MacBook Air suddenly becoming unusable. Don't know if Big Sur's fault.

[NameUndecided]

I'm not sure how to identify the cause of this problem. It seems like it could be an operating system error but I'm not sure.

I've had Big Sur installed on this MacBook Air 2013 since probably late November. Problems started just within these past few days.

Safari started running really slow and auto-reloading tabs with "there was an error loading this webpage" messages. I thought it had simply been open for too long and with lots of tabs open (I always have lots open at once), but closing Safari and rebooting didn't fix it at all. I cleared cache. No fix.
The issue steadily increased so now no pages can load in Safari at this time, just a looping "there was an error" with any open tab. Safari is now unusable.

Thought I might update to Big Sur 11.1 from 11.0 to see if that fixes Safari. But I am unable to do so. In the Software Update pane in Preferences, if I hit the update button or "more info" under the 11.1 description, it takes me back to main Preferences pane with error message "There was an error in Software Update preferences." Every time for these past couple of days. So I'm locked out of updating.

I tried downloading the full 12gb Big Sur file from the app store to either try and update or (really don't want to) clean install with it. The download worked but the 12gb install file crashes when I press the first Continue button.

Other similar issues with apps suddenly arising, very safe to say are related --
Trying to view mail in my Spark email app makes a spinning ball and then crashes the app.
I can open up my Apple Books or Kindle apps, but opening a book file in either app crashes it almost instantly (Kindle) or freezes it for a couple minutes while I wait to force quit (Apple Books).
Music and TV apps can't open -- just black space that slows everything down and I have to force quit.

Oddly, other browsers like this Edge browser I'm currently using are working okay, maybe with some occasional unusual stalling.
And the App Store app is seeming to be okay.

No malware or anything else fishy found using CleanmyMacX. This is objectively like the cleanest my MacBook Air has been in a long time. I cleaned out old unused files and apps and etc before installing Big Sur. I've about 60gb space free. I have not downloaded any weird apps and don't know of anything else suspicious to blame this on.

Only thing I can think of so far is maybe the OS is twitching out when it needs to "call home" to verify apps?

I'm not suuper tech savvy and just kind of going about this blind. It's so crazy that native apps and functions are crashing the fudge out making computer almost unusable, but I'm also just using Edge browser and opening tabs and searching for solutions with little or no problem.
Activity Monitor doesn't seem to be showing anything obviously problematic(?). Fan is not kicking in or heating up when apps slow and crash.

Big ol' shruggy emoji. Thank you for reading.

 

[NameUndecided]

Oh yeah, when I searched for a solution to the Software Update error message, I saw someone mention on another website this way to update through Terminal. It did not work for me.

I typed "sudo softwareupdate --install --all"
and it starts to download, but every time it got to about 73.something% complete, it errored out with this daunting message. Maybe this explains some part of the problem?


Failed to download & prepare update: Error Domain=SUMacControllerError Code=7740 "[SUMacControllerErrorPrepareFailed=7740] Failed to perform Prepare operation: [MobileSoftwareUpdateErrorDomain(MSU):MSU_ERR_FILESYSTEM_DOESNT_VERIFY(3)_1_MobileSoftwareUpdateBOMErrorDomain:1|FullReplacementRequired|]" UserInfo={SUMacControllerErrorIndicationsSummary=|FullReplacementRequired|, SUMacControllerErrorIndicationsMask=2, SUMacControllerErrorIndicationsDescription=-> Full replacement is required [as opposed to incremental patch]., NSUnderlyingError=0x7faed4f09ea0 {Error Domain=MobileSoftwareUpdateErrorDomain Code=3 "'./System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64h' did not verify and is not on the exception list." UserInfo={target_update=20C69, NSLocalizedDescription='./System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64h' did not verify and is not on the exception list., NSUnderlyingError=0x7faed4f06fb0 {Error Domain=MobileSoftwareUpdateBOMErrorDomain Code=1 "contents of '/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64h' don't match bom (863c69ce vs 18bd0742)" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=contents of '/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64h' don't match bom (863c69ce vs 18bd0742)}}, MSUFullReplacementRecommened=true}}, NSDebugDescription=[SUMacControllerErrorPrepareFailed=7740] Failed to perform Prepare operation: [MobileSoftwareUpdateErrorDomain(MSU):MSU_ERR_FILESYSTEM_DOESNT_VERIFY(3)_1_MobileSoftwareUpdateBOMErrorDomain:1|FullReplacementRequired|], NSLocalizedDescription=Failed to prepare the software update. Please try again.}

