mysterious slow downs and crashes

[wfriedwald]

I hate it when this happens - the system starts acting buggy, almost every app takes a while to load, and there are mysterious slow downs and crashes.

I did what everybody always advises, first a safe restart.

THEN I tried logging on into a different user account. And yes, the problems do seem to be endemic to my account, NOT the clean account.

SO, having done that, what does everyone advise as a next step? I guess I can keep using the new clean account, gradually transform it into what I need it to be from the current account, hopefully keeping the bugginess out of it.

Thanks for feedback / suggestions!

w

 

[BanditoB]

It may help to do a reinstall of MacOS. It will overwrite systems files, but leave your system generally intact.

 

[Slartibart]

the system crash log accessible via the console might offer some insight. Additionally it might be helpfull to know your hardware incl. all connected peripherals und the version of Monterey.

 

[BrianBaughn]

It's good that you've narrowed it down to your User Account. As far as problems go it's pretty common for User Account weirdness to be the culprit.

We don't know what third-party software you are using (or used in the past) or even if this is a User Account that has been migrated though macOS updates or hardware changes…and even if we did it's very difficult to pinpoint the problem.

I'd say "yes" to carefully building up the new user account and getting rid of the old one.

 

[wfriedwald]

thanks for the feedback!

re the idea of reinstalling the OS, I did just do the upgrade to Monterey 12.5 a few nights ago. Since then, I have not had the chance to tell if the upgrade has made any difference, but so far I am not optimistic.

So my question: would re-installing the entire OS still be something worth trying if doing the upgrade to 12.5 has, apparently, not helped?

thanks again for your responses!

w

 

[BrianBaughn]

thanks for the feedback!

re the idea of reinstalling the OS, I did just do the upgrade to Monterey 12.5 a few nights ago. Since then, I have not had the chance to tell if the upgrade has made any difference, but so far I am not optimistic.

So my question: would re-installing the entire OS still be something worth trying if doing the upgrade to 12.5 has, apparently, not helped?

thanks again for your responses!

w

The update didn't clean up as much as a reinstall would. It's not a big deal to do a reinstall so do it if you want to try…but you've determined it's your User Account that's buggy.

 

[rpmurray]

the system crash log accessible via the console might offer some insight. Additionally it might be helpfull to know your hardware incl. all connected peripherals und the version of Monterey.

That would be a possibility if the same problems cropped up in a new account. But since Monterey has a sealed system volume that's not likely to be the case.

 

[rpmurray]

You may want to try checking with Etrecheck. It may give you some pointers to where you could be having problems.

 

[Slartibart]

That would be a possibility if the same problems cropped up in a new account. But since Monterey has a sealed system volume that's not likely to be the case.

when something, app or system, crashes - as the OP indicated - it will show up in the crash logs… under whatever user account. We do not know much about what’s effected, besides that MacOS 12.5 was installed… on what hardware, with whatever peripherals, effecting which apps or even the system to shutdown… well, the OP didn’t tell.

A crash.log for an app or the system will help. It does. Almost always.