Why do applications become "Unresponsive"?

This has been bugging me for awhile. Both on my iMac running SL and my clients G5 running Tiger, we regularly get the "Application Unresponsive" message. SL will not give me the option to quit, but rather shows the "Force Quit" message.
Adobe apps have always been a problem. Most of the time when quitting it would eventually give us the Application Unresponsive message, and then we'd have to force quit. It seems we can never just quit an Adobe app in the regular fashion.
Just now I had to force quit Aperture 3 because of the SBOD. I was also running InDesign and Photoshop. After doing some work in Photoshop I went back to Aperture and it was doing the SBOD thing.
Is this a memory issue? Or do the applications just not play well together? I've maxed the RAM on my iMac to the full 4. Or is 4 just not enough anymore? Activity Monitor didn't show anything (that I could see) unusual while it was locked up. I'm also pretty careful not to have all my apps running if I don't need them.
Do I need to restart more often? Run Yasu everyday?
Just curious.

There's no single reason for this kind of behavior. It's definitely not normal... I can easily run Photoshop Elements 8, Aperture 3 and half a dozen or more other apps (Safari, Firefox, Mail, TextWrangler, Transmit, Intaglio, etc) all at the same time and never see the problems you describe. It probably isn't memory, unless you've got some bad RAM, since I can open all those apps and have 4 GB of RAM just like you do.
You can test your RAM using [Rember|http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember>. You should also [repair the hard drive with Disk Utility|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417]. Repairing permissions would probably also be a good idea. Try creating a new account on your machine and see if the problems pop up in that other account as well. Take a look at the [Mac OS X speed FAQ|http://www.index-site.com/Macosxspeed.html] in case something there helps.
As to the question on running Yasu... note that there's a reason for caches, and if you're clearing them all the time, you lose that benefit. Cache clearing should be a troubleshooting technique only, and if it doesn't help, doing it again won't help either. Take a look at [Five Mac Maintenance Myths|http://www.macworld.com/article/133684/2008/06/maintenance_intro.html].

Similar Messages

Applications Become Unresponsive

This is a bit of an unusual problem. When I start my computer everything is fine. Then at some point, might be minutes or hours, all open application become unresponsive. I can force quite all of them and relaunch them, but they will still be unresponsive. Upon restart everything is fine until it starts all over again. I have tried repairing permissions and deleting all application caches. Any thoughts?

OK well the AHT isn't definitive. Then next thing I'd recommend trying is to create a new user account (call it TEST ACCOUNT) and leave that account absolutely pristine. Do not change any settings, add any software etc.. Then log into that account and begin using it. If it operates OK then you have narrowed down your problems to a software problem that is in your normal user account. If the problem persists then you know it's a global issue that could be software or hardware.
BTW how much RAM and HD space does this machine have? Mac's need a minimum of 10-15% of the HD available at all times. For example if you have a 250GB drive at a minimum it needs 25-37.5GBs available. If you are below 10-15% then you need to begin removing stuff from your HD, the biggest offenders are photographs, music and video. You can easily offload that data to external HD's. If you decide to trash stuff don't forget to empty the trash!
As for the RAM, you can check how much RAM is available. Use the computer normally then open Activity Monitor (Applications - Utilities - Activity Monitor) and click the *System Memory* tab. Check to see how much FREE RAM it has, if it's about 500MB or less then your computer is starved for RAM and needs an upgrade.

Applications Becoming Unresponsive

The other day my Macbook was running slower than usual, so I restarted it and when it started back up, instead of a grey Apple logo, I saw a circle with a cross through it. So I had to boot from the install cd, repair my hard drive and then do an archive and install. It was working perfectly after that, but now when I use most applications they become unresponsive and I have to force-quit them. Any ideas?

