Slow drag and drop

[GabrieleB]

Hallo everybody!
This is the first time I post something on this forum, I hope you guys can help me!
I have a problem with drag and drop: sometimes, not always, but apparently just randomly, my mac would start being very slow at moving items from one folder to the other. Just out of blue, one moment it drags and drops instantaneously as it should, and the next moment it would start taking forever. The moved item would stay there, the friendly rainbow-colored disc would appear, and finally, after a few (very annoying) seconds, the item would eventually move to the new place. And once my laptop starts doing this, it would keep so until I reboot.
Similarly, trashing things, and, after trashing them, permanently delete them, gets very slow in the same way. I am convinced this problems have the same cause, because in the end they all amount to updating indexes in the directory tree, right?

BTW, I realize now that I haven't tested using command "mv" in the command line under these conditions... One thing I know, though... When I do, for instance, "ls <somefolder>/<initial letters of a subfoler> + <tab>, it would take very long to complete the name of the subfolder. Especially, when many subfolders correspond to the initial letters I have given, it will take a long time to complete, and when there is no such folder (because of a typo on my part) it will take a long time to tell me there is no correspondence.

I emphasize once again that these problems are not always there. Usually my computer behaves well, but sometimes it would start acting weirdly.

Some additional info: admittedly, my mac is not so new, like 3 years old. When I bought it, it still had Mountain Lion, if I remember well... Then I upgraded it to Mavericks, and, after noticing a general slowdown, I stopped upgrading, so I still use Mavericks. I had to change the hard drive because it had broken after my laptop fell on the ground once (sigh!), but I don't remember whether this problem started before or after that unfortunate event.

I don't want to change my laptop because, except for this problem, it's still doing its job pretty well.

Any idea of where this problem may come from and how to solve it?

Thank you very much, I will gladly appreciate your help.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Hallo everybody!
This is the first time I post something on this forum, I hope you guys can help me!
I have a problem with drag and drop: sometimes, not always, but apparently just randomly, my mac would start being very slow at moving items from one folder to the other. Just out of blue, one moment it drags and drops instantaneously as it should, and the next moment it would start taking forever. The moved item would stay there, the friendly rainbow-colored disc would appear, and finally, after a few (very annoying) seconds, the item would eventually move to the new place. And once my laptop starts doing this, it would keep so until I reboot.
Similarly, trashing things, and, after trashing them, permanently delete them, gets very slow in the same way. I am convinced this problems have the same cause, because in the end they all amount to updating indexes in the directory tree, right?

BTW, I realize now that I haven't tested using command "mv" in the command line under these conditions... One thing I know, though... When I do, for instance, "ls <somefolder>/<initial letters of a subfoler> + <tab>, it would take very long to complete the name of the subfolder. Especially, when many subfolders correspond to the initial letters I have given, it will take a long time to complete, and when there is no such folder (because of a typo on my part) it will take a long time to tell me there is no correspondence.

I emphasize once again that these problems are not always there. Usually my computer behaves well, but sometimes it would start acting weirdly.

Some additional info: admittedly, my mac is not so new, like 3 years old. When I bought it, it still had Mountain Lion, if I remember well... Then I upgraded it to Mavericks, and, after noticing a general slowdown, I stopped upgrading, so I still use Mavericks. I had to change the hard drive because it had broken after my laptop fell on the ground once (sigh!), but I don't remember whether this problem started before or after that unfortunate event.

I don't want to change my laptop because, except for this problem, it's still doing its job pretty well.

Any idea of where this problem may come from and how to solve it?

Thank you very much, I will gladly appreciate your help.

Well, it's difficult to immediately pinpoint the problem. If you'd be patient enough to run through some diagnostics, we can identify the issue -- or at the very least, identify what isn't wrong with the machine, and then we'll go from there.

We'll begin by checking the hard-drive SMART data. If there are any problems found here, then we know it's the HDD that requires replacing. A corrupted or failing hard-drive will cause all sorts of performance problems. If you could download SMART Utility and run the application (no installation necessary), and see what it says. Anything other than 'Passed' means the hard-drive needs replacing.

Providing the above passes without a problem, please could you open Disk Utility and verify the volume. Just be aware that this may take a few minutes, and you won't be able to use your computer while this is verifying. If there are any problems, it will show up with red writing. Please quote this if it comes up with that, and we'll take you through how to repair the volume in the recovery OS.

If both the HDD and the volume are OK, the next thing to try is to restart your computer with 'reopen windows when logging back in' disabled. The reason we'll restart is because a large uptime on OS X can cause a number of software problems, and you often find that issues are compounded the longer you leave it on without shutting it down. Furthermore, by disabling reopen windows, this will ensure that no background applications or processes will reopen -- perhaps if there was an application causing a memory leak, for instance.

Still having a problem? Go back into Disk Utility and click 'Repair Disk Permissions' (you don't need to verify them first), then restart your computer.

You can also try a PRAM reset for good measure -- simply hold Cmd, Alt, P + R as soon as you press the power button to turn your Mac on. Continue holding these keys down until you hear the Apple 'boot chime' 3 times, then let go.

If there's still a problem, would you be happy to confirm your computer's specifications (RAM, CPU, whether it's a MacBook/iMac), as there may be a few upgrades that can make a positive difference.

The next thing to try if this doesn't solve the issue would be to simply check your operating system is fully up-to-date. It may be worth upgrading to El Capitan to see if this makes a positive difference.

Please quote this to let me know the news, and we'll go from there.

Best wishes!