SOLVED Sudden slow Mac

[NickBB]

My mac, Ventura 13.2.1., has suddenly slowed. This is the situation:
-other devices in the house are fine
-50% of storage unused
-see screenshot: memory is green, seems happy
-see screenshot: networkQuality reports low responsiveness.
-video seems particularly affected - slow and halting.
-CPU % seems fine, 90% idle, no app is running hot.
Any suggestions of other tests I can run? Otherwise, it's a visit to the Apple store.....$$$$
Nick

 

[TonyAguila]

My mac, Ventura 13.2.1., has suddenly slowed. This is the situation:
-other devices in the house are fine
-50% of storage unused
-see screenshot: memory is green, seems happy
-see screenshot: networkQuality reports low responsiveness.
-video seems particularly affected - slow and halting.
-CPU % seems fine, 90% idle, no app is running hot.
Any suggestions of other tests I can run? Otherwise, it's a visit to the Apple store.....$$$$
Nick

if you add up memory used and cached files, you get almost 8 gibibytes, your total RAM. So a lot of the slowness is from the system having to write some of the memory to disk to free up space. I have used this trick, if you can call it that, to enable low priority process throttling, temporarily, usually when the Mac is busy doing Time Machine backups or Spotlight indexing. In Terminal, enter this command:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

and enter your password. To revert the state, enter:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=1

If this is indeed the issue, then you can get some relief, but I would not leave it in this state for good. As always, your mileage may vary.

 

[NickBB]

Thanks, Tony, for your suggestion - but no discernible difference ........the RAM, according to the Activity Monitor, is full of small files - a lot of "Helper" files, can I get rid of some of these to create some space? If not, I have a problem - these RAMS cannot be changed. I don't run movies or games, Logic Pro is the biggest app I run.

 

[NickBB]

Another query I have is that the Memory Pressure registers a low green line ie, no pressure on the RAM. Yet the Physical Memory is full!

 

[TonyAguila]

Thanks, Tony, for your suggestion - but no discernible difference ........the RAM, according to the Activity Monitor, is full of small files - a lot of "Helper" files, can I get rid of some of these to create some space? If not, I have a problem - these RAMS cannot be changed. I don't run movies or games, Logic Pro is the biggest app I run.

Ouch! Logic Pro is heavy-duty enough that I would not advise someone planning on running it to get just 8 gibibytes of memory. You have an M1 Mac, right? Memory pressure might be stable, but that means that your RAM is in full use and that all the swaps and caching are causing the slowdown. SSD might be fast, but slow compared to RAM. If I were in your place, I would get an NVMe SSD in an external enclosure, at least 2 terabytes, and use it as your system drive. That will give you ample room for memory swaps and caching. It should be about as fast as your internal SSD. I have two of those that I assembled myself, a 2-TB and a 4-TB. They both run at about 3 MB/s read and write.

You also mentioned that you have macOS 13.2.1 installed. Is there a reason for not updating to 13.4.1?

 

[NickBB]

Tony, I noticed that update today....it has finally installed, and, at first run, it seems to have solved the problem....let's hope.
As for Logic, I told theApple people that Logic would be the only RAM guzzler I would be using, and they said 8GB would be fine. Which, up to now, is right.
Thanks for your help.

 

[TonyAguila]

Tony, I noticed that update today....it has finally installed, and, at first run, it seems to have solved the problem....let's hope.
As for Logic, I told theApple people that Logic would be the only RAM guzzler I would be using, and they said 8GB would be fine. Which, up to now, is right.
Thanks for your help.

Good, Nick. It’s always a good practice to stay up-to-date because they usually contain not just security updates, but bug fixes and improvements. Good luck with the 8 gibibytes of memory, and try to quit out of running apps when you don’t need to always go back to them immediately. Sometimes a log-out/log-in will clear caches and background processes, right before you get down to working with Logic Pro.

Also, when you get the chance, try to download the installer for macOS 13.4.1 (or newer, in future), and keep a copy. Often, when things do not feel right, a reinstall will refresh your system. I do that routinely, as soon as things don’t seem to be working properly.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

Just to add a bit for optimizing Logic Pro: Make sure you are running Logic by itself - no other open applications. Take advantage of sends, busses, and auxes to reduce the number of plug-ins running. And, uninstall any extra/rarely unused third-party plug-ins, or at least disable them using Logic Pro's Plug-in Manager.

C

 

[NickBB]

Thanks for the Logic tips. About the Installer - what is the procedure to reinstall the macOS, if needed, once the installer is downloaded? Is this an option to Recovery? Presumably the installer would be kept on an external device.....

 

[TonyAguila]

Thanks for the Logic tips. About the Installer - what is the procedure to reinstall the macOS, if needed, once the installer is downloaded? Is this an option to Recovery? Presumably the installer would be kept on an external device.....

I do the download using  > App Store…. Once, or if, it comes up, select it until the Get button appears and the download will start into your Applications folder. When done, it will automatically launch. Quit out of it for now to save a copy.

You can place the installer file anywhere other than your Applications folder. And, actually, if you abort the automatic launch after the initial download, it can live in the Applications folder without automatically running. The reason for keeping a copy is so that you can reinstall macOS in future.

If the App Store route does not work for you, you can try,

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

To reinstall, I recommend rebooting into Safe Mode, copying the installer back into Applications (if not already there), and launching it. Needless to say, do this after an up-to-date backup with Time Machine or your backup method of choice.