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Spinning Beachball Frequently Visits, Stays Too Long

-Martin said:
I've run Disk Utility many times; and iStat menus (which provides a menu-bar view into Activity Monitor) shows each of the cores running at about 20-25%, mostly due to Safari. But that's now...when (as it so happens) the SBBOD is not being particularly bothersome. (FWIW, those percentages never seem to be particularly high in any event. But I won't be able to be sure until the next onslaught.)
Click to expand...

I don't know if iStat reports as thoroughly as Activity Monitor, but the info I was seeking isn't so much overall processor demand as individual processes that might be running amok. You should also check your login items in the Accounts preference pane.

I also second the idea of creating a new user. This is a great way of potentially isolating the issue.

All that said, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on a faulty hard drive.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I don't know if iStat reports as thoroughly as Activity Monitor, but the info I was seeking isn't so much overall processor demand as individual processes that might be running amok.
Click to expand...

Actually, it lets you monitor your Mac directly from the menu bar. It provides a summary of a half-dozen or so stats in the menu bar, each with a drop-down menu for more details, as well as direct access to the relevant reference items (such as Activity Monitor). So, it really appears to be a great little freebie that simply gives you summary info plus time-saving access (no need to click thru a bunch of folders) to more details and original sources. (You can get it here.)

IJ Reilly said:
You should also check your login items in the Accounts preference pane.
Click to expand...

What should I be looking for?

IJ Reilly said:
I also second the idea of creating a new user. This is a great way of potentially isolating the issue.
Click to expand...
Well, my only hesitation at this very moment is the fact that although the SBBOD stays for a while once it comes—and it is indeed visiting (and staying longer) with increasing frequency—this morning it has only shown up sporadically.

IJ Reilly said:
All that said, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on a faulty hard drive.
Click to expand...

:eek: This concerns me beyond simply the obvious problem of having a bad internal HD: It elevates my more general concern about the industry's recent track record re: HD reliability. I am waiting for the external HD I ordered to arrive, and I had planned on getting a second external, mostly because of my reliability concern.
 
HLdan said:
The one you are interested in is probably a lot better than the one Apple installed for me based on the model. I know it was the best at the time but HDD's change everyday. Here's mine below. It's really fast but a bit noisy at times.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=b9df99f4fa74c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
Click to expand...

OK...besides the size difference, the one I'm interested in is simply the next version: Yours is the 7200.10; the one I'd be getting (hopefully ;) ) is the 7200.11. My plan was to get it from Newegg (they seem to have the best prices)—you can check the site for more info, as well as customer reviews.
 
I have the iStat Dashboard widget. I don't know how similar it is to the menu driven version, but it seems too general to be of much use in determining if one process is going berserk. I put Activity Monitor on my Dock.

What login items do you see? These are applications which start up when you log into this account. A few of them are installed by OSX and Apple applications. Some applications install their own.

You did say you were backed up, right?
 
IJ Reilly said:
I have the iStat Dashboard widget. I don't know how similar it is to the menu driven version, but it seems too general to be of much use in determining if one process is going berserk. I put Activity Monitor on my Dock.
Click to expand...
Actually, it appears very similar...you can even click on an icon to open Activity Monitor. The drop-down menus in iStat menus perform similarly (provide additional detail, Activity Monitor access, etc.).

Having constant feedback from the menu bar as well as instant access to Activity Monitor seems more appealing to me than having Activity Monitor alone in the Dock. The widget is OK...if you like widgets (I have yet to convince myself of their general utility—at least, as far as the ones I've seen—and I absolutely hate the "4th mouse button" (keeps activating at the slightest unintended squeeze), which is the default setting for accessing Dashboard).

IJ Reilly said:
What login items do you see? These are applications which start up when you log into this account. A few of them are installed by OSX and Apple applications. Some applications install their own.
Click to expand...

There are 19 items there. Shall I list them (not sure what it is I should be looking for)?

IJ Reilly said:
You did say you were backed up, right?
Click to expand...
Nope...I said I ordered an external HD (due here the day after tomorrow), and was about to order another....though I may need to go for AppleCare first.
 
I have a small unrelated specific beachball problem.

I've been uploading movies to my Tivo.

IF I go into the folder in Finder where the movie that's uploading resides then Finder goes bonkers and starts using 30-45% of the cpu and it stops responding for ~15-30 seconds shortly thereafter. Activity Monitor shows Finder as not responding even.

After this happens you have to close the Finder window or switch to a new folder. But before that happens Finder stops responding again and it takes 3 seconds before Finder is closed or it switches to a new Folder. You can't stay in the same folder and rename a different file or delete one unless you want all your hair to fall out.

