My mac's been running whack!

[Parker]

Alright... so here's the rundown
My mac seems to be running really slow, and i've been noticing some problems that i have no idea how they came about...

• When i boot the machine and log in, my menu bar is sometimes transparent, and 9 times out of 10 i am able to fix this by relaunching the finder...

• Finder windows at times take forever to open...

• I often have to force quit applications because they get hung up... Mail i am forever having to force quit because when i go to quit out of it normally it hangs and never quits, unless i force quit it through the force quit window (alt+cmd+esc)

• There are sometimes where i will go to shut down my machine and the finder will shut down, but the computer will sit with the "little spinny dot thingie" on the Aurora screen and will not shut down unless i press and hold the power button (and i hate having to do this because i destroyed an internal hard drive this way this past December!)


I have repaired disk permissions and it does not fix these problems that i keep encountering. I didn't think it was this easy to screw up a Mac!

Could this be a result of uninstalling and installing applications improperly (if that's even possible), leaving stray files in the Library and System Folders, and having a lot on your hard drive (i have 35gb remaining on a 250gb hard drive)?

Has anyone else here encountered similar problems? If so, please speak up...

I will post more as i encounter it.

Cheers,
Parker

[chriskleeman]

Sounds like you could be perilously close on disk space, Parker. Have you run DW or TTPRO?

Chris K

[dakota]

Same thing happening on my fairly new iMac 24, and I am FAR from out of disk space. as a matter of fact, I now seem to have only 70 gigs filled, where it used to read 140.  Haven't figured that out, either.  Compuer  used to be really fast, now it takes forever to load programs, and I get hangs and quits on a regular basis.  

[Paddy]

Have you done every maintenance routine (TT/Disk Utility/DiskWarrior, emptied caches etc.)? I've had slow-downs, but only after some time, generally due to the persistent memory leaks in Safari and trying to run 25 or more apps at a time. I got more RAM - now up to 4.5 GB, and that solved the problem. :)Check your Activity Monitor - how many page outs do you see? (If any) How much Inactive and Free RAM do you have? (don't pay attention to "Used" - it includes stuff that is temporarily reserved by applications - which is actually still available if needed - as well as the stuff that is actually in use)Also - what is Spotlight up to? It's a notorious resource hog and can slow everything to a crawl.Dakota, which applications hang and quit and have you looked at the crash logs? Added new RAM lately?Assuming that both of you are running Leopard - how did you install it? If not via Archive and Install, or a clean install, consider doing an Archive and Install.

[Parker]

New ram, no. I'm running with a gig of ram. I can't really afford to add more ram at the present time, especially into my "p.o.s." MacBook. The only thing i upgraded was the hard drive, because i'm a memory pac-rat!

I installed OS X with a clean install. I did not use any merging software to copy files, just the good ol' drag and drop.

Never bothered to look at the Activity manager... figure that it'll just make it seem slower by actually seeing how slow it is! haha

Never ran DW or TT. Don't have those apps...


The apps i commonly run at the same time are WebKit/Safari, iChat, iTunes, and Mail. I've been using iMovie lately a lot and i finally got that to behave after giving Perian the boot since it was crashing it.

[Paddy]

Well, I'm glad you were able to read that reply of mine - I do NOT know why that happens sometimes!

Check the Activity Manager - it will definitely tell you what's up if you've got memory issues. Safari and Webkit have memory leaks and iMovie probably consumes a fair bit of RAM, so you may see a lot of page-outs. Don't worry about page-ins - it's page outs you need to worry about. From what little I could find, it would appear that iMovie is a RAM hog of the first order, and runs much better if there are 2GB or so. Apparently that's what Apple loads up in its store machines so the iLife 08 apps all run well. They recommend 1GB minimum for iLife '08, but say "high definition video requires at least 1 GB of RAM."

[Parker]

memory leaks out of safari... eh?

time to dust off Omniweb i take it!

I don't really have that much of a problem running iLife, actually. The problem lies more with normal operations.

I really don't want to upgrade this computer anymore, because i'd really like to get rid of it! When i bought the bloody MacBook, i thought it would be as durable as the iBook... only to learn it is a flimsy piece of crap!

