Spinning Wheel of Death

[Susan Walrath]

I have a MAC book Pro. I get the multicolored spinning wheel that freezes my computer for many minutes at a time. It sometimes doesn't occur for a while and then it will occur every 4 -5 movements. I have used CleanMyMac3 and Adware Medic but it doesn't seem to help.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

There are many reasons that can happen. A few questions for you:

-Which exact model MacBook Pro?
-Which version of OS X?
-Do you know how much free space is left on the HD?
-Did this just start happening and is it becoming more frequent?
-Does it happen in a web browser - Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc?
-Do you have any third-party software utilities like MacKeeper, anti-virus, etc installed other than CleanMyMac and Adware Medic?

Let us know and we will try and diagnose the issue further.

C

 

[Susan Walrath]

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 (1.28 GB Free)
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Running OS X Yosemite Version 10.10.3
500 GB SATA Disk 174.93 GB free of 498.88 GB (Audio 110.05 GB, Apps 93.29 GB, Other 88.54 GB, Movies 17.91 GB and Photos 14.15 GB)
It started happening a while back but has gotten worse. It primarily happens in both Safari and Firefox but also happens on the desktop when opening files and when playing some games. (I use Big Fish Games)
Software utilities I'm not sure of. Java, Flip4Mac, Flash player, Carbonite, Browser plus, Amazon MP3 downloader, CrossOver, Genieo, JDownloader, Quicktime Player 7, Switch, TuneUpMyMac, Zip Cloud. I'm embarrassed to say some of these I don't know what they do. Hope you can help

 

[Cory Cooper]

Thanks for the additional information. Several of those items that you listed are known to cause the exact issue you are having. I will list them and then a link on how to uninstall them if possible. Any that you didn't knowingly install, definitely remove. Many are installed with other software apps, so that is why you might not recognize them or remember installing them.

Things that stick out to me that may/may not cause the issue:
-Adobe Flash/Flip4Mac/Java - Make are they are updated to latest versions. Flip4Mac is a paid app, so uninstall if you didn't purchase it.
-Carbonite/Zip Cloud - These can slow things down if they are constantly syncing in the background. You could try and pause their syncing to see if that helps. Let me know if you purchased these and installed them, as they are online backup services.
-Genieo - I would definitely uninstall/remove this. It is know to cause slowness, browser issues, etc. here's how to remove it: How to detect and remove Genieo for Mac
-Browser Plus - Same as above - removal from Apple link below
-TuneUpMyMac - Another useless utility (similar to the infamous MacKeeper) that causes more problems than it is worth: Uninstall TuneUpMyMac
-CrossOver - Basically an app that allows you to play PC games on your Mac, without having Windows installed. Known to be buggy and cause issues. Uninstall if you didn't purchase it or use it: How to remove Crossover from your Mac

A great article from Apple about several different software installs that hurt performance:
Remove unwanted adware that displays pop-up ads and graphics on your Mac

Try those steps and let us know if you can't get them uninstalled or have any further questions about them, or any I didn't cover. We can then see where you are at and go from there.

C

 

[Susan Walrath]

Thank you Cory. I did what you suggested and it seems to have worked!

 

[honestone]

Glad Cory was able to help you (he is Superman around here!), I would also suggest a couple of other things, to keep your Mac running "mean and clean":

1. Are you making backups? There are two schools of thoughts about backups, and a number of the folks around here use either method. One, of course, is Time Machine. That is an excellent tool for scheduling such backups, but remember, it only does files/folders. The backup it makes is not bootable. The other way is to use a backup/cloning tool like Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) or SuperDuper!. Either one of those makes an exact, bootable copy of your "system". Recovery is easy from such backups, but unless you either "schedule" them to run automatically, or run them manually on a frequent basis, neither backup will contain the latest information. For myself, I use SuperDuper!, and make such a backup/clone of each of my Macs once a week, to two separate external drives. That is sufficient for my purposes, but may not be applicable to another individual.