So is this an OS/X problem or is is related to Tivo desktop and the Tivo? I have heard that spinning beachballs were more common when connecting to servers before Leopard. Is this related?

Or can a 3rd party program hog a folder and make any attempt to look at that folder a big no go?

It's not a huge deal as once I know I can't go in that folder while things are uploading I just don't, but ....
 
IJ Reilly said:
When that drive arrives, try cloning your entire internal drive to it and boot from it.
Click to expand...
I had planned on using it with Time Machine (though, since it's a 750 GB drive, I should be able to do both, at least initially—probably a good idea until I actually get my second HD, which is the one I had planned to use for cloning).

Are you suggesting making and booting from a clone as a complementary test to creating a new account on my internal HD?
 
-Martin said:
Can you explain to me the rationale for each?
Click to expand...

I thought they were explained.

Booting on the external drive could either eliminate or point to the internal drive as the source of the problem.

A new user account may isolate the problem to something in your current user account, such as a bad preference file.
 
I had a similar issue like yours and my problem was that spotlight kept on indexing and mdworker was using up all my resources. check your spotlight to see if it's trying to index over and over again. if it is, then you will need to delete the index file and restart spotlight to index.
 
djchiena said:
I had a similar issue like yours and my problem was that spotlight kept on indexing and mdworker was using up all my resources. check your spotlight to see if it's trying to index over and over again. if it is, then you will need to delete the index file and restart spotlight to index.
Click to expand...

That's a good observation. I had that happen, and it was a defective importer for StuffIt for particular file types. Excluding the folder involved (the Console log had a clue) fixed the problem.
 
OK, here’s an update on what I’ve done:

1. Permissions. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve already run Disk Utility many times, always after the SBBOD has been particularly bothersome. Every time I’ve opened DU, the “Repair Disk” button has been grayed out. And whenever I’ve followed that with a “Verify Disk,” I was told that everything was OK. So, the disk repair tests have always come back “clean.”

On the other hand, when I’d then run a “Verify Permissions,” it seems that I’d always get the same "problem message" (i.e., the same exact problem would show up each time):

—————————————————————————————

Verify permissions for “Martin's HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.

Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 26.

Permissions verification complete

—————————————————————————————

Following that up with the “Repair Permission” would yield (not surprisingly):

—————————————————————————————

Repairing permissions for “Martin's HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.

Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 26.

Permissions repair complete

—————————————————————————————



These results are recent (a short while ago, actually). However, as I said, they seemed to be the same results I’ve gotten each time before. It then occurred to me that I forgot all about a small utility I had installed a while back. Called Macaroni, it automatically performs routine maintenance, including a daily “Mac OS X Repair Permissions.” So I checked the last run (which was at about 1:30 in the morning):

—————————————————————————————

fixperms.pl started Sun Aug 24 01:38:58 EDT 2008

Repairing boot disk permissionss
Information on /:
Device Identifier: disk0s2
Device Node: /dev/disk0s2
Part Of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: Customer

Volume Name: Martin's HD
Mount Point: /
File System: Journaled HFS+
Journal size 24576 KB at offset 0x11a51000
Owners: Enabled

Partition Type: Apple_HFS
Bootable: Is bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: SATA
SMART Status: Verified
Volume UUID: 0E8FFE86-E711-338E-B0F6-55CFE0777A67

Total Size: 297.8 Gi (319728959488 B) (624470624 512-byte blocks)
Free Space: 141.0 Gi (151433555968 B) (295768664 512-byte blocks)

Read Only: No
Ejectable: No
Whole: No
Internal: Yes

Repairing permissions on disk /

Started verify/repair permissions on disk disk0s2 Martin's HD
Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 2610%

Finished verify/repair permissions on disk disk0s2 Martin's HD

Checking special permissions...

Privilege repair complete.

—————————————————————————————

This seems to verify my recollection that the permissions problem I’ve been seeing whenever I run Disk Utility is the same. (I haven’t a clue what it means, but whatever it means, it certainly seems chronic, recurring after each repair.)



2. Account. Here are the current account Login Items:

Microsoft AU Daemon
Palm Desktop Background
Transport Monitor
AirPort Base Station
Itunes Helper
ExpanderDaemon
Super Get Info Helper
Xmenu
DocumentPalette
SlimBatteryMonitor
Finderpop-daemon
PopChar
Microsoft Database
SpeechSynthesisServer
Microsoft Entourage
SMARTReporter
Istat menus Helper
GrowlHelperApp
MainMenu

As far as rebooting under a new “test” account: I haven’t done that. The SBBOD has been doing “drive bys” ;) lately, suddenly appearing, and giving me a lot of grief—but then, just as I’m about to log out and log in under a “test” account, it vanishes.


