MBP 2012 beachballing

[JPG_DK]

Dear all,
I have tried to post this problem on the Apple discussions foeum, but no one is answering, so now I'm trying.my luck with you guys instead

Some days ago, I downloaded and installed the High Sierra security update, and soon after, a constant beachballing occured.

It seemed that this beachballing happens every time I make an action (like typing letters and pressing buttons), but sometimes I can go for several minutes without having a problem.

To start with, I tried to reset the SMC and the VRAM, and this resulted in some improvement for just about 5 minutes after my login, but alas, the beachballing started again. So now I'm thinking "This is a software problem"

I tried to reinstall my OS (using Cmd - R in startup), but for some reason was not allowed. Consequently, I decide to do a Time Machine backup this previous OS, all the way back from April.

After 12+ hours of "going back in time" on my computer, I log in - everything works, but now for about 12-15 minutes. Then - back to beachballing! Arrgg.

It is worth noting, that back before "Time Machine", I had cleaned a lot of my photos and videos from my computer, thus having 80 gigabytes free on my SSD, so don't think that is the problem, even though my SSD might seem a bit full from the data you see here.

I hope you guys can help me!


EtreCheck version: 4.3.6 (4D041)

Report generated: 2018-08-08 12:27:16

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 26:12

Performance: Poor


Problem: Beachballing

Description:



Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.


Time Machine backup out-of-date - The last Time Machine backup is over 10 days old.

Stuck iCloud - This machine has a large number of pending iCloud transfers.

Poor performance - EtreCheck report took over 10 minutes to run. This is very unusual.


Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.


Low disk space - This machine is running low on free hard drive space.

Upgradeable RAM - This machine has upgradeable RAM that would help its performance.

High battery cycle count - Your battery may be losing capacity.

Unsigned files - There are unsigned software file installed. They appear to be legitimate but should be reviewed.

32-bit Apps - This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.


Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)

MacBook Pro Model: MacBookPro9,2

1 2,5 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-3210M) CPU: 2-core

4 GB RAM - Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 2 GB DDR3 1600 ok

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 2 GB DDR3 1600 ok

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 1040


Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1536 MB

Color LCD 1280 x 800


Drives:

disk0 - KINGSTON SV300S37A120G 120.03 GB (Solid State - TRIM: No)

Internal SATA

disk0s2 - E**a (Journaled HFS+) 119.17 GB


Mounted Volumes:

disk0s2 - E**a 119.17 GB (18.22 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /


Network:

iCloud Status: 3387 pending files


System Software:

OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G1611)

Time since boot: About 2 hours

System Load: 1.30 (1 min ago) 1.30 (5 min ago) 1.28 (15 min ago)


Security:

System Status
Gatekeeper Mac App Store and identified developers
System Integrity Protection Enabled

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.fileopen.Broker.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/FileOpen/Services/FileOpenBroker.app/Contents/MacOS/FileOpenBroker

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Java Updater.app/Contents/MacOS/Java Updater -bgcheck

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Helper-Tool

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK


32-bit Applications:

24 32-bit apps


System Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded] 7 Apple tasks
[Loaded] 159 Apple tasks
[Running] 54 Apple tasks
[Killed] 19 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded] 44 Apple tasks
[Loaded] 157 Apple tasks
[Running] 65 Apple tasks
[Killed] 24 Apple tasks
[Other] One Apple task

Launch Agents:

[Running] com.fileopen.Broker.plist (? 25c026d4 - installed 2015-11-13)
[Loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist (? b1c75e6a - installed 2015-04-10)
[Other] com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a2 3d420d.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-02-15)

Launch Daemons:

[Loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-02-15)
[Loaded] com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist (Malwarebytes Corporation - installed 2017-05-26)
[Loaded] com.ITK.IPPPrintHelper.plist (IT-Kartellet ApS - installed 2015-11-06)
[Loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-03-27)
[Loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist (? 6d8cb30e - installed 2014-11-17)
[Loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist (? e3fefdd2 - installed 2015-04-10)
[Loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist (? 95986cc6 - installed 2015-04-15)
[Loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-02-15)

User Launch Agents:

[Loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist (Spotify - installed 2017-09-05)
[Loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2018-08-07)
[Loaded] com.skype.skype.shareagent.plist (Skype Communications S.a.r.l - installed 2018-03-12)
[Loaded] .dat.nosync016b.ako53v (Spotify - installed 2017-04-17)

User Login Items:

Flux Application (? - installed 2016-02-02)

(/Applications/Flux.app)

iTunesHelper Application (Apple - installed 2017-09-10)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Stickies Application (Apple - installed 2016-05-30)

(/Applications/Stickies.app)


Internet Plug-ins:

WidevineMediaOptimizer: (installed 2014-06-09)

FlashPlayer-10.6: (installed 2018-04-10)

QuickTime Plugin: (installed 2017-09-10)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: (installed 2018-08-08)

AdobePDFViewer: (installed 2018-08-08)

Flash Player: (installed 2018-04-10)

Default Browser: (installed 2016-07-28)

SharePointBrowserPlugin: (installed 2016-10-18)

ViewRightWebPlayer: (installed 2014-06-10)

Silverlight: (installed 2017-07-01)

JavaAppletPlugin: (installed 2015-04-15)


Safari Extensions:

Adblock Plus.safariextz - Eyeo GmbH - https://adblockplus.org/ (installed 2016-12-27)
Pin It Button.safariextz - Pinterest, Inc. - http://www.pinterest.com/ (installed 2015-10-12)

Time Machine:

Skip System Files:

Mobile backups:

Auto backup: Yes

Volumes being backed up:

Destinations:

E**A [Local] (Last used)

Total size: 1.00 TB

Total number of backups: 20

Oldest backup: 2015-04-10 18:41:09

Last backup: 2017-09-10 21:11:14


Top Processes by CPU:

Process (count) Source % of CPU Location
WindowServer Apple 6
kernel_task Apple 4
hidd Apple 1
Flux ? 0 /Applications/Flux.app
NotificationCenter Apple 0

Top Processes by Memory:

Process (count) Source RAM usage Location
kernel_task Apple 531 MB
mdworker (11) Apple 279 MB
plugin-container (4) Mozilla Corporation 217 MB
firefox Mozilla Corporation 137 MB
soagent (2) Apple 80 MB

Top Processes by Energy Use:

Process (count) Source Energy (0-100) Location
installer ? 9
WindowServer Apple 8
diskimages-helper (2) Apple 7
spindump Apple 4
firefox Mozilla Corporation 4

Virtual Memory Information:

Available RAM 520 MB
Free RAM 15 MB
Used RAM 3.49 GB
Cached files 505 MB
Swap Used 16 MB

Software Installs (past 30 days):

Name Version Install Date
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (18.011.20055) 18.011.20055 2018-08-08

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-08-08 09:28:45 Firefox.app CPU

/Applications/Firefox.app



End of report


Other notes:
It says that I haven't done "Time Machine" in some time, but that seems to be because I did the Time Machine to get back to El Capitan.


I have tried to understand the "problems" that are indicated by myself, but I don't know how to resolve them.


Thanks in advance

 

[Audit13]

Could be a faulty hard drive cable. A failed or failing cable is known to cause beach balling.

 

[Honza1]

It could be the SSD running without TRIM. It happened to me once on similar vintage MBP and SSD - I upgraded drive to SSD and it was fast ... after some time the SSD became quite unresponsive, beach balling all the time. Here is what I did. It may - or may not help you.
1. I CarbonCopy the SSD on external USB drive (yes, it was VERY slow, since then I keep image of my drive which I update every few weeks, just in case).
2. I booted on the external drive (yeay, it WAS fast!)
3. I formated the internal SSD. << alternative, with 500GB SSDs now for $125, just buy new larger SSD and replace.
4. I Carbon Copy disk back (it was much faster)
5. Booted on SSD and enabled TRIM ("TRIM enabler" is easy option).
it was fine afterwards... It is still running, years later.
Now, some will tell you that TRIM is not necessary. Not sure. But if you fill SSD with data and then delete them, you can end up with SSD which still has basically nowhere to write data, unless the system/disk firmware marks the cells "empty". May be some SSDs types are more picky... It is bit confusing to read explanations which do contradict sometimes - which functions must be done by SSD firmware and which by OS, and it looks like different SSDs may do this differently. But it is easy to enable the TRIM support on non-apple SSD drives.
I am not sure if JUST enabling TRIM in this situation fixes anything. You can try that also.
**
Personally, I would replace the SSD with larger and upgrade the memory to 8Gb = about $200 investment total... Install clean MacOS/OSX and start from scratch, installing only what I really need.

