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Applications take long time to open (sometimes hours)

B

beauthaine

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 13, 2014
9
0
Hi there, am new to mac rumours so please prompt me if this is the wrong place to do this.

For the last year or so, perhaps not product of Mavericks per se, a selection of applications take over an hour to start up after launching my Macbook Pro from shut down.

These apps include Google Chrome, Logic Pro, Ableton, Microsoft Office (typically my most used apps). So I guess non-default apps.

Have trawled through forums and have found no real answer to this problem which seems to be cropping up with a few people but in different forms. Although I understand the habit of not shutting down regularly may be the cause, shutting down and rebooting then causes the problem itself, so my hands are tied. I have to keep it on the whole time to avoid this!

Please can someone help!!!? :(

Thanks
 
You don't post the spec of your Mac? How much RAM do you have and what model is it...? There is no way that this is normal. Things you can try first

Run a disk check and then a permissions check and repair if indicated:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1452

Then try an SMC reset..this is different depending on your Mac, so choose the right instructions for your Mac:


http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964


These are the first steps to diagnosing the issue, others include Activity monitor to see what you have running, but try the first steps before anything else.
 
Taking hours is not right, something is definitely wrong. Have you run any diagnostics on your mac, i.e., Disk Utility, or AHT?

I'd say your storage (hard disk or SSD - which one is it?) may be having issues.
 
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly guys.

My specs are:-

Mid 2010, 500GB Macbook Pro

Processor: 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB

I have about 50 GB left of space on my hard disk.

Am performing said tasks but can't risk reboot until tomorrow so will let you know results then.
 
beauthaine said:
For the last year or so, perhaps not product of Mavericks per se, a selection of applications take over an hour to start up after launching my Macbook Pro from shut down.
Click to expand...
Do the first few apps open at a reasonable rate? What about if you only open any one application?
Without being able to investigate further, I would suspect that your disk is on the verge of failure and that the computer is having difficulty reading it. Make sure you have valid backups.
 
4GB is a little low these days, but that's not the issue here I don't think. If the steps I posted above do not correct things, then I too would go with a hardware issue, almost certainly the drive.
 
The same apps take the same time (mostly over an hour) to open afte the computer has powered on. After they have started working I can open and close apps freely.

I also get other problems such as the brightness function stops working so sometimes after closing and opening the lid, the screen stays black even though it is clearly on. Also after reboot I just won't be able to change the brightness. This occurs less often however (once every one/two weeks).

It does also just randomly switch off, and when opened up has grey screen saying "had to restart because of a problem" (not exact words). This is again not too often.

This is also bearing in mind my last hard drive died and was replaced about a year ago. Should a year old hard drive behave like this?

Soon to perform AHT
 
When I tried the AHT it just did a normal launch?

Power on, then hold D, that's what i did?
 
beauthaine said:
I also get other problems such as the brightness function stops working so sometimes after closing and opening the lid, the screen stays black even though it is clearly on. Also after reboot I just won't be able to change the brightness. This occurs less often however (once every one/two weeks).

It does also just randomly switch off, and when opened up has grey screen saying "had to restart because of a problem" (not exact words). This is again not too often.
Click to expand...

These forced restarts should basically never happen. Your computer may be part of a group from Apple which have problems with the Nvidia graphics in them. I would bring it to the Apple Store for them to diagnose that.
 
Outside of three years but oh well, no other choice!

Thanks for your help guys, very much appreciated.
 
Sounds like your startup volume might be corrupted, when you have the time (weekend I'm assuming) restart your computer and hold down the command+shift+R keys when it starts booting up. Choose the disk utility and verify the disk and repair if needed.
Another less likely culprit might be your HDD, there is a possibility it might be fragmented.
Hope this helps, let us know if it worked.
 
Hi guys,

I changed my graphics card and had the HDD checked (which was fine, had it replaced a couple of years ago anyway).

It seemed like it was fixed but just restarted it for the first time and apps like Chrome, Logic Pro etc. won't open still. I'll probably have to wait all day for them to start working.

Anyone else out there having this problem?
 
Last edited:
beauthaine said:
Hi guys,

I changed my graphics card and had the HDD checked (which was fine, had it replaced a couple of years ago anyway).

It seemed like it was fixed but just restarted it for the first time and apps like Chrome, Logic Pro etc. won't open still. I'll probably have to wait all day for them to start working.

Anyone else out there having this problem?
Click to expand...

Try a safe mode boot. That bypasses any login or startup items and will eliminate that as the cause.

If you do not have the problem in safe mode, that tells you one of your startup to login items is causing a conflict. The tool sat comer mentioned is useful for identifying these items.

If a safe mode boot does not stop it, it really sounds like a bad drive to me. Sometimes drives are bad even though they test fine. It is less common, but a bad drive cable can also cause these symptoms.

Let us know what a safe mode boot does.
 
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