• I have been using Mac for last 5 years and explore few tips and tricks to speed up Mac but till today spinning beach beach ball is here among us. Although the above mentioned tricks are nice to get rid from rainbow ball. Stellar Speed up Mac tool worked well for me and I use to remove garbage and junks from this tool. Blueaxe on July 28, 2014.
• Basically, keeping your Mac clean and healthy is the only sure-fire way to get rid of the Spinning Beach Ball of Death (SBBOD). Many Mac owners treat it as the cause of some larger problem. But it is not actually true. The beach ball is a symptom of the “disease,” and you should know the primary cause(s) to fix it properly and on time.

Anyway, I hope this troubleshooting article has helped you unfreeze your Mac, and that the rotating beach ball won’t come back. Any further questions, leave your comment below. 34 thoughts on “Fixing 4 Types of MacBook Pro Freezing Issues in 2021”.

The question why do MacBook Pro/Air, iMac, and Mac mini permanently crash pops up on the Apple support community pretty often. Very few Mac users manage to keep calm when a ‘spinning beach ball of death’ appears on their Mac’s screen. Even worse, macOS Sierra/High Sierra can get stuck on the ‘grey screen of death’ after routine updates. In spite of having a bulletproof reputation, Macs do freeze and crash sometimes, so you have to know how to handle these issues. Read on to learn step-by-step troubleshooting instructions for all possible situations.

Macs can crash for a variety of reasons, which is why each particular situation needs separate troubleshooting activities. However, the typical reasons causing Mac crashes are as follows:

Malware/virus infection which infiltrated a Mac through third-party apps;

Insufficient RAM for applications to run properly;

Insufficient CPU capacity for resource-intensive programs;

Several apps are competing for disk access and system resources.

How to fix the Finder app that keeps crashing on your Mac? The best option is deleting potentially corrupted Finder system preference files with .plist extension:

1. If the Finder app still launches in spite of crashing, open the Finder window.
2. Go to Home -> Library -> Preferences.
3. Find and remove these files:apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist.
4. Log out, and log back in.
5. Empty the Trash.

Alternatively, you can use the Terminal app to remove the files, if Finder won’t launch.

1. Run the following commands:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, then press Return.

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist, then press Return.

2. Log out, and log back in.
3. Empty the Trash.

One of the most frequent issues with MacBook Pro is related to random crashes known as ‘kernel panic.’ These crashes may occur after hardware replacement or software updates. To identify what’s causing the problem, run Apple Diagnostics (or, Apple hardware test on Macs manufactured before 2013).

1.Unplug all external devices (keep the keyboard, mouse, monitor, Ethernet connection, and AC power plugged). Apple Hardware Test might show an error message if other devices are not unplugged.

2. Turn off your Mac, and turn it on again holding the D key while it is booting. Wait until the Apple Diagnostics screen (Apple Hardware Test icon) shows up:

3. If you’re running the Apple Hardware Test, choose the language by pressing the ‘up’ and ‘down’ arrows, then hit the Return key to confirm. Apple Diagnostics performs the further steps automatically.

4. Next, click the Test button (T key) or Return to begin testing. Running an in-depth test needs a bit more time to complete. Select Perform extended testing before the test begins.

5. Once the test is over, you can see the results in the bottom-right part of the window.

6. To exit the diagnostics, click Restart (R key)/ Shut Down (S key) in the lower part of the window.

“A Mac update crashed my computer!” is another frequent plea for help on the Apple support community. Users know that installing Mac OS /software updates is the best way to keep their Mac protected. Still, many users have experienced crashes in the middle of a system upgrade. On older Mac models, upgrading to macOS Sierra on top of OS X El Capitan caused slow work and freeze ups. To fix the issues caused by upgrading to the latest Mac OS, you can do the following:

restart your Mac in a Safe Mode and disable the antivirus software (especially if you’re using third-party antivirus software);

No Fall Beach Ball Mac Os X

switch to another Wi-Fi network

try downgrading to the previous Mac OS version

perform a clean install of the new operating system

If your Mac crashed during the automatic software update, find and delete the following files:

• /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist
• /Home/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.xyz.plist (“xyz” is a number).
• /Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/ (purge the entire folder).

Alternatively, use a Time Machine backup to revert to the previous state.

If you use one of the earlier Mac OS X versions, follow the below instructions to fix freeze-ups and system crashes. Choose an option depending on the severity of the problem:

1. Try rebooting your Mac in a Safe Mode. For this, hold down the Shift key while restarting your computer until the Apple logo appears. If the startup fails, most likely you don’t have enough free space on your startup disk.
2. Try resetting the NVRAM. For this, restart your Mac and press down the Command-Option-P-R keys altogether after hearing the start-up chime. Release the keys after you hear the startup chime for the second time.
3. Boot into the Recovery Mode. For this, restart your Mac holding down the Command (⌘)-R key combination after hearing the start-up sound. Check your hard drive for errors using the Disk Utility.
4. If the problem persists, reinstalling Mac OS X from scratch is your best option. First, reboot your computer into the Recovery Mode. In the OS X Utilities menu, select Reinstall OS X, then click Continue.

Note: reinstalling OS X on top of the current system does not delete your files and settings. However, this may help in fixing some system-wide issues.

If your Mac crashes several times in a row, it is crucial to single out the problem. Find out if a particular application is a reason, or the entire operating system is affected. In the first case, you will get an application crash report with comments. To fix the issue, click Reopen to relaunch the app, or click OK to quit the alert window.

