10.13.6 Shutdown issues on Macbook 2015

[pjny]

Hi,

I upgraded Sierra with a clean install to High Sierra when it was released.

My Macbook 12" 2015 1.3ghz became sluggish as well as the device taking forever to shut down. I ran some speed tests for the SSD and the numbers were about half the normal speed: about 150-200megabyte/s read

So I reverted to Sierra and the machine was back to its original speed.

I clean installed HS last night and while it has been a long time the same issues are happening: sluggish response and:

- very slow shut down of apps when shutting down the machine.

- that clock face spinning wheel appears when apps close(as seen on dock) and the screen goes black. it took about 5-10 seconds for each app on the dock to close. these are not big apps: airmail 3, calendra, soulver, tweetbot.

- clock spins for 1-2 minutes until mac finally shuts down. a few minutes ago i tried to shut down and the spinning wheel just spun for about 5 minutes before I hit the power button to restart.

WHAT IS GOING ON? Is it APFS causing these issues? Is there something I should do with my ssd? I have a Macbook 13" 2011 2.3gh that runs perfectly fine with HS.

I just cant seem to get HS to work with Macbook 12"

 

[treekram]

Try running your 2015 MB in safe mode and see if you have the same issue. Same mode will prevent 3rd-party auto-start background tasks from starting.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

If you don't have the the issues in safe mode, then there is likely some problem with some 3rd-party software. If your 2011 MB doesn't have exactly the same software (same version) as your 2015 MB, then again it could be software on the 2015 MB that could be causing the issue - obviously without knowing the software configuration on each, that would be impossible to know given the information you've given. If that doesn't explain what's going on, then you'd have to try HS using HFS+ but given your stated circumstances, it's more likely that 3rd-party software (or maybe hardware, if you have some external hardware connected to the MB).

Also to consider: How much RAM do you have on each computer? Also, what capacity SSD's do you have and what percentage are you using on each computer?

 

[pjny]

Wow, thanks Treekram. I booted up in safe mode and the shutdown problem went away.

This is bizarre.

This was a clean install and I have only installed a couple of apps that were rock solid on Sierra and previous OS X versions.

I still think it takes longer to bootup (even with 3 apps as login items: hazel, textexpander, and alfred 3) and performance seems to be less zippy especially for a new install with no cruft.

Could it be slowing down because of spotlight indexing?

I still feel Sierra clean install was faster when I downgraded from High Sierra last November 2017.

 

[treekram]

Just because a 3rd-party software worked well with Sierra doesn't mean it works well with High Sierra. You need to check all of your 3rd-party software to make sure the version you have is compatible with High Sierra. People have reported boot startup time being longer with High Sierra. I only upgraded to High Sierra on one of my Macs a few months ago and then did some experimenting (not specific to boot times) a few weeks later. I found that for the first day, the boot time was noticeably longer, after that, typically boot time was not longer than it was with Sierra but there is some variability. With High Sierra, Apple now does an EFI version check (it probably needs to contact an Apple Server) and maybe (I don't know) that EFI check is a contributing factor to boot time variability.

If you use Activity Monitor, select the "CPU" tab and look for processes that start with "md" (mds, mds_stores, mdworker, mdwrite, but not mDNS... processes), those are typically the Spotlight processes. You probably will find it easier to sort by process name, scroll to where the md... processes are and see what percentage of CPU they're using.

 

[pjny]

Thanks for the reply. I am using the same applications on my 2011 Macbook 13" running High Sierra and have had no problems. That's why I was surprised that HS was still causing issues after clean install. I turned off all THREE third-party software from loading up during bootup and the bootime is not as snappy as Sierra.

I am just curious why the slow shutdown went away following booting up from safe mode.

 

[treekram]

I am just curious why the slow shutdown went away following booting up from safe mode.

Safe mode prevents 3rd-party kernel extensions and background processes initiated by system or user startup from loading. These kernel extensions and background processes will typically get notification that either the system wants to shut down or the user wants to log out (in the case of a user startup item). (Keep in mind logout of all active users is done at shutdown.) The 3rd-party software will then do whatever it needs to do and the OS will wait until the 3rd-party software is done. That's probably the scenario that is happening in your case - something some 3rd-party software is doing is just taking some time to execute before telling the OS it's OK to shutdown/logout.

If you have the same exact versions of 3rd-party software for both computers and have the same set of software you're using for both computers, then it could be some external device you have connected to the slow computer or something in the network. These are just guesses based on the information you've presented. It's possible there's some issue with your slow computer but if you don't have other problems with it and you don't have problems with it in safe mode, then that's less likely. If you have easy access to an Apple store, you can take it in to have them take a look as they have more comprehensive diagnostics than what is available with the diagnostics which comes with your computer. They would also have a first-hand look at your computer and may be able to find something that's causing the issue, if it's not the software.

You can also try an NVRAM and SMC reset to see if that helps - I would guess this wouldn't help but you never know.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

 

[pjny]

Oops, I meant: the slow shutdown stopped after booted up in safe mode, then restarted in regular mode.