To the moderators: If you find that this needs to be removed for a third time, can you please e-mail me personally and tell me why? It is absolutely not off-topic and I have tried very hard the second time (and harder this third time) to ensure there is nothing remotely speculative.
I have to take issue with a few things here...
Make sure you have 10% available disk space, 15% is better.
That's not a hard and fast rule. Yes, you need enough space, but the main reason for keeping space free is for virtual memory page-outs. The size of the drive has no relation to how much to leave free. Imagine two people with the same computer running the same applications, except one has a 200 GB drive and the other has a 1 TB drive. On the first machine, 15% is 30 GB while on the second it's 150 GB. There's absolutely no reason for the machine with the 1 TB drive to need more free space, much less 5 times more. The actual amount to leave free depends on how much RAM you have and how RAM-intensive your computer use is, and unfortunately there's no real equation for it.
Performed maintenance lately? Mac OS X: How to force background maintenance tasks (logs and temporary items)
This is extremely unlikely to help this particular problem, and should not actually be necessary at all. See [this page|http://www.macworld.com/article/133684/2008/06/maintenance_intro.html] for details.
I think that what is needed is something more drastic than an Archive & Install, which can leave some corrupt files to trouble you. Since you had such a serious problem initially and are having continued (though different) problems after the Archive & Install, I would recommend doing the following:
1) Backup all your documents. (You can backup the whole user folder, but be wary about keeping too many of the settings files.)
2) Reboot from your Mac OS X install disk
3) Do an Erase & Install
4) Install all your applications from scratch, set up accounts, preferences, etc from scratch.
5) Put your documents back, and any settings files you really, really don't want to recreate from scratch. (Just beware, since you don't know whether some settings files are damaged.)

Why does iTunes become unresponsive?

Once I start iTunes,it freezes up and becomes unresponsive. I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times with the same unresponsive result. What can I do? I can't sync my iPod touch. I am using Windows XP.

Refer to this article:
iTunes for Windows XP: Troubleshooting unexpected quits, freezes, or launch issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1421

Premiere Pro 2014 Application becomes unresponsive when importing a video from iPhoto

Hello and good morning!
I shot some sample footage using an iPhone 5. I shot just over a minute of sample footage. I imported the footage via the USB cable and my Macbook Pro 13 (2011).
Following these steps causes the application to freeze indefinitely at the "Importing Files" dialog box.
1.) File -> Import
2.) Select iPhoto under the Media subsection
3.) Select the movie and click import
The application just freezes until I go to the activity monitor and force quit. Then I get the "Adobe Premiere Pro has encountered a serious error." Someone should look into this bug.
Additional Info:
Specs of the machine this happened on:
Macbook Pro 13" Early 2011 (i7 2.7 GHz, 16GB, 480 SSD)
Specs of the machine at my home workstation that doesn't have this issue:
Custom Built (4770K 16GB DDR3 256SSD RenderOutput 2TB SSHD Scratch 1TB WD Black) w/ 3 Dell Ultrasharps
For those of you that are curious. I doing a pilot video project of sorts. A behind the scenes video for a fashion photographer who is a friend. It was my idea since I wanted to try something new. The photographer likes the idea because its something to add to his portfolio about his work. However, for this project I'm basically on my own and I need to produce a viable product before I convince myself to invest in a decent video camera.

Thanks for the reply however, this issue is isolated to the use case I mentioned above. The video imports fine once I copy the file and import the file directly; say I copy the file to my desktop then add the file. I know about the variable frame rate issue however this isn't the case for the iPhone 5. I have encountered that issue with the NVIDIA DVR feature for capturing 3D graphics. (DAWN Demo.)
It seems this may be some kind of permissions issue since when selecting a media file through the iPhoto link in OSX finder dialog the file is located in a library package. The issue does not affect Photoshop, Lightroom, nor Illustrator (CC 2014) when importing media using the same method.
It seems like just a bug that was missed.
I apologize if I may have posted this in the wrong forum. Perhaps there is a technical or bug reporting forum? (I also am encountering another bug with AE linked clips in Premere Pro in OSX that wasn't there before.)

Why does Safari become unresponsive when more than 20 windows are open

Does 3.0.3 fix this?
It is extremely annoying to wait for the beachball for minutes on end after a certain number of windows( 15 to 25) are open. You can't open a new one , you can't close old ones, you can't scroll, you can't use the back arrow, you can't bookmark.
I have tried iFreeMem to clear memeory, Empty cache, Clear History, keeping desktop clear of icons, nothing works.
Mi compadres in the Photoshop Forum believe it is a file swap issue and the disk is being accessed repeatedly, but I don't think so. Fire Fox does the same thing but allows more windows to be open.
I don't have any unresponsive or slow issues with anything else. Safari has always done this since at least 10.4

It's not that I'm unfamiliar with tabbed browsing, I use it three times a day in Firefox for work purposes. Firefox has a less awkward tabbing scheme, for one thing.
I't just that I never thought there would be a problem following links and leaving the previous windows open.
Moving 25 gigs of files off my hard disk showed a temporary improvement in the number of windows I could have open in both FF and Safari, but it seems to have reverted to about 20 in S and 40 in FF. This , I thought, indicated that it was indeed a swap file slowdown, but now I don't think so. The next time I start linking, I'll use Open in Tab and see what happens. Not tonight, too tired.

