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Replacement MacBook Pro 15" (w/ Touch Bar) Freezing UI randomly -- you too?

FocusAndEarnIt

FocusAndEarnIt

macrumors 601
Original poster
May 29, 2005
4,628
1,112
All,

15" MBP TB, specs in sig.

Wondering if someone else is having the same issues I'm having. Plethora of weird UI:

- If I use the trackpad (or Apple bluetootoh trackpad) and gesture to make it so that it goes to mission control or desktop, once in a blue moon it will freeze. It happens about once a day, and it crashes my whole system. It's a slower freeze though, it's bizarre: it doesn't respond to me clicking a window (can move cursor around), doesn't respond to me using keyboard commands to get out of mission control/desktop view, but will let me get to the force quit dialogue box via keyboard command initially, but it doesn't respond to a click or anything. Command tabbing to a different app doesn't do anything. It's super weird. It's also super annoying and destructive to my workflow. Doesn't matter the app.

- Sometimes the downloads folder/stack in the dock just... won't open? And sometimes clicking it may cause the system to freeze? Absolutely bizarre.

I got a replacement MBP for graphics issues. This was also happening on that one. No graphics issues on this one thus far, but I am thinking this is a software issue...

I don't have much installed on this machine. Yes, Adobe CC for Photoshop. But other than that, basics right now: 1Password, Notability, Skitch, Skype, Fantastical, Office, Wunderlist, Flux, Google Drive, Dropbox... plus stock apps, a lot of which I use. I do not have Better Touch Tool or something like that installed.

It actually happened while writing this thread. The only reason I didn't lose what I wrote was because Google Chrome saved it by a restore. There is no rhyme or reason I can find that triggers it. And once it happens, I can't do anything -- but the system seems to still be functioning in the background, but the UI seemingly locks. I know that because when it happened, I went to bed but left the system as is, and it completed a file transfer I had ongoing before it froze by the time I came back in the morning. I tried everything I could think of to get back in. I can sometimes get it to respond to a two tap/right click, but when that menu pops up I can't click anything. I can get Siri to start by clicking the touchbar, but she's useless anyways. (I tried asking her to close an app, couldn't. She can open apps but the Mac barely responded to that, meaning when I asked her to open Activity Monitor it just hung there. When I asked her to open Google Chrome, it did go to the browser window that this thread was on.)
 
Last edited:
Quite bizarre you got this problem on two different machines. You'd almost think it's the trackpad or software because those are the only things that stayed the same, right?

I don't use that trackpad with my MacBook and I've never seen that bug before. I do use the Logitech MX Master mouse that can make those same gestures, but still no issues.
 
sunapple said:
Quite bizarre you got this problem on two different machines. You'd almost think it's the trackpad or software because those are the only things that stayed the same, right?

I don't use that trackpad with my MacBook and I've never seen that bug before. I do use the Logitech MX Master mouse that can make those same gestures, but still no issues.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I do think it's software, but clueless as to how to track it down. notably, I did a manual restore from my old MBP TB, I did not Time Machine restore it.

I'm trying to get info via Console, but nothing. I also will admit I'm not entirely sure what to be looking for as there is a ton of info here.
 
Yep. Seeing this on mine (2.7, 512gb, 455) as well. And this was after doing a clean install of the OS. What to do?
 
Just the trackpad. EXACTLY as mjstew33 described. The download folder stack will not open. Then the whole thing freezes. I'm working on my dissertation so its very unnerving.
 
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I've never experienced this problem with my TB 15" and I do use my MacBook trackpad with those same gestures. It could still be a hardware issue (which would mean OP had really tough luck) so I'd contact Apple support. They'll suggest a reinstall of macOS, but you have tried this already so I guess they'll have to take a closer look.
 
