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No idea what to do

KingOfStuff

KingOfStuff

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 8, 2013
118
161
For about a year i have had an issue with MacOS on my iMac. it began sometime during my use of Sierra. After a fresh boot, log out or log in, the OS would perform smooth as silk. After maybe a half hour things start to lag. Most noticeably Safari, Finder, and UI.
Safari will catch for fractions of a second and make my mouse jerk or cause a currently playing video (in safari, vlc, IINA) or animation to catch. Closing or opening a tab or refreshing a page in safari will almost always cause the catch.
Finder, with no rhyme or reason or cause, will lock up. Sort of. It wont allow me to click on anything in a Finder window but i can still use the keyboard arrow keys to navigate and also use Cmd+O to open files. I can fix the issue by either terminating Finder or clicking into Safari and back into a Finder window.
UI lag. This seems to happen after a half hour or so. The Preview app seems to really trigger it. After this half or so, moving any object around is very noticeably laggy and even causes a split second hitch in the movement of objects sometimes.
Now my first thought was, "i havent done a clean install for like the past 5 versions of OS X"... I thought i would wait for High Sierra to come out. Once 10.13.2 came out I did a complete reformat and clean install. I DID NOT RESTORE. I literally took note of everything I would need and installed everything fresh. The issue was still there!!! I started testing the guest account to see if the issue happened there. I would use the guest account for a few hours and everything remained butter smooth. nothing ever hitched. I took my curiosity a step further and took a Time Machine backup of the iMac and then put it on my MBP. My MBP never has or had any issues.
I dont have any crazy unknown apps or extensions on my mac that i could see causing these issues. Im wondering though if i can clean boot into my account. not just the guest account. and gradually activate apps.
Any ideas?

iMac 27inch late 2012 Currently running 10.13.2 17C205
3.4 GHz i7
32GB RAM
512 SSD
GTX 608MX 2GB

MBP 15inch mid 2015 same OS (TM restore from iMac)
2.5 GHz i7
16GB RAM
512 SSD
AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
 
KingOfStuff said:
Now my first thought was, "i havent done a clean install for like the past 5 versions of OS X"... I thought i would wait for High Sierra to come out. Once 10.13.2 came out I did a complete reformat and clean install. I DID NOT RESTORE. I literally took note of everything I would need and installed everything fresh. The issue was still there!!! I started testing the guest account to see if the issue happened there. I would use the guest account for a few hours and everything remained butter smooth. nothing ever hitched. I took my curiosity a step further and took a Time Machine backup of the iMac and then put it on my MBP. My MBP never has or had any issues.
I dont have any crazy unknown apps or extensions on my mac that i could see causing these issues. Im wondering though if i can clean boot into my account. not just the guest account. and gradually activate apps.
Click to expand...

What really confuses me is that a clean install didn't fix it, but your guest account works normally.

When you did the clean install, did you first wipe the disk with Disk Utility, or did you just click "install macOS"?
 
casperes1996 said:
What really confuses me is that a clean install didn't fix it, but your guest account works normally.

When you did the clean install, did you first wipe the disk with Disk Utility, or did you just click "install macOS"?
Click to expand...

Erase and reformatted
 
casperes1996 said:
Very odd. Is there anything you migrated directly from your old account?
[doublepost=1516664604][/doublepost]Actually, when it is lagging, what does top (and or Activity Monitor) report?
Click to expand...

I cant report what top or AM reports at the moment as i am experimenting with it for the thousandth time, but honestly nothing out of the ordinary. I have checked that many times. I would even compare it with my MBP.
 
KingOfStuff said:
I cant report what top or AM reports at the moment as i am experimenting with it for the thousandth time, but honestly nothing out of the ordinary. I have checked that many times. I would even compare it with my MBP.
Click to expand...

Extremely weird. For now I'm out of ideas, but I'll pipe back in if I come up with anything - otherwise I hope somebody else might shine some light on this
 
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KingOfStuff said:
Please read everything
Click to expand...

He/she did. And it is not clear. Specifically:

KingOfStuff said:
I DID NOT RESTORE. I literally took note of everything I would need and installed everything fresh.
Click to expand...

Nothing in the statement re: user data. Assuming just talking about programs/apps? If restored from backup your home account's Library folder, you might have copied over corrupt caches. Or excessively large ones: Safari caches drag the system down when one has never cleared them, has history setup to retain everything forever, etc.
 
NoBoMac said:
Nothing in the statement re: user data. Assuming just talking about programs/apps? If restored from backup your home account's Library folder, you might have copied over corrupt caches. Or excessively large ones: Safari caches drag the system down when one has never cleared them, has history setup to retain everything forever, etc.
Click to expand...


I agree with the fundamentals here, but it can't just be a Safari cache, since Finder and general UI is affected as well
 
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NoBoMac said:
He/she did. And it is not clear. Specifically:



Nothing in the statement re: user data. Assuming just talking about programs/apps? If restored from backup your home account's Library folder, you might have copied over corrupt caches. Or excessively large ones: Safari caches drag the system down when one has never cleared them, has history setup to retain everything forever, etc.
Click to expand...

I dont understand how me saying "i did not restore" can bring your statement "if restored from backup...". So to clarify anyways... Not a single things was brought back from backup. Except for pictures and Music and even those were just added back from the external drive folder into the application. Also thank you for your clear statements that i could respond to.
 
