Beachballing on image saves

[roxics]

Browser doesn't matter, I've tried it with Safari, Chrome and Firefox, but many times when I save images from the internet, I get beachballing for as long as 30 seconds sometimes. It's really annoying when you're trying to save several images. Doesn't do it with anything else. One tab open or twenty, doesn't matter.

I can't figure out why it's doing it. Never did it on my old OSes. I'm not sure if it did it before my SSD but I'm pretty sure it did.

Macbook unibody aluminum late 2008
El Capitan
8GB RAM
480GB SSD.

 

[JohnDS]

How much free space do you have on your SSD?

Have you run Repair Disk while clicked on Macintosh HD in Disk Utility while booted from the recovery partition.

You might read this discussion about activating TRIM on your SSD: http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/29/use-trimforce-trim-ssd-mac-os-x/

 

[roxics]

At the moment I have 3.67GB available but it's been doing it even since I've had way more available.

Never heard of TRIM before.

 

[JohnDS]

This link will explain why you need TRIM and why it might be causing your problem:

http://www.howtogeek.com/222077/how-to-enable-trim-for-third-party-ssds-on-mac-os-x/

Also, 3.67 Gigs free is not nearly enough. Try to keep 10% of your drive free, at least.

 

[roxics]

Thanks. Keeping 10% free is never going to happen though. Not with the way I use drives.

How concerned should I be with enabling TRIM without backing up first? How likely am I to lose data? Is it a given or a warning issued because it happens to 1 out of 10,000 people? In other words, how high is the risk? I don't have the space to do a backup right now but I'm getting tired of this performance.

 

[JohnDS]

Sorry. I don't know anything beyond what is in those article. You are going to have to assess the risks and benefits yourself. Also, if you don't archive some stuff to keep more free space on your drive, you can't expect to have decent performance.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks. Keeping 10% free is never going to happen though. Not with the way I use drives.

How concerned should I be with enabling TRIM without backing up first? How likely am I to lose data? Is it a given or a warning issued because it happens to 1 out of 10,000 people? In other words, how high is the risk? I don't have the space to do a backup right now but I'm getting tired of this performance.

That article is mistaken and there is no issue with TRIM and the drives listed. That was only ever Linux issue and does not impact OS X.

I'd say there is close to zero chance enabling TRIM will cause you any troubles. I also doubt enabling TRIM will fix your problem. Not having TRIM enabled can reduce write speeds over time, but not to the degree you are describing where saving a simple image causes a beachball. Are you seeing any other issue like really slow app launches?

 

[grahamperrin]

… when I save images … beachballing …

Does it occur whilst you wait for the save dialogue to appear?

Or whilst you wait for the dialogue to be populated with information about existing files in the file system?

 

[roxics]

Does it occur whilst you wait for the save dialogue to appear?

Or whilst you wait for the dialogue to be populated with information about existing files in the file system?

Both. Different for different images.

 

[roxics]

Just an update. I decided to enable TRIM. No change.
I then decided to backup my documents and important files and do a fresh install of Yosemite (an OS that worked great for me before upgrading to El Capitan). Same problem. The difference is that Yosemite freezes my whole machine for up to a minute on almost every image save, whereas El Capitan froze only my browser for up to 5-7 minutes at a time but only every so many images (say every 10-20 images). This is crazy, what is going on?

The only thing I can think of is that newer updates to Yosemite(which is what I installed) have the same issues as El Capitan. That Apple did something in both OSes that made my older macbook freeze up on image saves.

So just for fun I decided to install Windows 7 32bit using bootcamp. Smooth as silk. Super fast. No freezing or slow down at all on image saves. But this is not ideal. I want to use Mac OS on my mac.

 

[Samford]

I had lots of beachballs, for a few days thought it was a drive playing up. In the process of elimination I decided to run Font Book.app and check for duplicates and validate fonts. Yes a few duplicates BUT 3 badly damaged fonts found. Non English fonts so I deleted them and since then no beachballing.

So the basics often trip us up.

 

[simonsi]

Thanks. Keeping 10% free is never going to happen though. Not with the way I use drives

Then you will likely have similar issues. The 3.5 or so GB you have free likely isn't in one place, it will be fragmented. The OS is likely trying to find space to store those images as well as using the drive space for its own caching/logging etc purposes. They recommend 10% for a reason, 5% <may> be enough, sub 1% though....? Buy a bigger drive. Buy a 2nd drive, archive some stuff off.

 

[Samford]

Your problem is quite simple you have run out of drive space. So 3.5 GB is gobbled up by running system and application casche, has no room to move files, hence no room at the inn. Only a matter of time till you damage the hidden desktop file index and it all comes crashing down.

 

[simonsi]

Smooth as silk. Super fast. No freezing or slow down at all on image saves.

Sounds like my experience with OSX on a drive that isn't 99.5% full...