This Fixed My Lag Issue

tecnho · May 25, 2015

I have very little technical knowledge of the subject so I do not pertain to know why or if this is a true fix. It is also possible that others that have been reporting lag have done this already to no avail, but this fix seemed to work for me. I have had a 1.3 for about a week now and was definitely experiencing noticeable lag in many trackpad gestures and swipes (the most crucial personally was to fix a choppy mission control). After all the back and forth here on the forums I decided to just go ahead and call Apple to see what they have to say. I was guided through some options that yielded little results but what finally fixed the lag considerably was this:

Start in recovery mode (command+r)
Disk Utility
Indented Macintosh HD
Repair Disk Permissions (takes a minute)
Verify Disk Permissions (takes a minute)
Restart

The gestures are now almost buttery smooth. While it is possible that individual results may vary and that people's sensitivity to the issue of lag may be different, at the least this fix improved the fluidity of my own gestures and trackpad swipes and could potentially accomplish the same for other users.

On a related note, there is a separate thread regarding browsing lag that suggests checking the Apple iMac product page to test out any lag issues. Once again, I am no professional, but shouldn't the browser lag discussion be completely separate? Even with the above fix, that page is still extremely choppy for me in Safari, but scrolls considerably better in Firefox for instance; could be a coding problem or something.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1880800/

ZipZap · May 25, 2015

tecnho said:
I have very little technical knowledge of the subject so I do not pertain to know why or if this is a true fix. It is also possible that others that have been reporting lag have done this already to no avail, but this fix seemed to work for me. I have had a 1.3 for about a week now and was definitely experiencing noticeable lag in many trackpad gestures and swipes (the most crucial personally was to fix a choppy mission control). After all the back and forth here on the forums I decided to just go ahead and call Apple to see what they have to say. I was guided through some options that yielded little results but what finally fixed the lag considerably was this:

Start in recovery mode (command+r)
Disk Utility
Indented Macintosh HD
Repair Permissions (takes a minute)
View Permissions (takes a minute)
Restart

The gestures are now almost buttery smooth. While it is possible that individual results may vary and that people's sensitivity to the issue of lag may be different, at the least this fix improved the fluidity of my own gestures and trackpad swipes and could potentially accomplish the same for other users.

On a related note, there is a separate thread regarding browsing lag that suggests checking the Apple iMac product page to test out any lag issues. Once again, I am no professional, but shouldn't the browser lag discussion be completely separate? Even with the above fix, that page is still extremely choppy for me in Safari, but scrolls considerably better in Firefox for instance; could be a coding problem or something.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1880800/

I would want to know why a brand-new machine would need it's permissions fixed.

Did you by chance restore from a backup?

tecnho · May 25, 2015

ZipZap said:
I would want to know why a brand-new machine would need it's permissions fixed.

Did you by chance restore from a backup?

I migrated over wifi from another Mac

----------

I also had to restore 10.10.3 because the power went out in my apartment after 4 hours of Wi-Fi transfer

BoneHead001 · May 25, 2015

tecnho said:
I have very little technical knowledge of the subject so I do not pertain to know why or if this is a true fix. It is also possible that others that have been reporting lag have done this already to no avail, but this fix seemed to work for me. I have had a 1.3 for about a week now and was definitely experiencing noticeable lag in many trackpad gestures and swipes (the most crucial personally was to fix a choppy mission control). After all the back and forth here on the forums I decided to just go ahead and call Apple to see what they have to say. I was guided through some options that yielded little results but what finally fixed the lag considerably was this:

Start in recovery mode (command+r)
Disk Utility
Indented Macintosh HD
Repair Disk Permissions (takes a minute)
Verify Disk Permissions (takes a minute)
Restart

The gestures are now almost buttery smooth. While it is possible that individual results may vary and that people's sensitivity to the issue of lag may be different, at the least this fix improved the fluidity of my own gestures and trackpad swipes and could potentially accomplish the same for other users.

On a related note, there is a separate thread regarding browsing lag that suggests checking the Apple iMac product page to test out any lag issues. Once again, I am no professional, but shouldn't the browser lag discussion be completely separate? Even with the above fix, that page is still extremely choppy for me in Safari, but scrolls considerably better in Firefox for instance; could be a coding problem or something.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1880800/

I experienced the same problems on my new MacBook, and the permissions repair did the trick. Thanks!

ZipZap · May 25, 2015

tecnho said:
I migrated over wifi from another Mac

----------

I also had to restore 10.10.3 because the power went out in my apartment after 4 hours of Wi-Fi transfer

That explains why the permission were screwed up. I never migrate. I install new. Too many weird results from restoring across machines.

tecnho · May 25, 2015

This Fixed My Lag Issue

ZipZap said:
That explains why the permission were screwed up. I never migrate. I install new. Too many weird results from restoring across machines.

I would have liked to but there are regrettably no ports to connect to in order to selectively move content without springing for aditional adapters, external drives/airports, wires etc. The Mac was expensive enough for me so I decided to limit the extras this time around. I guess I have also quickly adapted to Apple's new wireless revolution like a good little sheep

bcaslis · May 25, 2015

I've seen many installers not set permissions correctly. Printer installers for example never do this correctly.

Theophil1971 · May 25, 2015

Just tried this on a 1.2 which had a clean install when I bought it.

To be honest, it didn't make much of a noticeable difference. But I think this is because any "lagginess" that I had, while noticeable (swiping between fullscreen apps, into Mission Control, etc...) wasn't much of a big deal. Certainly, on my machine, it did not hinder usability. Just a visual annoyance, more than anything.