I should have bought the MacBook Pro to begin with! I loved my PowerBook G4 12"!


g'nite y'all

[dakota]

3 GB ram, nothing added.  It came installed. The computer was fine until just a few weeks ago.  Yes, I have upgraded, and added programs, but I would really have to spend time to figure out which programs were added when.  What hangs? Certain games, like scrabble - usually have to force quit.  As far as quits - Safari (a lot), versiontracker, browseback, scrabble.  Also, just within the last week,  when I attach my camera, the icon doesn't show on the desktop. I have to restart, and then it's fine. I have also, within the last week, noticed that my printer doesn't always want to print.  The window comes up, but nothing happens.  Again, a restart fixes it.  No, I have not run DW, since I was waiting for the update CD.  I downloaded it, but really would prefer having the CD on hand. . I also noticed, that of the seven lights on my USB hub, one of them periodically goes out, comes back, goes out, etc.  I don't think any of the peripherals have been affected.  I don't know which light, if any, represents any particular peripheral.  I have two printers, scanner, Palm, headphone, iPod, and two cameras.  A couple of them are attached to the keyboard, the others to the hub.Just now, I quit out of Mail, and noticed that it was still showing in the menubar, and was still highlighted in the dock.  It took almost a minute to disappear.

[krissel]

A week or two ago I started having some problems, spinning wheel, some apps refused to quit, Finder unresponsive and unable to force quit apps. Last time I encountered anything like this was back in the OS 8 days. Almost felt like a virus.  No new programs or updates had been done recently. Permissions were repaired. Hmmm.

OK, I hadn't done the regular maintenance routines (though I'm up at that hour a lot). So I ran Tiger cache cleaner and ran the routines and cleaned caches. Haven't had a repeat of the problem so far.

[dakota]

I'm having a surreal experience at this moment. Quit out of Mail, and brought up Safari.  As I sit here typing, the menu bar still has Mail, mailbox, message, etc.  I am on Safari!!!  I can't access bookmarks or any other header in Safari, because THEY ARE NOT THERE!  This has happened a couple of times before, and if I type in a url or two, and hit return, eventually the proper headers will appear.  Mail is not, at this moment, appearing in the Finder, nor is it highlighted in the Dock.  Part of this same problem of apps not quitting, or hanging?

[Paddy]

As per Kris' post, you should probably run something like Onyx and clean out your cache files.

However, it may be something more serious and it's time to run Disk Utility AND DiskWarrior. You do know that the download of the new DW enables you to make your own CD? Follow the directions in the ReadMe or the Installer (can't remember - but they WERE on there) and burn your own new startup CD. It will require your existing 4.0 CD in order to do this.

You may have some serious corruption/directory errors and should definitely check that.

A few other things to try if the above doesn't work - create a new account and log in using that and see if the problems recurs. If not, then your main account is not in good shape and you should probably do an archive and install.

When you upgraded to Leopard did you just upgrade or did you do an archive and install or a clean install? Again - if not, then that may be the source of some of your issues. Do an archive and install.

[dakota]

Leopard came installed on the iMac,and I migrated over my important files from my G5.

[tacit]

QUOTE(Parker @ Apr 1 2008, 02:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Never ran DW or TT. Don't have those apps...

Have you run Disk Utility and told it to verify your hard drive? (Note: not verify permissions, verify your hard drive.)

[dakota]

Yes, I have run Disk Utility a NUMBER of times, and each time message said everything was okay.
Another oddity.  Occasionally I see the word "bling" almost hidden under the dock on the left side.  When I try to click on it, it disappears.  Gremlins?

[Paddy]

Have you looked in the Finder->Desktop for a file by that name? Could be something that's been moved almost out of sight.

Disk Utility may not show problems that DiskWarrior will. You said you were waiting for the upgrade CD, but then went on to say you don't have the app. You'll need the full version - not an upgrade - if you don't already own it. Well worth having, IMHO.

If all else fails, do an archive and install. Do you have any way of backing up your documents folder before doing so (just in case - archive and install won't touch these files, but you shouldn't take chances!)

And if that doesn't work, a clean install - but you will need to back up all your files first.