 

[Audit13]

Never had beach balling with trim off when I replaced a few MacBook mechanical drives with SSDs.

 

[chrfr]

It could be the SSD running without TRIM.

This is very unlikely. As suggested above, it's likely the cable. Problems with the cable often show up after installing an SSD in these computers.

 

[JPG_DK]

I'm not sure what trim is completely? Is it worth trying before going to a repairman for the cable?

That cable has been problematic before, and was changed within the warranty some years ago. Annoying, but seems likely!

Thank you all for your time and effort!

 

[Audit13]

I'm not sure what trim is completely? Is it worth trying before going to a repairman for the cable?

That cable has been problematic before, and was changed within the warranty some years ago. Annoying, but seems likely!

Thank you all for your time and effort!

TRIM is used for garbage collection in conjunction with the SSD controller and OS: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/simple-questions-what-trim-ssds-why-it-useful

I have purchased a few third-party drive cables from Amazon and they have been working without problems for over a year. The cable is easy to replace yourself.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Some questions, please answer them for us.
- Did you install the SSD yourself?
- If so, did you keep the original "ribbon connecting cable"? (the one that connects the drive to the motherboard)?

WHY I asked:
The 2012 unibody MacBook Pro model was shipped with an internal SATA ribbon cable that tends to "go bad" with usage.
When the cable "gets flaky", it seems like the drive is failing.
But the drive can be fine -- IT'S THE CABLE, not the drive.
Replacing the ribbon cable solves the problem.

Before you change it yourself:
Apple has (or had) a FREE REPLACEMENT PROGRAM for the ribbon cables on the 2012 MacBook Pros.
Do you have an Apple Store anywhere close?
If so, I suggest you take it to them and let them look at it.
They MIGHT replace the cable free of charge.

Even if the free replacement program is over, it STILL would be worth paying to have the cable changed (if they find it defective).

Or... do it yourself.
Go to ifixit.com to see what's involved (if you already changed the drive, you already know what to do).
ifixit has the part number, you could order the cable from them, or find it elsewhere online.

Thanks to Audit13 for pointing this out above!

 

[JPG_DK]

OP:

Some questions, please answer them for us.
- Did you install the SSD yourself?
- If so, did you keep the original "ribbon connecting cable"? (the one that connects the drive to the motherboard)?

WHY I asked:
The 2012 unibody MacBook Pro model was shipped with an internal SATA ribbon cable that tends to "go bad" with usage.
When the cable "gets flaky", it seems like the drive is failing.
But the drive can be fine -- IT'S THE CABLE, not the drive.
Replacing the ribbon cable solves the problem.

Before you change it yourself:
Apple has (or had) a FREE REPLACEMENT PROGRAM for the ribbon cables on the 2012 MacBook Pros.
Do you have an Apple Store anywhere close?
If so, I suggest you take it to them and let them look at it.
They MIGHT replace the cable free of charge.

Even if the free replacement program is over, it STILL would be worth paying to have the cable changed (if they find it defective).

Or... do it yourself.
Go to ifixit.com to see what's involved (if you already changed the drive, you already know what to do).
ifixit has the part number, you could order the cable from them, or find it elsewhere online.

Thanks to Audit13 for pointing this out above!

Well, no, unfortunately not. It was done by a so-called "premium reseller" of Apple products, since we don't have Apple stores in Denmark per se. They were also the ones who replaced the cable three years ago, but they told me today that now I'll have to pay for it if they find it defective. hmm.. I'm unsure if that cable can be within the mentioned replacement service, since it was not done by Apple themselves.

I think I'll try to make them see what the problem can be - the laptop has worked flawlessly up until now, so I think I can easily squeeze a couple more years out of it! If the laptop was in worse shape in general, I might have given it a go myself!