 

[Honza1]

I cannot say for sure, but after reading through this, I worry about your SSD structure. Here is what I would do :
1. Make sure I have current backup of everything I may need. I mean, ideally two, even if it takes longer time to do.
2. Run disk utility "First aid"

Why? I have had myself "system is abruptly very slow" and "beach balls all the time" and it was indication of disk errors. And the error in installer:"MSU_ERR_FILESYSTEM_DOESNT_VERIFY" also suggest, that installer cannot verify structure of the disk.
Why backups are critical - I have seen disk barely readable before First Aid to become completely unusable after First Aid. In this case it was hardware issue with SSD and attempt to fix it destroyed it completely.
Good luck.

 

[NameUndecided]

I cannot say for sure, but after reading through this, I worry about your SSD structure. Here is what I would do :
1. Make sure I have current backup of everything I may need. I mean, ideally two, even if it takes longer time to do.
2. Run disk utility "First aid"

Why? I have had myself "system is abruptly very slow" and "beach balls all the time" and it was indication of disk errors. And the error in installer:"MSU_ERR_FILESYSTEM_DOESNT_VERIFY" also suggest, that installer cannot verify structure of the disk.
Why backups are critical - I have seen disk barely readable before First Aid to become completely unusable after First Aid. In this case it was hardware issue with SSD and attempt to fix it destroyed it completely.
Good luck.

aww heck. thank you very much. I will probably run a First Aid soon if necessary. I have backups of important files and even started to prepare to do a clean install of the OS earlier. Just don't have a full Time Machine or other kind of backup. I won't immediately rush into the First Aid check, just in case I decide to try a more robust system copy.

Thank you for the heads up. I'm not used to SSDs failing like hard drives do, so it didn't even really cross my mind.

 

[mwidjaya]

I'm not used to SSDs failing like hard drives do, so it didn't even really cross my mind.

With systemic errors across apps and filesystem errors being thrown up, it is likely SSD faults.

7 yrs old SSD, so it is possible for disk failure.

I suggest using drivedx (free trial) to confirm if SSD is failing.

DriveDx - the most advanced drive health diagnostics and monitoring utility

DriveDx - the most advanced drive health (S.M.A.R.T.) diagnostics and monitoring utility. Save yourself the data loss and downtime that is associated with unexpected SSD and HDD failures. Don't worry about losing your important data, music, and photographs.

binaryfruit.com

 

[NameUndecided]

With systemic errors across apps and filesystem errors being thrown up, it is likely SSD faults.

7 yrs old SSD, so it is possible for disk failure.

I suggest using drivedx (free trial) to confirm if SSD is failing.

DriveDx - the most advanced drive health diagnostics and monitoring utility

DriveDx - the most advanced drive health (S.M.A.R.T.) diagnostics and monitoring utility. Save yourself the data loss and downtime that is associated with unexpected SSD and HDD failures. Don't worry about losing your important data, music, and photographs.

binaryfruit.com

Yeeeas that seems to be it. I open DriveDX and it instantly tells me the Erase Count is 0%
The only other stat that isn't 100% is Temperature which is at 55%

Thank you both for pointing this out. I guess I will look into replacing the SSD. Thankfully I do have a newer Pro as well, so I'm not totally out of computer commission. I just really like having this smaller and lighter one for casual use.

Apologies to the Big Sur god (Notus? Maybe?) for assuming that was the cause.