Spinning Beach Ball Blues!

R

robian

Registered
My son's iMac (2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 6 Gb RAM, running 10.5.8) suddenly began to exhibit strange behavior today. (This behavior seemed to follow a seemingly routine update to Firefox 8.0.1). Suddenly the machine runs extremely slowly, taking 3-4 minutes to launch a variety of apps, mostly Internet related. We have wireless, but that doesn't seem to be the issue, since once the apps are open they function, albeit slowly.

When this first occurred, I started from the Install disk and tried to run Disk Utilities. It reported an "invalid sibling link," and wouldn't work on the startup disk. I then started in single user mode, and following instructions off the net (I'm not that tech savvy), I ran /sbin/fsck -fy. The disk was apparently repaired as verified by a subsequent check with Disk Utilities. I then repaired permissions, although some reported that they "had been modified and wouldn't be repaired."

I then redownloaded a fresh copy of Firefox8.0.1, in case something had gone wrong with the update. This improved things, but not much. The spinning beach ball seems to pop up with even the most mundane of requests, such as opening a folder or a disk. Things that should take 3 seconds take 3 minutes, or don't happen at all, causing a force shutdown and restart. We have yet to be able to open iTunes.

Anybody have any ideas of what might be wrong here? I'm totally perplexed.

Thanks a lot... (and BTW, Happy Thanksgiving to all you to whom this applies.)

Robert
 
Download the free/donationware cache cleaning program YASU or Onyx and run all the cache cleaning routines. Let the program reboot your Mac when finished and then after the program reboots your Mac, manually reboot it again to completely rebuild your startup/shutdown system cache.

IMHO doing this kind of cache cleaning about once every three or four months will keep OS X running almost like new.
 
YASU didn't seem to help. It ran through its processes, but now rebooting takes "forever" with desktop items appearing and disappearing multiple times over a period of 5-10 minutes while this happens. Once stable, the system doesn't seem to run any better. iTunes still won't start. Other tasks happen slowly, or create a lengthy spinning beach ball. Wish this had panned out, but alas... no. Still hoping a total system update will resolve the problem. Now I'm beginning to suspect some corrupt Finder prefs. Does that make sense? If so, what files should I trash to rebuild them?
 
should you be lucky and get your system up and running, I would suggest downloading and running the 10.5.8 combo update.
This cannot hurt your system and might just repair any corrupt files etc.
 
Well, he's running 10.5.8. now and software update shows no other updates needed besides iTunes. However, now we can't get past the blue screen, and its constantly interrupted by pop-up alerts that various system apps (Spotlight, Airport Base Station, etc.) "quit unexpectedly." This is extremely frustrating.
 
I am aware you are running 10.5.8, I was suggesting you to re-run the 10.5.8 Combo update to correct any corrupt files.
Understandably you'll need to get a running system before this can happen.
 
It is starting to sound like the Internal hard drive might be failing. To test will have4 to have you follow these steps exactly because it is a little advance but will help to temporary fix an internal disk.

1. Turn the Mac total off.

2. Boot into Single-User mode by starting up while holding down the keyboard keys: Command Button+s . You will see a black screen with white scrolling text. Let go of the keys now.

3. At the first available prompt type the command
Code: 
fsck -fy
. Let it run until you get another prompt symbol. If it says "***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****" then run the fsck -fy again and wait for the program to say "** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK" . This is explained in the Apple document Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck. Ket running the command until it says all is OK.

4. To boot back into OS x normally just type the command
Code: 
reboot
.

Know even if fsck -fy works it will NOT be great fix. The disk is dying a slow death and it will be just a matter of time before it dies completely. Now with the floods in Thailand and hard drives going higher and higher it will be more expensive for new hard drives. Sorry to be the deliver of bad news.
 
@Satcomer - Good suggestion, but the very first thing I did was boot into single user mode and run fsck -fy, etc. That helped a little, but not much. Late yesterday, however, I did isolate a problem that seemed to fix the problem for the most part. I booted into "safe mode" and downloaded an update to iTunes. In doing so, I discovered his iTunes database/library was corrupt. Rebuilding this pretty much took care of the issue. The comp is a *little* more sluggish than it was (maybe 3-5%), but otherwise is running normally. This week, I'm going to do a clean install of Snow Leopard for him. If that doesn't totally square things away, we'll look into replacing a hard drive.

@Doctor X - Thanks for the great link! Excellent advice.
 
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