Why does RAW become unresponsive after 1 or 2 images?

All seems fine but controls have no effect until the program is shut and re-opened.

I've experienced something similar, but not sure it's exactly that.
With many images open and proceeding one-by-one, if I want to target another thumbnail, it gets stuck on the thumbnail I'm on and won't release it to go on to another. If I wait a little while, it will release it and I can go on to other images. It just gets stuck for a few seconds. It doesn't happen every time, but it's happened several times. The only thing I noticed is that applying stars ratings to thumbnails seems to be a sticking point--but I'm not sure--maybe that's just the last thing I do before going on.
I haven't tried to fool with the actual controls in the interface during this temporary lock up--it's possible that they, too, are frozen when the thumbnail navigation locks up. I'll check if this happens again.

Recrding in Captivate 4 makes my application become un-responsive

Hi,
I am currently trying to put together some tutorials highlighting key functionality relating to the software we develop. I am using Captivate 4 but as soon as I start the recording process the application I am running becomes unresponsive and I am unable to record. The application I am working with consists of a Workspace which can have mutiple documents open at the same time. I should mention that this is the first tutorial I have put together using Captivate, so I'm not that experienced . Please note that the application is not at all unstable in normal circumstances.
If anyone has had a similar experience I would really appreciate some guidance.
Thank you

Hi there
Sometimes we find that Captivate just doesn't want to play with certain applications. (or, since the application becomes unresponsive, it may be more accurate to say the application doesn't want to play with Captivate!)
At any rate, it poses a problem to try and record the application, no?
I've heard that others have overcome these situations by establishing a remote desktop connection and run Captivate on a PC that has a remote connection to a PC running the application. You then record the application that way.
Hopefully this helps you out!
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Adobe Certified Captivate Training
SorcerStone Blog
Captivate eBooks

Why does my Macbook pro keyboard and trackpad randomly become unresponsive forcing restart in OSX Mavericks?

Randomly when using OSX Mavericks, since installing yesterday, my mid-2012 Macbook Pro keyboard and trackpad freeze and become unresponsive.
The computer is still running whatever I was doing, the computer does not crash, i just cannot control it and the only way I have found as a fix is to restart.
This never happened in Mountain Lion.
Can anyone help?

Very similarly.
Mac Mini late 2012. i7 CPU, 16GB ram. 12GB unused.
After installing Mavericks, it seems to grind my system to a halt. It is still running (I can move the cursor and activity monitor updates processes) but every application I try to launch results in a colorful waiting sign. It even can take a minute or more before an application shows "any" sign of starting.
I tried to open a terminal session (so I could manually kill a process) but the terminal session did not even process. It timed out after 5 minutes.
Acitivity monitor shows 90-95% idle and I have no idea what's causing it.
I have already rebuild disk and reset permissions (all seemed fine) 3 times.
I've rebooted over 8 times since last night. I cannot use my Mac anymore reliably.
Please help.

My MacBook Air becomes unresponsive when logging in, and I decided to reinstall OS X Lion. When running the installer from OS X Recovery, it gave the error message "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."

My MacBook Air becomes unresponsive when logging in, and I decided to reinstall OS X Lion. When running the installer from OS X Recovery, it gave the error message "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."
Checking in the log revealed the following error:
Can not connect to /var/run/systemkeychaincheck.socket: No such file or directory
Error!! Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1202 "UNTRUSTED_CERT_TITLE" UserInfo=0x1086bec80 {NSLocalizedDescription=UNTRUSTED_CERT_TITLE, NSLocalizedFailureReason=UNTRUSTED
The rest of the line is cutted off. Does anyone know what went wrong and how to fix it ?

A: my MacBook Air becomes unresponsive when logging in, and I decided to reinstall OS X Lion. When running the installer from OS X Recovery, it gave the error message "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."

I encountered the same exact problem when I attempted to re-installed OSX Lion on an old laptop. The date was set back in 2000, which rendered the certificate obsolete. Here's how I fixed it:
From the recovery menu, select the Terminal application. Run the 'date' command to confirm the date is wrong, then set the correct date using this command: date {month}{day}{hour}{minute}{year}
e.g. date 1219195613
Exit terminal (type exit). Retry the installation.

Downloaded Safari 4.0.3 upgrade and Safari will become unresponsive. Why??

Periodically the new version of Safari will become unresponsive when I click on a web site. Any web site. The spinning beach ball starts and never quits. I have to force quit and start it back up again. I hope that Apple is working on a fix for this.It seems a lot of others are having problems with it too.

