Users/Rose/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Session Storage/004039.log], [context 0xffffff80236087b0] [result 0] [setup 0] [disconnected 0] [vfsbusy 0]) - 1 waiter(s)
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: available kctl entries: 9
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: nspace-handler-unblock: did not find token 7629
2014-09-03 8:25:48.490 PM com.apple.mtmd[37]: handler unblock failed. (status=-1/errno=2/token=7629/fd=5)
2014-09-03 8:25:48.490 PM com.apple.mtmd[37]: attempting to thin because of low free space on Macintosh HD by removing
2014-09-03 18:30:17 -0400, estimate 0 bytes to recover, 1 snapshot can be thinned
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: NULL target or context; request:0 kctl_entry:0xffffff80234d5000
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: not SAV_KCTL_REQ_COMPLETE, return ENOMEM
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: NULL target or context; request:0 kctl_entry:0xffffff80234d5000
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: not SAV_KCTL_REQ_COMPLETE, return ENOMEM
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: NULL target or context; request:0 kctl_entry:0xffffff80234d5000
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: not SAV_KCTL_REQ_COMPLETE, return ENOMEM
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: NULL target or context; request:0 kctl_entry:0xffffff80234d5000
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: not SAV_KCTL_REQ_COMPLETE, return ENOMEM
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: NULL target or context; request:3 kctl_entry:0xffffff80234d5000
2014-09-03 8:25:48.000 PM kernel[0]: sav: onaccess_send: SAV_KCTL_REQ_COMPLETE, intercheck_done()
2014-09-03 8:25:50.584 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[198]: Background: [2070] disappeared out from under us (UID: 501 EUID: 501)
2014-09-03 8:25:52.554 PM sandboxd[139]: ([2068]) assistantd(2068) deny file-read-data /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security-common.plist
2014-09-03 8:27:22.580 PM Console[2087]: setPresentationOptions called with NSApplicationPresentationFullScreen when there is no visible fullscreen window; this call will be ignored.
I hope this is not too much text and I hope it makes some sense. The problem happened while I was closing a tab on Chrome, which wasn't anything sketchy, just Facebook, and nothing too unmanagable (it was the only application active). Thanks for your help!

My Macbook Pro shows the apple and spinning wheel at start up but won't continue startup. Any Help would be appreciated.

My Macbook Pro shows the Apple and spinning wheel at startup but will not continue the startup. Does anybody know how to get past this, so the computer continues to startup?

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
If the startup process stops at a blank gray screen with no Apple logo or spinning "daisy wheel," then the startup volume may be full. If you had previously seen warnings of low disk space, this is almost certainly the case. The easiest way to deal with the problem is to boot from an external drive, or else to use either of the techniques in Steps 1b and 1c to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.
Step 3
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 4
If you use a wireless keyboard, trackpad, or mouse, replace or recharge the batteries. The battery level shown in the Bluetooth menu item may not be accurate.
Step 5
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 6
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
Step 7
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 6.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 8
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 9
Reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 10
Repeat Step 9, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 11
This step applies only to models that have a logic-board ("PRAM") battery: all Mac Pro's and some others (not current models.) Both desktop and portable Macs used to have such a battery. The logic-board battery, if there is one, is separate from the main battery of a portable. A dead logic-board battery can cause a boot failure. Typically the failure will be preceded by loss of the settings for the startup disk and system clock. See the user manual for replacement instructions. You may have to take the machine to a service provider to have the battery replaced.
Step 12
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

Imac has white screen and spinning wheel and will not boot up---after lion install

imac has white screen and spinning wheel and will not boot up---after lion install

Please read Gray screen appears during startup.

MacBook pro will not boot. I get the gray screen, an apple icon and spinning wheel. Tried to start in safe mode but get the same screen. The only thing different was that I loaded the zedge sync app yesterday. Now getting this problem.

Macbook pro will not boot. I get the gray screen, an apple icon and spinning wheel. I tried to start in safe mode, but get this same screen. The only thing different is that I added the zedge update app to do a sync for adding ringtones to my apple cell phone. How can I get a good boot. I am fairly new to apple computer.

Reset PRAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4405 and then try a normal boot.
Run the Startup Manager to select Startup disk: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310
If those did not work your disk may be sick or dying. The top priority at this point is to make a backup copy of your data.
Check the health of the disk. Boot in Recovery Mode (Boot, Command-R). Run Disk Utility. Click on the upper left disk icon. Does the S.M.A.R.T. status say “Verified”? If not the disk/SSD is unhealthy and needs to be replaced. Even if it does not show “Verified” you can still attempt a backup.
Click on the icon indented below, usually called “Macintosh HD” and Verify Disk. If it finishes with a green “OK” message then all is well with the disk. If it shows errors in red then you have found a problem to address once the system is backed up. Do not attempt software repairs until you have secured the data.
If the disk will not show up at all in Disk Utility as your ran the tests above then it may be dead or it may have a bad internal SATA cable. A trip to an Apple store for confirmation would be in order.
If you have an external disk drive you can use as a backup drive then do so. If not Google “Hitachi USB 3.0 external hard drive 1TB” to purchase one or go to a brick-and-mortar store (including an Apple store) to pickup one. Any 1 TB external drive will do.
Assuming it is still breathing you can try to recover the data without booting from the sick disk.
Reformat the external disk. (This will erase all data on the external disk.)
Boot in Recovery Mode. Start Disk Utility. Plug in the new disk. Select it’s disk Icon (the second one down, left justified). Select the Partition tab.
Partition Layout > Single Partition
Name: Emergency Recovery 1 (or whatever name you wish to use)
Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Options… > GUID Partition Table > OK
Apply
Select the Restore tab.
Drag the old system volume (Macintosh HD) to Source.
Drag the new disk volume (Emergency Recovery 1) to Destination.
Click on Restore.
It may take a long time for the backup.
If that will not complete post back for other emergency data recovery methods, including those from a brody.
If the backup succeeds, use the First Aid tab in Disk Utility to select the old volume (Macintosh HD) and Repair Disk. If it does not finish with a green OK message try to repair it once or twice more. If it repairs with a green OK message, will it boot normally? If not, boot from the Recovery Partition and reinstall OS X.
If it is still not healthy, post back for further instructions.