Resetting permissions and then verifying them did result in a list of several permissions that needed repair. So, that's probably good. But I don't notice an appreciable difference in the visual performance of the UI in those particular areas.

All in all, the machine performs very, very well, save for those very few, and very slight stutters.

brand · May 25, 2015

It is always best practice to repair permissions every time Apple updates are installed. Every time I run it after Apple updates it almost always repairs some sort of file/folder permissions. You would think that it would be ran at the end of the installation but alas it is not.

ZipZap · May 25, 2015

Theophil1971 said:
Just tried this on a 1.2 which had a clean install when I bought it.

To be honest, it didn't make much of a noticeable difference. But I think this is because any "lagginess" that I had, while noticeable (swiping between fullscreen apps, into Mission Control, etc...) wasn't much of a big deal. Certainly, on my machine, it did not hinder usability. Just a visual annoyance, more than anything.

Resetting permissions and then verifying them did result in a list of several permissions that needed repair. So, that's probably good. But I don't notice an appreciable difference in the visual performance of the UI in those particular areas.

All in all, the machine performs very, very well, save for those very few, and very slight stutters.

While I did not have lag that I noticed, 10.10.4 seems noticeably better.

tecnho · May 25, 2015

This Fixed My Lag Issue

ZipZap said:
While I did not have lag that I noticed, 10.10.4 seems noticeably better.

Better how?

----------

Theophil1971 said:
Just tried this on a 1.2 which had a clean install when I bought it.

To be honest, it didn't make much of a noticeable difference. But I think this is because any "lagginess" that I had, while noticeable (swiping between fullscreen apps, into Mission Control, etc...) wasn't much of a big deal.

This is kinda where I was going with my lengthy preamble- it all depends on the amount of lag you have to begin with and your general sensitivity level to it. In my case, most of the animations were severely choppy, and those problems are almost completely gone. There is always a chance however that the migration caused some of it as ZipZap alluded to. Regardless, the fix alleviated my sluggish mission control which is my most commonly used trackpad function. The others have improved as well its just that, similarly to you, I didn't care enough to fixate on them.

Theophil1971 · May 25, 2015

ZipZap said:
While I did not have lag that I noticed, 10.10.4 seems noticeably better.

Ya, I'm running the beta too. Same thing, honestly. It doesn't seem appreciably smoother. But my machine didn't seem terribly laggy, either. Perhaps for people who were experiencing a greater degree of lagginess, 10.10.4 and repairing disk permissions makes a greater impact.

tecnho · May 25, 2015

Would it beneficial to perform the permission repair periodically? If so how often would you all recommend?

Theophil1971 · May 25, 2015

tecnho said:
Would it beneficial to perform the permission repair periodically? If so how often would you all recommend?

I'd say only if and when you start to notice your machine run less efficiently than it used to.

brand · May 25, 2015

tecnho said:
Would it beneficial to perform the permission repair periodically? If so how often would you all recommend?

brand said:
It is always best practice to repair permissions every time Apple updates are installed.

From post 9.

tecnho · May 25, 2015

brand said:
From post 9.

Does that include app updates for itunes for instance, or only OS updates?

brand · May 25, 2015

tecnho said:
Does that include app updates for itunes for instance, or only OS updates?

My experience is only Mac OS X updates. I have been trying to do this ever since 10.4.5 and it almost always comes back with repaired permissions of some sort. The reason I say trying is because I don't always remember to repair the permissions when applying updates but do it more often than not.

Mr. Buzzcut · May 25, 2015

How exactly could file permissions be affecting performance?

The common thing with all these tips and tricks seems to be a reboot. Could the perceived performance improvement be due to that instead of whatever trick was applied?

tecnho · May 26, 2015

Mr. Buzzcut said:
How exactly could file permissions be affecting performance?

The common thing with all these tips and tricks seems to be a reboot. Could the perceived performance improvement be due to that instead of whatever trick was applied?

I have done numerous reboots, including some with Apple that have failed to fix the problem. The permissions repair did the trick. Besides, why would it be on an Apple tech's checklist as a remedy for slow performance if it was not related to the problem somehow?

southerndoc · May 26, 2015

You would be surprised how disk permissions can affect performance. I've seen some weird stuff happen before (in Mavericks, my computer was registering my printer as busy even after reboots, power cycling the printer, etc... disk permission repair fixed the problem).

ZipZap · May 26, 2015

southerndoc said:
You would be surprised how disk permissions can affect performance. I've seen some weird stuff happen before (in Mavericks, my computer was registering my printer as busy even after reboots, power cycling the printer, etc... disk permission repair fixed the problem).

Superior OS at work? I think not.

----------

tecnho said:
Better how?

----------

This is kinda where I was going with my lengthy preamble- it all depends on the amount of lag you have to begin with and your general sensitivity level to it. In my case, most of the animations were severely choppy, and those problems are almost completely gone. There is always a chance however that the migration caused some of it as ZipZap alluded to. Regardless, the fix alleviated my sluggish mission control which is my most commonly used trackpad function. The others have improved as well its just that, similarly to you, I didn't care enough to fixate on them.

Perceptually, things seem to open an paint faster.

tecnho · Jun 3, 2015

The lag issues that existed before this fix slowly returned. I deleted the .plist file that is referenced in the 10.10.4 lag thread, and that has seemed to fix the animation problem again. I hope it lasts longer this time.

This Fixed My Lag Issue

macrumors 6502

macrumors 603

macrumors 6502

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 603

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68020

macrumors 6502

macrumors 601

macrumors 603

macrumors 6502

macrumors 6502

macrumors 6502

macrumors 6502

macrumors 601

macrumors 6502

macrumors 601

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502

Contributor

macrumors 603

macrumors 6502

Our Staff