HI and Welcome to Apple Discussions...
Have you checked to see how much free disk space you have on the PBook?
Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. *Make sure you always have a minimum of 10% to 15% free disk space at all times.*
~Library/Input Managers
~Library/Internet Plugins
If there are any files in the Input Managers and Internet Plugins folder, drag them to the Trash, empty the Trash and restart your PBook.
Repair Disk Permissions.
Quit any open applications/programs. Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac.
Also, these updates are required to run Safari 4.
Security updates 2009-001 and 002.
Open System Preferences/Software Updates. Make sure those updates were installed.
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Why does safari web browser become unresponsive?

Every once in a while the main part of the safari web browser on my iPad 2 becomes unresponsive. I can type into the address or google search area and the results will show in the window but the content seems static. Links are inactive and cannot scroll or expand/contract the page size. Any ideas on why this happens? My only solution thus far is to completely shut down the iPad and restart.

There are a myriad of reasons this can happen, including problems with content on the website you are viewing. If it seems to occur on the same sites check the site with your computer and see if it is possibly trying to download a Java applet or something similar. If there is no pattern to the websites visited you might want to Restore your iPad and see if it helps.

I'm having trouble with my applications freezing. Then when they are "unreponsive" I quit and another becomes "unresponsive" until I'm down to Finder and it won't relaunch. HELP!!

I'm having trouble with my applications freezing. Then I force-quit because they are "unresponsive," another applidation becomes "unresponsive" until I'm down to Finder and it won't relaunch. HELP!!

Mine is doing the same thing! I have more than enough hard drive. It's only 3 months old.

Why does the Yosemite Finder become unresponsive when moving a file within my USB Flash stick?

Why does the Yosemite Finder become unresponsive when moving a file within my USB Flash stick? I have to Relaunch the Finder to get it working again.
Background / other symptoms:
The Flash drive in question has been formatted HFS.
I get no error messages, including on the Console, and no sound indicators.
I can copy files, using the Finder, from a hard-drive to the usb flash drive with no problem.
Finder copying on this stick works just fine on my other Mac.
I can move files within another (FAT32-formatted) USB flash drive.
The quirky USB HFS Flash drive works fine on my other Mac.
Outside of the Finder, I can use mv just fine to move the files on the HFS flash drive.
If the HFS-formatted Flash drive were faulty, I would at least expect some sort of error in the Console app, but perhaps not from the Finder.

Why does Firefox on my Windows 7 PC hang (become unresponsive) while it waits for most pages to load or run scripts?

Firefox hangs (becomes unresponsive) when accessing many sites including Gmail. Eventually, when hung, Firefox will throw up a window saying "WARNING: A script has become unresponsive" or, in the case of Gmail, the page itself will say "Some Gmail features have failed to load due to an internet connectivity problem."
IE8 and Google Chrome are working normally. I've tried Firefox in safe mode, re-installing and even running Firefox portable from a USB thumb drive. Each time with the same result—Firefox hangs or becomes unresponsive while it waits for most pages to load or run scripts.
#### PC Workstation Environment ####
Firefox 13.0.1
Windows 7
Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0.6200.754
--

Your problem sounds like the one that a co-worker and I started to have about the same time. Check your Symantec client management control log. You might see a line like the following.
Date and Time Severity Level Action Test / Production Description API Class Rule Caller Process ID Caller Process Parameter User
2012-07-30 10:48:09 AM 15 Block Production Unauthorized NT call rejected by protection driver. System Built-in rule 1608 FlashplayerPlu FuncID-B6H, R... None
At first we thought that it was a Javascript problem until we noticed this log. The key words are 'Block' and 'FlashPlayerPlu'. This problem recently started for us, perhaps with a software push 1-2 weeks ago. Internet Explorer does not hang when accessing pages with Flash.
The Flash page does eventually load after a long time. However, since the whole browser hangs for a while, for the most part having the Flash plugin enabled makes Firefox unusable if accessing pages with Flash.
Disabling the Flash plugin solves the hanging problem, but I do not know what is causing the problem, nor do I know when a combination of Windows 7, Flash, and Symantec will work. Your later version of Symantec shows that we might have the problem for a while, but I do not know what customization CSC did with Symantec. My coworker did run a complete virus scan, uncovering nothing. Another co-worker is running Windows XP. She does not have the problem, but I do not know what other versions of software she is running.
Symantec Endpoint Protection version 11.0.6100.645
Flash version 11.3.300.268
Firefox version 14.0.1
Windows 7 32-bit service pack 1

Why do applications become "Unresponsive"?

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