Woah, just experienced the bug myself! Guess I should´ve knocked on wood, because I´ve never had this before. So all of a sudden I noticed the Downloads folder stack in the Dock wouldn´t open and slowly all other elements of the UI started to stop responding, just like you described. Touch Bar kept working however and I could still click the Apple icon on the menubar (which wasn´t visible) and restart the computer.

I think the chances of this being a software bug are the highest, so I´m just going to wait on the next update I guess.
 
Ok. Just as you described. It's like a cascading failure of the UI. Very strange. I actually sent an email to Apple earlier this morning and will report back here if I hear anything. Anyone else experiencing this please post here as I referenced this thread in that email.
 
Hi!! I've just registered on Macrumors just to comment in this thread. I had exactly the same issue in my MacBook Pro 15", base model with SSD updated to 512 gb.

When installing apps right after getting it out of the box, UI froze about 4 o 5 times. First, folders in the dock (Applications and Downloads) become unresponsive to normal click, they do nothing, but you can do right click on them, and the rest of active windows seem to work. Then, after some minutes, Finder freezes and you can't neither restart it, nor click on any window. You can do anything but hard reset. I found people reporting the same behavior in Apple Communities:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/31138961?start=20&tstart=0

FORTUNATELY, I solved it introducing these commands in Terminal, supposedly destined to clean Finder's cache:

rm -fR ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder; killall Finder

mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder{,.backup}.plist; killall Finder

I introduced both, and then do some maintenance with Onyx. Never seen the issue again, in fact, my machine is running faster than it was as first. So... totally software related. Hope this helps you as well or Apple acknowledges the problem and gives a solution.
 
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Playmbl said:
Hi!! I've just registered on Macrumors just to comment in this thread. I had exactly the same issue in my MacBook Pro 15", base model with SSD updated to 512 gb.

When installing apps right after getting it out of the box, UI froze about 4 o 5 times. First, folders in the dock (Applications and Downloads) become unresponsive to normal click, they do nothing, but you can do right click on them, and the rest of active windows seem to work. Then, after some minutes, Finder freezes and you can't neither restart it, nor click on any window. You can do anything but hard reset. I found people reporting the same behavior in Apple Communities:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/31138961?start=20&tstart=0

FORTUNATELY, I solved it introducing these commands in Finder, supposedly destined to clean Finder's cache:

rm -fR ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder; killall Finder

mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder{,.backup}.plist; killall Finder

I introduced both, and then do some maintenance with Onyx. Never seen the issue again, in fact, my machine is running faster than it was as first. So... totally software related. Hope this helps you as well or Apple acknowledges the problem and gives a solution.
Click to expand...
It's not Finder freezing, it's Dock. Dock also manages mission control stuff. Using Siri to open Terminal and entering "killall Dock" fixes it.
Also this is clearly a software issue, and it seems related to disk activity (when it occurs, there's some disk activity). Nothing weird happens on Windows.
 
Aurora Wright said:
It's not Finder freezing, it's Dock. Dock also manages mission control stuff. Using Siri to open Terminal and entering "killall Dock" fixes it.
Also this is clearly a software issue, and it seems related to disk activity (when it occurs, there's some disk activity). Nothing weird happens on Windows.
Click to expand...

It starts in the dock, but ends up affecting Finder and the whole UI, as you can't click on any window or even restart Finder and everything is frozen. At least, this was my case.
 
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mjstew33 said:
All,

15" MBP TB, specs in sig.

Wondering if someone else is having the same issues I'm having. Plethora of weird UI:

- If I use the trackpad (or Apple bluetootoh trackpad) and gesture to make it so that it goes to mission control or desktop, once in a blue moon it will freeze. It happens about once a day, and it crashes my whole system. It's a slower freeze though, it's bizarre: it doesn't respond to me clicking a window (can move cursor around), doesn't respond to me using keyboard commands to get out of mission control/desktop view, but will let me get to the force quit dialogue box via keyboard command initially, but it doesn't respond to a click or anything. Command tabbing to a different app doesn't do anything. It's super weird. It's also super annoying and destructive to my workflow. Doesn't matter the app.

