Help! El Capitan has rendered my iMac almost useless

[Fugabutacus]

Hi,

I just upgraded my mid-2011 21" iMac to El Capitan. Although decent for every day use, I do a lot of video editing on the machine, which has made it quite sluggish recently. Still, it's been working fine, if a little slow at times. El Capitan, however, has completely destroyed the machine and I'm kinda panicking about the fact that I can't get any work done until it's fixed, so any advice is appreciated.

After upgrading, I found that Safari tended to crash every ten minutes or so and I would have to force quit and relaunch. It seems to be doing okay right now, for once. When I first tried to launch iTunes, it took three attempts before a window would even open—both previous times it crashed. I haven't yet been able to use spotlight as it's too slow—the longest I waited was a minute, after results for a one-word query didn't appear after sixty seconds, I gave up. When I click an app, it's minutes before it finally opens.

Most importantly, Final Cut Pro X. I have a lot of work I really need to be getting on with inside that app, but after about ten attempts at launching it, it crashed every time and I gave up. It wasn't up to date at that point, so I've now updated it (took about three hours for some reason) and when I launch the app, I'm asked to update the library. Clicking okay freezes the app, crashes it completely. Basically leaving me without access to any of the work I need to do.

This is driving me crazy but it's obviously not entirely down to the operating system, so what could be contributing to this? Is there anything I can do to speed the machine up?

Sorry if I failed to explain anything well.

 

[whodatrr]

Is this 10.11.0 or 10.11.1?

The first El cap rendered two of my systems practically useless, for a couple weeks (MS Office issues, etc.). The latest update, just release yesterday, seems to have fixed many of the issues.... so far?

 

[CoastalOR]

Hi,

I just upgraded my mid-2011 21" iMac to El Capitan. Although decent for every day use, I do a lot of video editing on the machine, which has made it quite sluggish recently. Still, it's been working fine, if a little slow at times. El Capitan, however, has completely destroyed the machine and I'm kinda panicking about the fact that I can't get any work done until it's fixed, so any advice is appreciated.

After upgrading, I found that Safari tended to crash every ten minutes or so and I would have to force quit and relaunch. It seems to be doing okay right now, for once. When I first tried to launch iTunes, it took three attempts before a window would even open—both previous times it crashed. I haven't yet been able to use spotlight as it's too slow—the longest I waited was a minute, after results for a one-word query didn't appear after sixty seconds, I gave up. When I click an app, it's minutes before it finally opens.

Most importantly, Final Cut Pro X. I have a lot of work I really need to be getting on with inside that app, but after about ten attempts at launching it, it crashed every time and I gave up. It wasn't up to date at that point, so I've now updated it (took about three hours for some reason) and when I launch the app, I'm asked to update the library. Clicking okay freezes the app, crashes it completely. Basically leaving me without access to any of the work I need to do.

This is driving me crazy but it's obviously not entirely down to the operating system, so what could be contributing to this? Is there anything I can do to speed the machine up?

Sorry if I failed to explain anything well.

Did you check for Final Cut Pro compatibility with 10.11? A search of this thread indicates problems with "Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1 (crashes upon launch for some people)" see post # 992:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ot-working-apps.1890772/page-40#post-22000223

You need to restore to your backup that works with Final Cut Pro so you can get back to work and wait for El Capitan compatibility with your important software.

There may also be some old start up files that may not play well with El Capitan.

 

[dianeoforegon]

CREATE A NEW USER
Go to System Preferences --> Create a New User in Users & Groups.
Switch to the New User by logging out under the Apple in the Menu Bar.

Test the apps that are crashing on you in your regular User. Do the problems go away?

If yes, then the problem is with your base files.
If no, then the problem is in your User's folder.

 

[Fugabutacus]

Is this 10.11.0 or 10.11.1?

The first El cap rendered two of my systems practically useless, for a couple weeks (MS Office issues, etc.). The latest update, just release yesterday, seems to have fixed many of the issues.... so far?

Did you check for Final Cut Pro compatibility with 10.11? A search of this thread indicates problems with "Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1 (crashes upon launch for some people)" see post # 992:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ot-working-apps.1890772/page-40#post-22000223

You need to restore to your backup that works with Final Cut Pro so you can get back to work and wait for El Capitan compatibility with your important software.

There may also be some old start up files that may not play well with El Capitan.

It looks like I'm on 10.11.1 with Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2. Are there known compatibility issues between these two?

That fact that it look literally 2-3 minutes to load the "About This Mac" window does not fill me with confidence.

Like I said, the computer could get quite slow before I upgraded (although nowhere near this bad) but the only culprits I could ever find were low disk space due to large Final Cut projects and systemstats running totally wild, but I'm wondering if there was something else slowing it down that's now being highlighted by El Capitan?

 

[CoastalOR]

It looks like I'm on 10.11.1 with Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2. Are there known compatibility issues between these two?
That fact that it look literally 2-3 minutes to load the "About This Mac" window does not fill me with confidence.
Like I said, the computer could get quite slow before I upgraded (although nowhere near this bad) but the only culprits I could ever find were low disk space due to large Final Cut projects and systemstats running totally wild, but I'm wondering if there was something else slowing it down that's now being highlighted by El Capitan?

I do not know about FCP and 10.11.1. Do the research/search.

I can suggest to check your Activity Monitor app in the Utilities folder to see what is your large CPU users. There could be some Spotlight index activity (mds) or something else.

 

[whodatrr]

Just a thought, run First Aid in the Disk Utility app. It'll check to see if the install/upgrade messed with permissions and what-not. at least that's a start.

Though 10.11.0 was a nightmare, 10.11.1 isn't that bad. Something, beyond just a buggy OS, has gone wrong. My gut says something got screwed up during the install, but I;m grasping at straws.

 

[Fugabutacus]

My MacBook Pro, although I've used it less, so I may not be entirely accurate in saying this, appears to have drastically slowed down since installing El Capitan, too. It makes me think that perhaps both computers were slowing down already and El Capitan doesn't handle that as well as Mavericks, making it more obvious?

The two computers are from 2010 and 2011, so it wouldn't be massively surprising if they were being a bit slow.

The Final Cut bug, though, I have no idea.

Although I'm loving iOS 9 on my iPhone 6S, iOS 9 on my 2012 iPad Mini has led to a point where I have to purposefully type slower than usual, other wise I end up typing and then waiting a minute or two while the OS catches up and finishes my sentence, so I'm struggling to not feel like Apple is basically saying screw you to anyone who owns products over two years old.

Comforting words are welcome.