2. Assuming you do not have a more robust disk maintenance/repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro, you should use Disk Utility to "check out" your internal drive (of course, you can use it to check out external drives too). The way you should do that is to boot to the hidden Recovery Partition on your Mac. To do that, hold down the Command and R keys when you start up your Mac. If will take some time to get to the main menu, but it will eventually appear. This link describes what software is on that partition: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314. What you need to do is launch Disk Utility from there and have it 1) Verify and Repair your disk at the Volume (ie, top) level, and 2) Verify and Repair permissions, and Verify and Repair the disk, at the partition level.

3. Download, install, and run the excellent, venerable program called Onyx. You can get it from here:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx

Note that link is for the version you need with Yosemite. That program has been around for quite some time, has had numerous, excellent reviews, and performs quite a few beneficial tasks. I depend on it as part of my weekly disk repair/maintenance/backup (cloning) processing. By the way, Onyx also can Repair Permissions, but it does it for just about all software. Disk Utility does it only for Apple software.

4. Finally, try and make the effort to clean up unneeded items (files, folders, etc.) as often as you can. One obvious candidate are EMails that are no longer needed. But, when you delete an EMail, depending on what EMail client you use, it doe snot go away. For myself, that is the case for Outlook. So, every week I'll rebuild Outlook's database (Microsoft provides instructions how to do that), and those deleted EMails go away permanently.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Glad it seemed to have worked!

honestone made some great additional suggestions too.

C

 

[Bumbleboo]

Thanks for the additional information. Several of those items that you listed are known to cause the exact issue you are having. I will list them and then a link on how to uninstall them if possible. Any that you didn't knowingly install, definitely remove. Many are installed with other software apps, so that is why you might not recognize them or remember installing them.

Things that stick out to me that may/may not cause the issue:
-Adobe Flash/Flip4Mac/Java - Make are they are updated to latest versions. Flip4Mac is a paid app, so uninstall if you didn't purchase it.
-Carbonite/Zip Cloud - These can slow things down if they are constantly syncing in the background. You could try and pause their syncing to see if that helps. Let me know if you purchased these and installed them, as they are online backup services.
-Genieo - I would definitely uninstall/remove this. It is know to cause slowness, browser issues, etc. here's how to remove it: How to detect and remove Genieo for Mac
-Browser Plus - Same as above - removal from Apple link below
-TuneUpMyMac - Another useless utility (similar to the infamous MacKeeper) that causes more problems than it is worth: Uninstall TuneUpMyMac
-CrossOver - Basically an app that allows you to play PC games on your Mac, without having Windows installed. Known to be buggy and cause issues. Uninstall if you didn't purchase it or use it: How to remove Crossover from your Mac

A great article from Apple about several different software installs that hurt performance:
Remove unwanted adware that displays pop-up ads and graphics on your Mac

Try those steps and let us know if you can't get them uninstalled or have any further questions about them, or any I didn't cover. We can then see where you are at and go from there.

C

Hi Cory,
have been reading your reply to a question and noticed your denigration of Mackeeper! I've been using this programme for some time now and didn't know that it could cause problems! It always seemed a useful programme to clean up various parts of my MBC, (cache, logs, languages in particular, binaries cutter, leftovers) How would I know if removing these excess bits and pieces are causing some problem on my machine? I know that it is not necessary to clean the cache because it has go through process of building it again so I omit this process. All the languages that I do not require are quite heavy on space so i get shot of them!
Would love to hear your comments because my machine is not without problems but I generally keep it in pretty good shape. Thanks. Colin

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi Colin,

My comments are just from personal experience and that of other folks in the IT and Mac Support communities. I am not saying that everyone that uses MacKeeper will have issues, it's just that many times the issue that the OP was experiencing has been known to be caused by MacKeeper and other all-in-one utilities.

If it is working for you, then you're good to go.

C

 

[Bumbleboo]

Thanks Cory for your reply but I will keep in mind the possibility that Mackeeper could cause problems. I did not go for their 2015 upgrade (expensive) and when I wrote to the support they said well just keep using what I've got! )
Cheers,
Colin

 

[honestone]

As usual, Cory makes numerous valid points. Myself, I have previously read, quite a few times, issues with using MacKeeper, and thus never dared to try it. Instead, I follow the following protocol:

1. I am continually deleting items I no longer need, whether it be prior versions of software, prior versions of data files, EMails I no longer need, etc. (By the way, when one deletes an EMail, at least with Outlook, it does not "initially" go away. One needs to rebuild the Microsoft Office 2011 Identities database to permanently get rid of them).

