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MacBook Pro taking longer than usual to start up/shut down

PatriotInvasion

PatriotInvasion

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 18, 2010
1,645
1,061
Boston, MA
My late 2008 15" MacBook Pro has been taking a lot longer than usual to start up and shut down (lengthy spin wheel cycles).

It is completely up to date with Snow Leopard and I almost never download 3rd party software. I pretty much only use the included iLife apps and a bit of iWork, so I'm not sure what could be slowing the process down. I was thinking I could reinstall Snow Leopard, but I was hoping some tech savvy folks on here could provide a quicker solution. Any ideas?
 
PatriotInvasion said:
My late 2008 15" MacBook Pro has been taking a lot longer than usual to start up and shut down (lengthy spin wheel cycles).

It is completely up to date with Snow Leopard and I almost never download 3rd party software. I pretty much only use the included iLife apps and a bit of iWork, so I'm not sure what could be slowing the process down. I was thinking I could reinstall Snow Leopard, but I was hoping some tech savvy folks on here could provide a quicker solution. Any ideas?
Click to expand...


Had a similar issue with my new MBP,

Some people gave me some good advice here, none of it worked but I eventually worked it out! check out there solutions and mine here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/918313/


Cheers,
John
 
johnalan said:
Had a similar issue with my new MBP,

Some people gave me some good advice here, none of it worked but I eventually worked it out! check out there solutions and mine here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/918313/


Cheers,
John
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, man. But I'm kind of uncomfortable messing with commands/scripts in Console. That just feels like I'm asking for trouble.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
Thanks for the advice, man. But I'm kind of uncomfortable messing with commands/scripts in Console. That just feels like I'm asking for trouble.
Click to expand...


I understand that, this command simply changes the permissions on the root
so it's 'owned' by OS X again...


sudo chown root:admin /

sudo - is required to make an admin change
chown - is a command to CHange OWNership on a file or folder

and root:admin is the user and group to change to,


this is the way OS X ships.


the problem is caused by the fact that sometimes installing new software (the kind that asks for your password on install) changes these permissions and they can become corrupt,

in this instance these incorrect permissions are causing a situation where OS X cannot write its kernel cache to the /

BTW repairing disk permissions should solve this, but alas it doesn't for me!

If you need any more help just ask no problems,

Regards,
John
 
Repaired disk permissions last night and it didn't solve the lengthy start up and shut down issue.

Seems like there should be a cleaner way than to be writing command prompts in Console.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
Repaired disk permissions last night and it didn't solve the lengthy start up and shut down issue.

Seems like there should be a cleaner way than to be writing command prompts in Console.
Click to expand...
Question: How much free space do you have left on your hard drive. i.e. If a 500gig drive has 450gigs of data on it, you're gonna notice an issue, especially with a 5400rpm drive. Also do you have a ton of temp files stored somewhere from all the websurfing?

Just some random thoughts.
 
TZRaceR6 said:
Question: How much free space do you have left on your hard drive. i.e. If a 500gig drive has 450gigs of data on it, you're gonna notice an issue, especially with a 5400rpm drive. Also do you have a ton of temp files stored somewhere from all the websurfing?

Just some random thoughts.
Click to expand...

Plenty of hard drive space (about 150 of the 250GB free). Not sure what Onyx is but if it's a 3rd party app designed to rummage through my files I probably will just live with my issue.

No temp file stash. I reset Safari every other day. Not sure what else it could be. Maybe a Mac Genius can help? It's under AppleCare.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
Plenty of hard drive space (about 150 of the 250GB free). Not sure what Onyx is but if it's a 3rd party app designed to rummage through my files I probably will just live with my issue.

No temp file stash. I reset Safari every other day. Not sure what else it could be. Maybe a Mac Genius can help? It's under AppleCare.
Click to expand...

Do me a favour would you, out of curiosity?


Will you start your machine and then turn it off and back on again,

Then open 'Console' (note this is not a terminal session and you can't enter commands, it's just a log of system messages)

then select 'All Messages' --- there will be loads! Many messages are generated all the time whilst you are using your Mac,


and then just look through the list and see if you notice a sentence like this:

Can't create kext cache under / - owner not root.



if you do, then I know exactly how to solve your problem,

Thanks

Regards,


Happy Friday!!

John
 
johnalan said:
Do me a favour would you, out of curiosity?


Will you start your machine and then turn it off and back on again,

Then open 'Console' (note this is not a terminal session and you can't enter commands, it's just a log of system messages)

then select 'All Messages' --- there will be loads! Many messages are generated all the time whilst you are using your Mac,


and then just look through the list and see if you notice a sentence like this:

Can't create kext cache under / - owner not root.



if you do, then I know exactly how to solve your problem,

Thanks

Regards,


Happy Friday!!

John
Click to expand...

Thanks John - I'll give this a try over the weekend and post my results.
 
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