3. Apple Hardware Test. I ran it today. (BTW: On the newer Macs—such as mine—you can run AHT without the Leopard install disk. Apparently, it’s buried somewhere on the internal HDD...just boot and hold down “D” as you would via the install disk.)

I ran it twice: The first time I did the “quick” test (runs a couple of minutes); the second time, I ran the extended test (had a cup of coffee while it ran). Each time it reported that everything was OK.


4. iStat menus/Activity Monitor. I took particular notice today of what iStat menus was doing when the SBBOB showed up. Each time my system began to become unresponsive (which is a signal that the SBBOD is here, or is about to show up), I noticed that the CPU number shot up from about 5-10% to 80-90%. When I dropped down the CPU menu, I saw that Entourage accounted for almost all of that activity; opening Activity Monitor simply verified that fact.



What’s next? ;)
 
djchiena said:
I had a similar issue like yours and my problem was that spotlight kept on indexing and mdworker was using up all my resources. check your spotlight to see if it's trying to index over and over again. if it is, then you will need to delete the index file and restart spotlight to index.
Click to expand...

Spotlight has been well behaved lately. (But I really miss Sherlock. :( )
 
Yikes, that's a lot of startup items! I think I have maybe three.

And I have an idea you've found the issue, if Entourage is jumping to the top of the list whenever the beachballs appear. Note also, Entourage is one of your startup items.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Yikes, that's a lot of startup items! I think I have maybe three.
Click to expand...
I think 8 of them are associated with small add-on apps....and none of them eat up a lot of CPU cycles (i.e., if I removed them, I doubt it would make any real difference).

IJ Reilly said:
And I have an idea you've found the issue, if Entourage is jumping to the top of the list whenever the beachballs appear. Note also, Entourage is one of your startup items.
Click to expand...
That's what occurred to me as well.

So what do I do now?
 
-Martin said:
So what do I do now?
Click to expand...

remove Microsoft AU Helper, Microsoft Database, and Microsoft Entourage from Login Items under your account for starters. I don't know why you have all those in login items; I only have 2 things starting up in my login items.

better yet, maybe you should remove everything from login items.
 
djchiena said:
remove Microsoft AU Helper, Microsoft Database, and Microsoft Entourage from Login Items under your account for starters. I don't know why you have all those in login items; I only have 2 things starting up in my login items.

better yet, maybe you should remove everything from login items.
Click to expand...

Well, Entourage has been a startup item only for a week or two, and the SBBOD has been a problem a lot longer. So I don't see how removing it as a startup item will make any difference, inasmuch as I would open it and leave it running soon after startup anyway.

I don't know what MS AU Daemon is (may be something created by Word or another Office app I occasionally use); and I assume MS Database is associated with Entourage.

Besides the ones that are associated with those other handful of little "helper apps" and Palm Desktop, the remaining ones appear to be OS X items.

The only way I could get rid of most of the startup items would be to delete all the "helper apps," trash Palm Desktop, and never use Entourage. But even then, there'd be about a half dozen OS X-related startup items.

I can see focusing on Entourage...that would be the most obvious starting point. But since Entourage is used by tons of folks, I have to believe that my problem with it is the exception, rather than the rule. The question then becomes "How do I fix it?"
 
Once again, if you create a new user, those startup items will be out of the picture and you'll know whether they are hogging the CPU.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Once again, if you create a new user, those startup items will be out of the picture and you'll know whether they are hogging the CPU.
Click to expand...

Why should I be concerned about what opens at startup—what difference does it make if a CPU hog is being opened at startup or after startup?

In any event, according to Activity Monitor, the only item that's hogging the CPU is Entourage. What would creating a new account change?
 
-Martin said:
<snip> (i.e., the same exact problem would show up each time):

—————————————————————————————

Verify permissions for “Martin's HD”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.

Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 26.
</snip>
Click to expand...

I have too much beachball and this exact same repeating permission error.
See:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/493505/
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7690638
 
Man I figured out my beachball problem. I had renamed a MP4 file extension to MPeg. Don't do it. IT causes major beachball problems in the folder where the movie resides and who knows what else.
 
coogee said:
I have too much beachball and this exact same repeating permission error.
See:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/493505/
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7690638
Click to expand...

Thanks...I was about to post that I found the second of your references (<http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7690638>), as well as another,which gives more info re: the nature/cause of the “error”: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7409023&#7409023

The bottom line (per the last post in that thread – see <http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7655629&#7655629>) seems to be that this error is a non-error and, therefore, not the cause of the spinning beachball.

So, I guess that’s progress: at least we’ve eliminated a possible cause! (Reminds me of that famous Thomas Edison quote. ;) ) But it doesn’t solve my problem.
 
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