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what is the cause of this
- Thread starter 420benz
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OP is probably referring to the beachball, the spinning color ball.
However, the OP gave no info as to what Mac, what version of the OS, what was running, etc.
However, the OP gave no info as to what Mac, what version of the OS, what was running, etc.
This thing?
That is called a "spinning beach ball" and if you are seeing it just sitting there and nothing is happening you likely have an application that is locked up and slowing the system.
Here is an article that might help you troubleshoot.
I havent seen the spinning beachball in years, I'm guessing it was discontinued from modern versions of MacOSX some time ago... the spinning beachball indicates that your system is using all its resources to perform a task so your system will appear to 'lock up' for a certain period of time. However sometimes the lock up can be due to a crash which your system cannot recover from and therefore you have no choice but to turn off and on again.
Still, we're going to need a lot more information in order to help you.
- Model of Mac you are using
- System memory
- Version of MacOSX in use
- What software were you running at the time
- Any attached devices i.e. hard drives, Firewire drives etc.
- System logs
Then we might be able to provide more assistance....
There are several threads in the Mavericks forum about beachballs. They show up in all versions of OSx.
Try using the keyboard command of:
Command-Option-Escape
This may bring up the Force Quit dialog box and show you which app is hung, and let you force-quit it...
Command-Option-Escape
This may bring up the Force Quit dialog box and show you which app is hung, and let you force-quit it...
Still not enough info. Is there a specific time when it happens. I.e when using a particular app? If you create a new user account does it happen in there? Have you checked your hard drive for errors in disk utility? Have you tried repairing your permissions? Have you tried running the Apple Hardware test?
Dude seriously, we're gonna need more than that!
Does this happen when running any particular software or does it appear to happen randomly to you? How much system memory does your machine have? Is it a Macbook / iMac.
First best guesses I would come up with leading from you OS being 10.7.5 so I'm guessing you've had it for some time so your system might be due a clean up... steps I would take:
- Run Disk Utility and run Repair Disk Permissions
- Run Disk utility and run Repair Disk (again your system will appear to lock up but just let it run)
- Go through any applications you may have installed, use AppZapper (good software uninstall utility) to delete any software apps you no longer use or need
- Check how much hard disk space you have (if your hard drive is too full it will crash and generate a spinning beach ball because it can no longer find the space to write files
- Check how much hard drive space is available, at the bare minimum you should keep it at least 20% free space
These are your starter steps..
Other recommendations are, although 10.7.5 isn't exactly an old OS, you should consider upgrading to 10.9.1 (current release). New software is always optimised for the most recent versions of any OS so its always a good idea to keep up to date.
Consider upgrading your RAM, if you have 4Gb, definitely consider upping this to 8Gb or even 16Gb. 4Gb is quite low these days and can cause beaching if software is forced to write to the swapfile on the hard disk all the time (this is done when there is no longer any system memory to do its job so it starts writing memory to the hard drive instead which slows the system down.
Maybe he's trying to get back to the forum, but can't because of the beach ball? 
Seriously, though, the Spinning Beach Ball isn't causing your system to lock up......something else is, and the beach ball is letting you know that something has caused the system to become unresponsive. That is why people are asking you these questions.....so they can try to help you solve your spinning beach ball problem.
Seriously, though, the Spinning Beach Ball isn't causing your system to lock up......something else is, and the beach ball is letting you know that something has caused the system to become unresponsive. That is why people are asking you these questions.....so they can try to help you solve your spinning beach ball problem.
Besides the excellent advice given above, the very first thing you should do is to repair Permissions - your system is confused.
Have you tried any or all of the steps and advice given thus far? What were the results?
When you say 'page open' are you talking about a web browser? Safari / Firefox? What page are you on? Could it be a Flash video causing your beachballing? Youtube? Dodgy site? Does it have 'Hamster' in the title? (actually.....never mind!)
You say you are trying to log off, did you close all of your applications before logging off?
Sorry to sound like an arse but you need to be a little more descriptive about the problem...
OK It only happens in UTube when I use Firefox. I uninstalled FF and reinstalled it and so far no problem.Thanks Guys for all of your help.