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strange slow down and audio issue - Mac Mini (2018)

wfriedwald

wfriedwald

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 1, 2017
543
48
Mac Mini (2018)
latest Monterey System 12.3.1
32 GB RAM
250 MB hard drive (startup drive) 72GB available


I keep getting this strange problem, generally when I'm playing a video (sometimes an audio) file from the hard drive:

- the video and the whole system will slow down to a crawl - including the video, the visual will slow down, the audio will stutter
- then sometimes, after a few minutes the system returns to normal
- except, at that point, the audio stops, in other words, the output to my USB audio device just stops.

I can't find any pattern as to when this happens. When I restart the system, the audio output returns to normal.

checking the activity monitor, I see there's 22-23 GB of RAM memory being used.

I am grateful for any feedback or suggestions!

w
 
Sound like you have one or more apps or processes "running away" on you.

What does a reboot do for this?
 
reboot / restart totally helps! But that's very awkward... sometimes I'm in the middle of a virtual presentation and it's difficult to restart. And then the problem happens again sometimes!

thanks for feedback!

w

PS: would putting in more RAM memory help? when I use activity monitor, I sometimes see the RAM usage going up as high as 22 out of 32 GB. I would be willing to buy and install more RAM (although I am pretty sure that would be very expensive) if I thought it would help!
 
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"would putting in more RAM memory help?"

32gb already?
My guess is, NO, it won't help.
Your problem is coming from somewhere else.
 
ah, that's what I thought.

Do you have any suggestions?

Is there any way to troubleshoot?

As always, I appreciate any feedback!

w
 
Next time things slow down, open activity monitor.
Check applications running, and how much each is "eating up" RAM-wise.
Are there any apps running away on you?

Hmmm...
Do you use Google Chrome?
 
thank you!

yes, I have been trying to check the activity monitor, but no, there have NOT been any big red flags - ie, apps that seem to be eating a ton of RAM.

a crash just happened now in the middle of a zoom presentation! oy !

anyhow, wasn't able to open the activity monitor... but I have been trying to keep an eye on that.

and yes, usually I have google CHROME open. should I keep it off.
NO LUCK! I just had a major crash while I was typing this (on another computer) -- CHROME was not on, and I had the crash anyhow.

I did make a screen shot of the activity monitor. will post that.

only 9-10 GB (out of 32GB) were being used. so it can't be the RAM?

what can it be ? should I do a defrag program or run disk repair from the restore partition? something like that?

grateful for any suggestions!

w
 
Here is the screenshot - this is what ACTIVITY MONITOR was saying as a crash was happening.

question: do you recommend a third-party utility like CLEANMYMAC - that seems to be very popular although apparently it is not recommended by Apple. What do you think?



ACTIVITY MONITOR —— Screen Shot 2022-05-01 at 4.27.11 PM.jpg
 
OP wrote:
"yes, usually I have google CHROME open. should I keep it off."

My recommendation:
STOP USING google chrome.
Use a DIFFERENT browser.
 
thank you for the feedback.

so I should ween myself off CHROME, you say? I've got so many "app-lets" built into it. But if it is causing crashes, I guess I have to stop using it.

just looking at my current ACTIVITY MONITOR readings:

CHROME is #3
#1 is something called "com.apple.siri.embeddedspeech" - which is confusing, I have never used SIRI, not ever or any kind of dictation program on this Mac.
#2 is APMLibraryAgent - again some internal process, not sure what it does ...
and then CHROME is #3.

Again, thanks for feedback & suggestions!

w

PS

* I did buy and install CLEANMYMAC X yesterday. I know people have different opinions about that utility, but so far I have to say that it has been very helpful.

* My RAM usage never seems to go higher than 26GB out of 32GB RAM installed. Although I still would be willing to invest in more RAM (I know that would cost $400-$500 or so for the full 64GB IF I thought it would do any good, though nobody seems to think that's necessary or would even help.

thanks again!
 

Attachments

  • ACTIVITY MONITOR —— Screen Shot 2022-05-03 at 11.09.50 AM.jpg
    ACTIVITY MONITOR —— Screen Shot 2022-05-03 at 11.09.50 AM.jpg
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well, CLEANMYMAC might have helped, but I am still having the problem.

The system slows down and crashes randomly when I am running VLC (or another media player) over Zoom - something I have been doing almost daily since March 2020!

I replaced the modem / router.
I now have half of my 250GB hard drive empty.
and I rarely use more than 15-20 GB used out of my 32 GB of ram.

no one seems to know what could be causing this. Oy yoy!

help!
 
I'd be careful about using "Clean My Mac".
Others have reported that it can "clean out" stuff that SHOULD still be there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bchasc
Clean My Mac is not the solution to your problems... will most likely make them worse. Snake oil.

Personally I would do a factory reset of your computer. Yep, that means erasing your hard drive and reinstalling the OS anew. Then only add those applications that you trust and use daily. Don't install Chrome. Don't install Clean My Mac. Test the system out.

Odds are pretty good it's something that is installed on the machine as opposed to the machine itself. Erasing the drive eliminates all the crap you put on it or your applications did. I suggest not cloning your drive and then restoring from backup as that just puts back everything you just removed... warts and all.

When I say add those applications that you trust and use daily, I mean install it anew. The only really important data that needs to be backed up is your data files (movies, music, documents, et al). Yes it means you have to set all the profiles, passwords, and preferences again, but you will have a clean install of every application.

Convenience often breeds the very problems you are trying to correct.