- Sometimes the downloads folder/stack in the dock just... won't open? And sometimes clicking it may cause the system to freeze? Absolutely bizarre.

I got a replacement MBP for graphics issues. This was also happening on that one. No graphics issues on this one thus far, but I am thinking this is a software issue...

I don't have much installed on this machine. Yes, Adobe CC for Photoshop. But other than that, basics right now: 1Password, Notability, Skitch, Skype, Fantastical, Office, Wunderlist, Flux, Google Drive, Dropbox... plus stock apps, a lot of which I use. I do not have Better Touch Tool or something like that installed.

It actually happened while writing this thread. The only reason I didn't lose what I wrote was because Google Chrome saved it by a restore. There is no rhyme or reason I can find that triggers it. And once it happens, I can't do anything -- but the system seems to still be functioning in the background, but the UI seemingly locks. I know that because when it happened, I went to bed but left the system as is, and it completed a file transfer I had ongoing before it froze by the time I came back in the morning. I tried everything I could think of to get back in. I can sometimes get it to respond to a two tap/right click, but when that menu pops up I can't click anything. I can get Siri to start by clicking the touchbar, but she's useless anyways. (I tried asking her to close an app, couldn't. She can open apps but the Mac barely responded to that, meaning when I asked her to open Activity Monitor it just hung there. When I asked her to open Google Chrome, it did go to the browser window that this thread was on.)
Click to expand...

Mine does the exact same thing 13imch macbook pro with touch, clean install, its driving me crazy
 
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On a different matter, I've noticed that transitions between apps in fullscreen mode are a little 'jerky' sometimes. Is that normal in such a powerful laptop?
 
The downloads stack dock icon freeze has happened to me a few times so far with my 15" tbMBP. Only way I've been able to fix it was with a restart.
 
Playmbl said:
It starts in the dock, but ends up affecting Finder and the whole UI, as you can't click on any window or even restart Finder and everything is frozen. At least, this was my case.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's correct, I suppose the Dock process also manages some UI stuff. It doesn't affect any process technically, just the UI (killing Dock makes everything work again, even the affected windows of the other processes).
 
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mjstew33 said:
All,

15" MBP TB, specs in sig.

Wondering if someone else is having the same issues I'm having. Plethora of weird UI:

- If I use the trackpad (or Apple bluetootoh trackpad) and gesture to make it so that it goes to mission control or desktop, once in a blue moon it will freeze. It happens about once a day, and it crashes my whole system. It's a slower freeze though, it's bizarre: it doesn't respond to me clicking a window (can move cursor around), doesn't respond to me using keyboard commands to get out of mission control/desktop view, but will let me get to the force quit dialogue box via keyboard command initially, but it doesn't respond to a click or anything. Command tabbing to a different app doesn't do anything. It's super weird. It's also super annoying and destructive to my workflow. Doesn't matter the app.

- Sometimes the downloads folder/stack in the dock just... won't open? And sometimes clicking it may cause the system to freeze? Absolutely bizarre.

I got a replacement MBP for graphics issues. This was also happening on that one. No graphics issues on this one thus far, but I am thinking this is a software issue...

I don't have much installed on this machine. Yes, Adobe CC for Photoshop. But other than that, basics right now: 1Password, Notability, Skitch, Skype, Fantastical, Office, Wunderlist, Flux, Google Drive, Dropbox... plus stock apps, a lot of which I use. I do not have Better Touch Tool or something like that installed.

It actually happened while writing this thread. The only reason I didn't lose what I wrote was because Google Chrome saved it by a restore. There is no rhyme or reason I can find that triggers it. And once it happens, I can't do anything -- but the system seems to still be functioning in the background, but the UI seemingly locks. I know that because when it happened, I went to bed but left the system as is, and it completed a file transfer I had ongoing before it froze by the time I came back in the morning. I tried everything I could think of to get back in. I can sometimes get it to respond to a two tap/right click, but when that menu pops up I can't click anything. I can get Siri to start by clicking the touchbar, but she's useless anyways. (I tried asking her to close an app, couldn't. She can open apps but the Mac barely responded to that, meaning when I asked her to open Activity Monitor it just hung there. When I asked her to open Google Chrome, it did go to the browser window that this thread was on.)
Click to expand...

