Finder & reading/writing hang up

[Rain]

Hello.

I have a late-2014 Retina MacBook Pro with El Capitan on it. Yesterday my Mac started showing problems out of nowhere.

On booting, the Finder hangs for a long time before loading my desktop icons and any windows I may have left open in my previous session. When opening any folder in any of the two hard drives I use (my Mac's internal HD and an external SeaGate disk), the window loads immediately but the icons take a while to appear (sometimes with the exception of one item). Creating a new folder anywhere invariably results in error –50 if I attempt it from the Finder (see below). Opening any application by double-clicking its icon or from Mission Control works fine unless the application needs to restore a previous session (e.g. if I quit Preview without closing all the PDFs I was reading), in which case it hangs; opening a document invariably causes the corresponding application to hang; eventually, though, the document(s) is/are loaded correctly. TextEdit loads properly but hangs for a while if I create a new document. I cannot save any document I edit on any application, nor can I "save as" in the same folder the document is in, but I can create a new folder in the Desktop from within an app and then "save as" there. Taking a screenshot (cmd+shift+3 or cmd+shift+4) works as normal, but copying what's on the screen (cmd+ctrl+shift+3 or cmd+ctrl+shift+4) fails (it appears to work, but trying to paste the image somewhere results in nothing being pasted). Copying and pasting text, even large amounts, works as normal. All the information on both of my hard drives (at least the files I use regularly) seems to be unharmed; it just takes forever to access. SpotLight seems to work fine (I was able to perform a TimeMachine backup; see below), and my hard drives have been indexed for months now. Forcing an app to quit with cmd+alt+esc causes the app to hang around for a short while before it quits, but doing so with Activity Monitor works the way it should. Activity Monitor always loads without a problem and works flawlessly (I have also successfully asked it for process info). Nothing is taking more than a few percent of CPU time or a large amount of RAM (the YouTube pages I've left open in Safari invariably occupy the first few spots if I sort processes from highest memory load to lowest; I've got loads of free RAM at all times).

I use the computer for several hours a day every day. I normally put it to sleep at night and have reached uptime periods of three or four weeks several times, but lately I have been turning it off every night because my mum is visiting and I need to remove the computer from the guest bedroom (where I normally work) before she goes to bed (I don't like moving the computer when it's on, even if it's asleep). The problems weren't there the day before yesterday; they appeared yesterday when I turned the computer on. I have had El Capitan for a few weeks now, so that's not the problem. I didn't install any apps, visit any websites I don't normally visit, connect any new peripherals to the computer or delete anything during the session prior to the problems starting. The computer didn't receive any physical damage. I had OS 10.11.3 when the problems started (see below). I have confirmed that it is not a problem with either of the hard drives (see above). I am the administrator, there are no other accounts, and guest login is turned off.

I have deleted all the com.apple.xxxx files and CloudKit files listed on this page and this page and killed the cloudd process from Activity Monitor. Following the advice on this page, I also deleted ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist. I don't have any sidebar links to nonexistent folders or files. Despite SpotLight working OK (see above), I thought I'd give the other piece of advice on this page a try and rebuild the SpotLight index of both hard drives; however, when I tried to add the hard drives to the privacy list using System Preferences > SpotLight, I got an error message saying I couldn't add those directories to the privacy list. As suggested somewhere else, I logged out of iCloud and logged back on. Someone said that it might be a problem with one lf my startup items, so I cleared my list (I had iTunes, Calendar, the DropBox applet, the Caffeine applet and the BowTie applet). I also read somewhere that OS 10.11.5 fixed some problem or other which seemed related to Finder slowness, so I updated my OS (along with a bunch of other apps the App Store app said needed updating, such as the iWork suite). Each of these steps was followed by a restart, sometimes several. Obviously, none of this worked. Before trying anything, I was able to back up (most of) my files with TimeMachine to the usual LaCie external hard drive I use for backups.

Because my backup disk is a little too small (500 GB) and I can't backup absolutely everything on the two hard drives I use every day, I'm reluctant to format my Mac and then recover it (this always seems to be suggested by someone as a last-resort solution). Also, assuming the problem is being caused by a corrupted or problematic or missing file (as I mentioned previously, there was no physical damage to the computer), I don't see how backing up, formatting and restoring would work, since the corrupted or problematic file would be backed up along with everything else (or, if it's a missing file, it would fail to be backed up with everything else) anyway.

I'd appreciate any help with this problem. Unfortunately, this happened at the worst possible time, as I'm going on holiday tomorrow for two weeks and I won't take my computer with me; I'll be able to reply to comments and try stuff on my computer in two weeks.

Thanks again.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Let us know when you return and we'll see if we can sort this out.

Enjoy your holiday!

C

 

[Rain]

Thanks, Cory. I did. I'm back now and still worried about my poor computer's odd behaviour.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Welcome back!

-On quick review, Bowtie may be part of the problem, since Spotify is known to slow down login and add overall sluggishness to Macs. Did things get any better when you removed it as a startup item?
-Have you completed your file backup to your external drive?
-Have you tried downloading and applying the OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 Combo Update?
-How much free space is left on your HD?
-Do you have any third-party utilities like MacKeeper or CleanMyMac installed?
-Do you have an antivirus installed?

Also, part of your description leads me to a possible permissions problem, since you have trouble creating new folder/documents, etc. You could try creating a test user, then login to it to see if the issues persist. If so, then it is an issue with your user itself and not the OS.

C

 

[Rain]

Hi, Cory. Thanks for your suggestions!

As I said, removing all startup items didn't work. Surely if BowTie isn't running it can't affect my computer's performance... right?

Updating to OS 10.11.5 didn't work either.

There are about 20 GB left on my hard drive, It's not that my computer is slow all around because of low memory or low disk space (which I know results in apps being unable to create virtual memory by writing to disk, ultimately yielding the same problem as low memory), but that it's slow to read and write files but does everything else OK.

I don't have MacKeeper or anything like that.

I have ClamXav installed (only because my university required me to have an antivirus in order to let me use its wi-fi network). Could that be it?

I'll give the test user thing a go and let you know how it goes.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Correct, if it is not running, it shouldn't affect performance.

I know you already updated to 10.11.5, but downloading and installing the Combo Update over the top of your installation can sometimes help.

When your HD gets to 20 GB or less of HD space, it can slow down dramatically.

ClamXav can slow things down...especially if Sentry is enabled or it is always running, as it scans every file that is opened or executed. I run ClamXav when started up from an external diagnostic HD I have once ever few months, simply to see if it catches anything, which it never does.

Yes, let us know how the test user works out.

C

 

[Rain]

Well, I think the problem is gone now. The test user had the same problems as the admin account. I kept testing for a bit (with the admin account) and discovered that I didn't have the problem when I booted up without my external drive connected, which I thought was odd, seeing as with the external drive connected the problem was present when trying to read/write both from/to that and from/to my internal drive. I took the external drive to the Apple Store and tested it on one of their computers, which resulted in the same problem. I bought a new drive and copied everything to it, and I have since been using the new external drive with no problems. I'm guessing the old one has a faulty connection or something. Apple said they can't help me concerning exchanges or refunds because I bought the disk over a year ago and they can't open the box up and replace the connector because it's a product from SeaGate (i.e. another company), but I'll report the issue to SeaGate and see if I can get a refund.

I guess I was fortunate in that whatever was wrong with the old drive was not the disk itself.

Thanks again for your help, Cory, and I'll see if I can deactivate/uninstall ClamXav to avoid problems in the future.