Keep in mind that while your system may run later OSes, it may not run very well under said OSes. My Mac Pro runs best under Mojave even though it can run later versions. Remember, later versions are built with newer hardware in mind, not older. People seem to believe that if the OS will run on the machine, it was written for it. Not the case. With Apple, they're trying to get you to upgrade your hardware... no better way to do that than to cripple your machine to make you think it's time to upgrade your hardware. Had you never upgraded the OS, you might find that your device runs a hell of a lot better.

This is true for most software as well. Adobe products are notorious for killing off support for older hardware, especially now that it is all cloud based. You have no choice to upgrade hardware because you can't downgrade or freeze your software to a specific build. It's either upgrade or die.
 
thank you - okay a clean install is a big deal .... I could also rewire the whole system, including three monitors, USB mic, usb webcam, usb trackpad... plus about 30 external hard drives connected via three USB3 hubs. That would take a long time, just to deconstruct and re-assemble everything on my desktop!

quick thought : does anybody think that resetting the NVRAM or PRAM might help?

Also: I might try to circumvent ZOOM by using RESTREAM (or something like that). Another thought.

PS: I did try SAFE BOOT and also repairing the startup drive from the repair / restore partition, but that was before I took a ton of stuff off the startup drive, so I can certainly try again.

thank you!



W
 
OP wrote:
"plus about 30 external hard drives connected via three USB3 hubs..."

All connected and running at once?
No wonder things are slowing down on you.
 
thanks again.
Good point - NO! I rarely have more than 3-4 of the external drives going at once. and of course, even when they are connected and powered on, they're in something like a semi-sleep state. But no, never that many drives at once. Good point!
 
Hey - I mentioned this earlier- what does everybody think about resetting the NVRAM or PRAM? might that help?
 
wfriedwald said:
Hey - I mentioned this earlier- what does everybody think about resetting the NVRAM or PRAM? might that help?
Click to expand...
I don't think it would hurt, unless you've done some customized NVRAM settings. If so, list them out, do the reset, try a reboot, then restore them.
 
no, I haven't messed with NVRAM or PRAM in a while, so I'll just try that. Couldn't hurt, as your say!
 
hey ... just an update:

I did reset the PRAM.

I did try one of my usual sessions, ie ZOOM + VLC. this time with CHROME not turned on.

It did crash about three times, but I was able to come back and keep the session going (I had a co-host take over as host while I restarted the system.)

The sound output to the USB audio device did stop, so I continued listening via the Mac Mini speakers, which did not sound great, but I could live with it.

Also I wasn't able to talk, as has happened every time before, my mic output was garbled, so I unplugged the mic and didn't speak, just showed the video files.

anyhow, yes, this was something of an improvement, but I need to do better for a long-term solution.
Right now I am thinking my best idea is to switch the whole operation to STREAMLABS instead of Zoom.

(And also to reconstruct the whole system - as PMILES says - to blank the hard drive and add everything back in. This would take a lot of time but may be necessary.)

thanks again for feedback / suggestions.
 
You have not mentioned anything about your CPU usage.
If you are monitoring your Activity Monitor, the CPU tab is just a click away, and may show processes that may not be using abnormal amounts of RAM, but are pushing the CPU to "new heights" at the moment you are having issues.

And -- Still using Zoom? during a performance slowdown while using Zoom, go to Zoom preferences, then "Statistics". That window will show you what is happening in Zoom, both CPU, and memory usage. You can also go to Audio or Video to see what is recorded for Packet Loss and other data that Zoom reports.

You COULD try reinstalling your current Monterey 12.3.1 system, either through your recovery system, or booting to a Monterey installer that you might have (or you can make one just for this purpose). The reinstall takes 30 minutes to an hour, and reloads your present system. It might be worthwhile as a next step that can help. And, it does a simple reload of the macOS system files without the need to wipe the drive/restore everything that you use.
If that does not help you, then you can move to the "next level" with a backup, wipe the drive, reinstall macOS, restore all your apps and files... Which, as you know, will give you a new hobby for at least several hours.

Just curious -- what is the "USB audio device" that you are using?
 
DELTA MAC - thanks for your responses (in the parallel thread)

first, info re USB audio device:
audio device is UGREEN -
tinyurl.com

UGREEN USB External Stereo Sound Card Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Aux and 2RCA Converter for Speaker Headphone and Microphone Earphone Headset Plug and Play on Windows Mac Linux and PS5 3ft Cable

UGREEN USB External Stereo Sound Card Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Aux and 2RCA Converter for Speaker Headphone and Microphone Earphone Headset Plug and Play on Windows Mac Linux and PS5 3ft Cable
tinyurl.com



I did NOT think to check my CPU usage - good idea! I will check ...

Okay - this is CPU usage, running two different video files - each about 50 min's

35 min's in

CPU
system - 7%
user - 18%
idle 76%

RAM
10 GB {out of 32GB RAM}
cache files 5 GB

about 45 min's in started to get a little choppy, but didn't stop

slowdown again at 29:00 (after about 90 min's)


CPU - during slowdown
system - 76%
user - 19%
idle 5%


after recovering from slowdown

CPU - afterg slowdown
system - 15%
user - 40%
idle 47%

then another slowdown


CPU - during another slowdown
system - 76%
user - 19%
idle 5%

---- okay, after turning off zoom:
VLC still on, but not playing anything

CPU
system - 1.30%
user - 1.73%
idle 98.50%

now with VLC playing a video file

CPU
system - 2.29%
user - 3% or 4%
idle 94%

Clearly ZOOM uses a ton of CPU overhead!!!

thank you for everything, we will figure this out!

w
 
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