I have the exact same issue. Actually I found a way to reproduce it. At the beginning I thought it was something related to file permissions in my download folder, because those files are coming from my old mac (I just copied them without using TM). I restored the permissions and the problem still occurs. So try to do these steps:
  1. get a very full Download folder, possibly with files with different sizes
  2. open the download stack in grid view and drag+drop a random file on the desktop, try to weave the mouse among the screen before dropping like making random moves on the screen
  3. try the step 2 many times, when the problem occurs you notice a freeze while dragging, then you'll be able to drop the file
  4. NOW THE PROBLEM OCCURS and you can experience the problem quoted above, but at this stage you should be able to open Activity Monitor and kill the Dock to solve the issue immediately
  5. ATTENTION! do not call mission control or use any active corner because otherwise you'll experience a full block where only the mouse pointer can move, keyboard and clicks don't work and you must do an hard reset

I have a MBP with TB 15" 2.6Ghz with 512GB SSD and AMD 460.

Please let me know the news
 
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I have been facing the same issue since the day I purchased my MBP 13" with Touch Bar. Contacted Apple Support in India, got connected to US and Ireland. They now understand that it is not a software issue and a hardware one (just like someone's memory issue).



But, APPLE DISCRIMINATES its policies. In India, IT DOES NOT ALLOW EXCHANGE OR RETURN OF THE MAC.



So right now, I am stuck with an executive relations guy who's trying his best to convince me to keep a defective piece that I spent $2,500 on.

Pathetic from Apple.
 
It starts with the downloads folder in the dock getting stuck, soon leads to the whole interface getting stuck. All I can do is restart the MacBook Pro, lose all my work and start over. So much for paying $2,000+
 
Pretty sure this has to do with the latest Sierra update. I've been getting similar glitches on my iMac since i updated to Sierra.
 
talwarsirav said:
It starts with the downloads folder in the dock getting stuck, soon leads to the whole interface getting stuck. All I can do is restart the MacBook Pro, lose all my work and start over. So much for paying $2,000+
Click to expand...

he confirms the source of the problem...please see my post above to reproduce the issue
 
talwarsirav said:
I have been facing the same issue since the day I purchased my MBP 13" with Touch Bar. Contacted Apple Support in India, got connected to US and Ireland. They now understand that it is not a software issue and a hardware one (just like someone's memory issue).



But, APPLE DISCRIMINATES its policies. In India, IT DOES NOT ALLOW EXCHANGE OR RETURN OF THE MAC.



So right now, I am stuck with an executive relations guy who's trying his best to convince me to keep a defective piece that I spent $2,500 on.

Pathetic from Apple.
Click to expand...
afraid this is not a hardware issue but a software bug hopefully squashed in the next macOS release.

I can confirm the killall command + avoiding putting things in the downloads folder for now has made my Mac extremely more stable with no issues since. although my touch bar only seems to work half the time, that's unrelated to my initial complaint, I'm not losing work anymore and that makes me pretty grateful.
 
mjstew33 said:
afraid this is not a hardware issue but a software bug hopefully squashed in the next macOS release.

I can confirm the killall command + avoiding putting things in the downloads folder for now has made my Mac extremely more stable with no issues since. although my touch bar only seems to work half the time, that's unrelated to my initial complaint, I'm not losing work anymore and that makes me pretty grateful.
Click to expand...

unfortunately it's not related to the download folder...it's the "stack" that creates the issue. In fact I tried to stack the documents folder and the problem doesn't stop, you can put any folder you like.
 
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