What's your network situation?
Have you tried stripping it to the bones?
Lots of network calls get sent asynchronously, which can leave you with annoying stutters.
Don't forget to reboot routers, modems, bridges etc.
 
Partron22 said:
What's your network situation?
Have you tried stripping it to the bones?
Lots of network calls get sent asynchronously, which can leave you with annoying stutters.
Don't forget to reboot routers, modems, bridges etc.
Click to expand...

Would that not cause the problems on my MBP and in the guest account? Either way... I live in an apartment complex that has a DIA 10G Fiber line coming in. It Run to 7 buildings that comes to approximately 280 apartments total. Each apartment has a 100M Ethernet connection. From that connection i have my personal Asus AC1900 which then feeds into a 16 port switch for me and my roommates to connect to. Not to mention our xbox's, tvs, printers, media players, and other things like that. I have recently rebooted my router about 2 weeks ago. I didnt think of that being a cause but even so, the issue didnt reside. I have not rebooted switches... I do not use wifi on my iMac
 
KingOfStuff said:
I dont understand how me saying "i did not restore" can bring your statement "if restored from backup
Click to expand...


He just meant that whilst he understood that you didn't restore your entire system from a backup, you could still have dragged back you Home folder from a saved copy and there are libraries in your Home Folder
 
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casperes1996 said:
He just meant that whilst he understood that you didn't restore your entire system from a backup, you could still have dragged back you Home folder from a saved copy and there are libraries in your Home Folder
Click to expand...

Oh ok i understand now. Thank You. BTW after staying up all night trying to find the culprit.. i think i may have pinpointed it. I was comparing running processes on my iMac and my MBP (as the MBP was restored from the iMac TM) when hitches started last night. There were only a few the MBP didnt have running. SABNZBD, Megaapp, and skype. There were a few others but all built in apps. Quit them all out one by one and after i stopped Skype everything seemed to return to normal. I ran my iMac for about an hour without restarting. Then restarted while making sure Skype would not come on. For the past 5 hours i have not had one hitch. Skype though??? why.... It makes sense why my MBP never had any hitches as i never run skype on it. going to keep my eye on it.
 
KingOfStuff said:
not come on. For the past 5 hours i have not had one hitch. Skype though??? why.... It makes sense why my MBP never had any hitches as i never run skype on it. going to keep my eye on it.
Click to expand...

But it doesn't make sense that Skype should freak out like that. I wonder what the underlying reason is if it is Skype.
[doublepost=1516720577][/doublepost]
casperes1996 said:
But it doesn't make sense that Skype should freak out like that. I wonder what the underlying reason is if it is Skype.
Click to expand...


I've started up Skype on my iMac with the latest update - could you share some details about how you've got Skype setup and running to see if I can recreate the issue?
 
casperes1996 said:
But it doesn't make sense that Skype should freak out like that. I wonder what the underlying reason is if it is Skype.
[doublepost=1516720577][/doublepost]


I've started up Skype on my iMac with the latest update - could you share some details about how you've got Skype setup and running to see if I can recreate the issue?
Click to expand...

Yea it makes no sense but everything has been smooth since. I am running Version 7.59 (37). I dont think ive touched any of the preferences in it. I only ever had it open because every once in a while i talk to friends with it. I do know that with this version, when you share screens with someone it makes the UI go to **** right away and eats cpu time.
 
KingOfStuff said:
Yea it makes no sense but everything has been smooth since. I am running Version 7.59 (37). I dont think ive touched any of the preferences in it. I only ever had it open because every once in a while i talk to friends with it. I do know that with this version, when you share screens with someone it makes the UI go to **** right away and eats cpu time.
Click to expand...

Have you got it hidden, minimised, in a different desktop, anything like that?
 
KingOfStuff said:
All of those. On any occasion. I have another connected monitor. More often than any of the others it would be hidden though.
Click to expand...


If the problem indeed does stem from Skype I'm insanely confused. Had it running for a while now and so far no effect. Has been hidden, logged in and with default Preferences.
Also just mental if that got through QA-testing
 
casperes1996 said:
If the problem indeed does stem from Skype I'm insanely confused. Had it running for a while now and so far no effect. Has been hidden, logged in and with default Preferences.
Also just mental if that got through QA-testing
Click to expand...

It would usually take a half hour to an hour for it to really show. From a restart anyways... I always had it launch on log in.
[doublepost=1516722971][/doublepost]
KingOfStuff said:
It would usually take a half hour to an hour for it to really show. From a restart anyways... I always had it launch on log in.
Click to expand...

Also, after an hour or so, open a few images in the Preview app. Mine would always lag.
 
casperes1996 said:
Had it open since I wrote it earlier, still nothing. I'll go have a shower, then bomb preview with images and PDFs to see if I notice anything.
Click to expand...

weird..... Mine is still running smooth since not having it running.
[doublepost=1516729983][/doublepost]
KingOfStuff said:
weird..... Mine is still running smooth since not having it running.
Click to expand...

Could it be something with my particular GPU?
 
When a "guest" or otherwise newly-created "test account" works properly (it has nothing but the Apple software in it), and the "regular" account DOES NOT WORK as it should, then...

...it points to software that the user has installed (not Apple).

The OP seems to have found the "offending software".
Skype is one of the "usual suspects"...
 
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