Just tried to update my iPad 2 to the current iOS, and I got an error that said the update wouldn't install. The iPad is stuck in a funny mode with the apple and spinning wheel showing. I can't power it down or restart it. What next? Thanks.

Just tried to update my iPad 2 to the current iOS, and I got an error that said the update wouldn't install. The iPad is stuck in a funny mode with the apple and spinning wheel showing. I can't power it down or restart it. What next? Thanks.

Try a hard reset: hold the power and home buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears.

Mac pro running OS 10.5.8 won't boot. Apple logo and spinning wheel shows then Apple logo turns into Forbidden signage while spinning wheel continue. It happenened right after I installed a firmware. Had to restart.Please help. What can I do?

Mac pro running OS 10.5.8 won't boot. Apple logo and spinning wheel shows then Apple logo turns into Forbidden signage while spinning wheel continue. It happenened right after I installed a firmware. Had to restart.Please help. What can I do?

Work through the suggestions in this article:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

My macbook pro doesn't bootbeyond the grey screen with apple icon and spinning wheel.

My macbook pro doesn't boot beyond the grey screen with apple icon and spinning wheel. I used the "Option" button to access the Disk Utility function and run Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions. Should I restart my computer?

The following support article is somewhat outdated. Where it refers to booting from an installation disc, you should boot from your recovery partition (if running 10.7 or later) by holding down the key combination command-R at the chime.
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

My macbook wont reboot apple logo and spinning wheel thats it.

I watched youtube videos and tried command r and now it keeps popping up you need to restart your computer. Everytime I restart it, it pops back up! HELP!!

Apple logo and spinning wheel is different than the need to restart your computer message.
See this Apple note on the spinning wheel at boot. If you are running OS X 10.7 or later, then rebooting with the command and r keys will get you into recovery mode, where you can use Disk Utility to repair the hard drive.
FYI, the need to restart your computer message in multiple languages is called a kernel panic, which is usually, but not always, caused by a hardware issue. If you have OS X 10.7 or later, you should be able to run the Apple hardware test. Prior to that, you need the disks that came with the system to run it. If you can run it, run the extended test when prompted, which can take over an hour to run.

Gray apple and spinning wheel only

I installed an update from the update scheduler. At first I couldn't print, I restarted the computer and it went to the background display only, no icons. I shut down the power and now all I get is the gray apple and spinning wheel.

I would advise against the PMU reset. It will not solve a problem with botched software update, and can make matters worse if you have an Intel Mini.
Since your forum name is SeattleMom, I'd suggest you take the Mini to the genius bar at your local Apple store and have them sort this out. Be sure to give them a full description of the steps that preceded the problem.

Please help me! MacBook Pro stuck on apple logo and spinning wheel

Hi I'm really desperate and need help! My MacBook just stopped loading and would stay on the gray screen with the apple logo and spinning wheel.
I have tried safe mode and it would load a little and stop and then the loading bar would be blank and it would stay like that forever!!
I also have tried doing the single user mode and when I type the fsck - fy it will do a couple more lines then it will say error like a hundred times :(
I did verbose mode and it would just give me stuff that I have no idea what it saying I left on verbose mode for like 5 hours and it would just give me lines of stuff I have no idea what it's saying!
I downloaded lion through apple store so I don't have the disk I only have my snow leopard disk
Please please someone tell me a solution it's my moms laptop and I don't want to get in trouble!

Reboot in recovery mode an possibly repair over the internet.
Command-R to the rescue.
Just hold down Command-R during startup and OS X Recovery springs into action. It lets you choose from common utilities: You can run Disk Utility to check or repair your hard drive, erase your hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy of OS X, or restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup. You can even use Safari to get help from Apple Support online. And if OS X Recovery encounters problems, it will automatically connect to Apple over the Internet.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

MacBook pro 15" 2008 freezes at apple logo and spinning wheel

Have a MacBook pro early 2008 have installed lion but recently started to have problems. Started to freeze a lot so I would restart and most of the time it would work untill it froze again , now it's got worst every time I restart my Mac it won't go past apple logo and spinning wheel just freezes have been trying and trying but same thing freezes. Tried to start in save mode but no still freezes
Please has anyone got any suggestions thanks

The startup disk may need repairing.
Use Lion Recovery
Not enough free space on the startup disk can cause the system to freeze.
Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure there's a minimum of 15% free disk space.

Macbook Pro (2011) froze while working, forced shut down, now won't turn on. Grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel for hours. Help?

Macbook Pro (2011) froze while working, forced shut down, now won't turn on. Grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel for hours. Help?
Unfortunately do not know the operating system since I never updated anything and I can't get in to it.
Thanks for your assistance.

If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, and it's not already backed up, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot from the Recovery partition or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Super slow and spinning wheel

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