2. I use the venerable, excellent, well reviewed free program Onyx. This will do quite a few cleanup tasks that are useful. I have been using for so many years that I depend on it.

3. I have both TechTool Pro and Disk Warrior, which are more robust disk maintenance/repair programs that Apple's Disk Utility. I run TechTool Pro at least once a week as part of my disk maintenance/repair/backup processing. It also has a number of useful features, especially the newest version.

 

[Bumbleboo]

Hi honestone, thanks for your input, all very usual information. Will check out the progs you have found useful.
I too delete lots of unwanted stuff but then occasionally I find things that should have been deleted hidden in some other corner!
Are you using TechTool Pro on the Yosemite OS?

 

[honestone]

Hi honestone, thanks for your input, all very usual information. Will check out the progs you have found useful.
I too delete lots of unwanted stuff but then occasionally I find things that should have been deleted hidden in some other corner!
Are you using TechTool Pro on the Yosemite OS?

Hi Colin,

Yes, I use both TechTool Pro and Disk Warrior with Yosemite (now up to OS 10.10.4). (Actually, I've used both products with prior OS versions also).

 

[WritersItch]

Hi Cory,
have been reading your reply to a question and noticed your denigration of Mackeeper! I've been using this programme for some time now and didn't know that it could cause problems! It always seemed a useful programme to clean up various parts of my MBC, (cache, logs, languages in particular, binaries cutter, leftovers) How would I know if removing these excess bits and pieces are causing some problem on my machine? I know that it is not necessary to clean the cache because it has go through process of building it again so I omit this process. All the languages that I do not require are quite heavy on space so i get shot of them!
Would love to hear your comments because my machine is not without problems but I generally keep it in pretty good shape. Thanks. Colin

I ran into a serious slow down about three months ago. It was caused mostly by MacKeeper. Removing it wasn't easy either. I followed the instructions and it was still in some places on my HDD. The other part of the slowdown was due to my backup HDD being too full. After buying a new one and getting rid of MacKeeper, my computer's speed is back to normal. I actually noticed the biggest increase after ridding my computer of MacKeeper. Until I received my new HDD, I performed manual backups, taking my computer off of TimeMachine.

On another forum, someone suggested using EtreCheck (free software) to ascertain the problem with my computer slow down. You can also use ActivityMonitor. However, EtreCheck spits out a complete report and one can easily see what's hogging the CPU time. Because of MacKeeper, my computer wasn't able to load vital Mac OS X software.

On the same forum, another poster said that all those logs, caches, etc. don't need to be removed all the time. There's an article on the web somewhere which agrees with that poster.

I lost several pieces of files because of MacKeeper and over cleaning my computer. A lesson learned.

I use TechToolPro but less often after the incident with MacKeeper, and DiskWarrior less too. I dump the cache on my browser. And that's it for cleaning my computer.

 

[honestone]

I understand what you are saying regarding cleanup/disk maintenance, etc. Permissions are an issue in quite a few cases of trouble, and thus I run Onyx every week to clean those up. And, from what I understand, Onyx repairs permissions for non-Apple apps, as well as Apple apps (Disk Utility repairs permissions for Apple apps only). So, I just go ahead and have Onyx do its' other useful tasks, like cleaning out log files, cleaning out various caches, etc.

The new version of Tech Tool Pro has 3 new useful features, along with its' excellent suite of tasks. Yes, I might be exercising "over kill", but I feel comfortable doing it.

The old saying "to each his own" certainly is applicable here, and thus whatever approach one uses is whatever makes one feel comfortable. Myself, since I have been following my 4 step routine for so long, and also have very, very few problems, it is worth the time and effort. Also, when I do my weekly tasks, I am actually doing other non-computer tasks, and thus am not waisting any time.