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Apps stop responding after a period of time! Please help me!

R

retselseer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 14, 2011
9
0
Hello. I've had my Mac since early July & I have had this problem with it since the beginning. See, after I boot up the computer, all the applications open just fine. Then, after about an hour or so of using the computer, none of the applications want to open up when I click on them any longer. I try opening them in a terminal and I get the 'segmentation fault' error. Ironically enough, none of the Windows programs I use on my Mac via Wine have this problem at all. So, out of frustration, I reboot my system & everything works just fine again for about another hour or so. I have researched this problem on the internet a whole lot in an attempt to fix this myself but with no success whatsoever. And yes, I have tried fixing the permissions for the apps via the Disk Utility, deleting the .pref files, etc. All those things I have tried haven't fixed this problem whatsoever. Can someone in this forum please tell me how to fix this problem? I never had this problem on any computers I have had in the past that had Windows or Linux on them. Why does this problem exist on a Mac? Heck, I'd be willing to even get rid of OS X & put Linux on the computer if it would fix the problem. Please help me!!!

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By the way, I have a 27" screen iMac with Snow Leopard on it, 12Gb of RAM, and a 1Tb hard drive. Pretty top of the line, I'd say. I spared no expense in getting this computer.
 
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Does the same happen in another, even temporarily created, user account?


To edit your thread title to a descriptive one, just click on the
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I have only had just one account on my Mac. I've never had a need for another account.
 
retselseer said:
I have only had just one account on my Mac. I've never had a need for another account.
Click to expand...
The point of simsaladimbamba's post is for you to create a new user account if you haven't already done so, and test to see if you get the same symptoms while logged into that account.

Also, you may have better success in attracting responses to your threads, and you'll make your threads easier to find for those searching for the same answers, if you follow his tip on editing your thread title.
 
Is that thread title a bit more descriptive? I'll try creating another account & see what happens. Thanks for your prompt reply.
 
I created a new account and stayed logged in for over an hour & was still able to open & close apps as much as I wanted to without any hassles. I guess that solution worked. Why is it that way in OS X? In Windows or Linux, I could be logged in as whatever & I would never experience that problem at all. I guess every OS has its own good points and quirks as well. :eek:

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I guess I now have the big task of migrating all my settings et al. over to my new account. Oh well.:eek:
 
retselseer said:
I created a new account and stayed logged in for over an hour & was still able to open & close apps as much as I wanted to without any hassles. I guess that solution worked. Why is it that way in OS X? In Windows or Linux, I could be logged in as whatever & I would never experience that problem at all. I guess every OS has its own good points and quirks as well. :eek:

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I guess I now have the big task of migrating all my settings et al. over to my new account. Oh well.:eek:
Click to expand...
It just means something got screwed up on your primary account. It would take some troubleshooting, but the problem could be isolated and corrected, given some time and work. It's not "that way" in OS X. Most users never experience that problem. I never have, in almost 4 years on the same Mac. Just because you encounter a problem doesn't necessarily mean it's common to Mac OS X.
 
Well, I'm at least happy you never have experienced that problem before. Take 'er easy.
 
retselseer said:
Well, I'm at least happy you never have experienced that problem before. Take 'er easy.
Click to expand...
That's not the point. The point is, don't assume that because you encounter a particular problem, that it's normal for Mac OS X.
 
you might be able to use migration assistant from a time machine backup to import files and settings...

not to say you won't import the same instability... but it might save hours of work.
 
The problem is likely caused by a rogue process somewhere thats running on your account. Take a look at System Preferences -> Users and Groups -> Login Items. Remove everything from there and reboot. See if the same issue occurs. If it doesn't then it means something that was loading upon login was causing the issue. Failing that, it could be a launch deamon installed under your account by some app you've installed in the past. First thing to do though is the Login Items steps I mentioned, then come back here and report your findings.
 
phobox said:
The problem is likely caused by a rogue process somewhere thats running on your account. Take a look at System Preferences -> Users and Groups -> Login Items
Click to expand...
That's not the only place to look for things that launch on startup. You may want to check out the link in post #6.
 
Thank you for those performance tips. I did apply the ones that did pertain to me. Unfortunately, having a slow computer really isn't an issue with me at all. The speed on my Mac is awesome. I have no complaints at all regarding that matter. As you know, the only issue I have is applications not opening up. I know exactly what apps open up upon startup and I cannot see how any of them could cause any sort of problem. As to what exactly could be running when the problem is occurring which is causing the problem, I couldn't tell you at all. When the problem occurs again, I'll copy & paste it into my next post so that any of you can analyze it & tell me what is running that could be the culprit. Thanks again.
 
Have you looked into the Activity Monitor to see anything unusual with any of the processes? Especially check the CPU and RAM usage

otherwise do a backup and do clean reinstallation of OS X. Once you done that you can transfer your backup files over to the new clean OS X using Migration Assistant. That will get rid of the problem that you having with the system.
 
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