If the problem stems from the macOS itself, there can be a plethora of reasons causing it. Try the below steps to eliminate the issue:

1. Reset the SMC (System Management Controller). Unplug all accessories before resetting. Press and hold down the Power button for 10 seconds to turn off your Mac. Disconnect the AC adapter and wait 15 seconds, then plug the power cord back in and switch on your Mac in 5 seconds.
2. Reboot in Safe Mode. Restart your Mac while pressing down the Shift key after you hear the start-up chime.
3. Reset NVRAM/PRAM. Restart Mac while holding down the Command-Option-P-R key combination.
4. Uninstall third-party apps, plug-ins, antivirus software, PPTP VPN software, which may be incompatible with the current macOS version.
5. Clean up your Mac’s startup disk to ensure there is enough space for macOS to operate properly.

Mac crashes can stem from different reasons, which signal about serious application or system-related issues. Isolating and identifying the problem is the best way to single out all possible causes. To prevent your Mac from occasional freeze-ups and crashes, use the latest Mac OS and software compatible with your machine’s hardware. macOS High Sierra is the recommended version of the operating system to date. Upgrade to the latest stable version to maximize your macOS experience.

Officially, it’s called the Spinning Wait Cursor or the Spinning Disc Pointer. Colloquially, it goes by many names, including the Spinning Beach Ball. Whatever you call it, the colorful pinwheel that replaces your mouse cursor is not a welcome sight.

According to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, “the spinning wait cursor is displayed automatically by the window server when an application cannot handle all of the events it receives. If an application does not respond for about 2 to 4 seconds, the spinning wait cursor appears.” (WindowServer is the background process that runs the Mac OS X graphical user interface.) Which is to say, the beachball is there to tell you your Mac is too busy with a task to respond normally.

Usually, the pinwheel quickly reverts to the mouse pointer. When it doesn’t go away, it turns into what some call the Spinning Beach Ball of Death (also known as the SBBOD or the Marble of Doom). At times like those, it helps to know why the thing appears and what you can do to make it go away.

Hardware causes

The most basic reason the beach ball appears is because your Mac’s hardware can’t handle the software task at hand. It’s not unusual to see the occasional beach ball when you Mac is performing complex computing tasks. Even everyday activities—such as syncing with iTunes—can temporarily overtax the CPU.

To find out if the CPU is a bottleneck on performance, use Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities) to monitor CPU usage. You don’t have to keep an Activity Monitor window open all the time; there are less obtrusive ways to use it. For example, open Activity Monitor then Control-click on its Dock icon and select Dock Icon -> Show CPU Usage. That will turn the icon itself into a CPU usage graph; you can then close the main Activity Monitor window. You can also Control-click on the icon and select Monitors -> CPU Usage, or Monitors -> Floating CPU Window. That will place a small activity graph in the corner of your screen.

The beach ball may also appear if you don’t have enough RAM. Virtual memory paging and swapping (freeing RAM by moving data to swap files on disk and back) consumes CPU cycles. Insufficient RAM means more paging and swapping, which means fewer CPU cycles are available to apps. If apps can’t get the CPU time they want, the beach ball appears. That’s why you want as much RAM as your budget will allow and your Mac can accommodate.

Similarly, if your startup disk is nearly full, less space is available for swap files. Again, that leads to more CPU cycles devoted to swapping and more beach balls. As a rule of thumb, keep at least 10GB free on your startup disk. Again, you can use Activity Monitor to diagnose RAM and hard drive shortages; open the System Memory or Disk Usage tabs. In the pie charts shown in these panes, more green is better.

No Fall Beach Ball Mac Os Pro

If you can isolate a hardware cause, the solution is obvious: You need to upgrade. In the case of the CPU, however, that means buying a new Mac. If it’s the RAM or the hard drive, you can upgrade those individually. If upgrading isn’t an option for you, you’re just going to have to run fewer applications concurrently. Clearly, the more resource-intensive apps you work with daily, the fewer you should run simultaneously.

One other hardware-related reason the beach ball may appear: Your hard disk or optical drives may enter Standby mode, spinning down after a period of inactivity to save energy. If you try to access them when they’re in Standby (by opening or saving a file, for example), you may see the beach ball while the disk spins up. For some drives, that may take many seconds.

You can, if you wish, keep your startup disk from ever entering Standby mode. To do so, open Energy Saver preferences (in System Preferences) and deselect Put the Hard Disk(s) to Sleep When Possible. Note that all of your drives will still enter Standby mode when your Mac enters its own sleep mode; you may then see the beach ball if you wake your Mac and then immediately try to access a disk.

Software causes

Even if your hardware is adequate, an application or process can still monopolize your system. Perhaps an application is hung in an infinite loop or it’s simply inefficient. Maybe a background process is running amok, hogging CPU cycles. An errant third-party plug-in can turn a fast application into a slug. Whatever the reason, the program takes over the CPU and up pops the Ball.

If you suspect that the SBBOD is software-based, the first thing to do is simply to wait for a few minutes to see if the app starts responding again or crashes. While you’re waiting, you can find out which apps are hogging more than their fair share of system resources: Open Activity Monitor’s CPU tab and sort by the % CPU column in descending order; the apps at the top are the ones using the most CPU cycles.

If you are able to switch to other applications and the SBBOD appears in all of them, that could be a sign that one of your Mac’s system process is hung. In that case, try to shut down or restart the Mac by pressing Command-Eject or Command-Control-Eject, respectively. Otherwise, press and hold the power button to shut down the Mac, restart, then open the system log in Console (/Applications/Utilities) to see if you can determine the cause.

The SBBOD may also appear when you load a Web page containing a vast amount of data or a JavaScript that is either inefficient or incompatible. Most browsers recognize this situation and open an alert window stating that a script is slowing the browser. Clicking on Stop in this alert should end the problem (though the page may then render incorrectly). Otherwise, you’ll have to Force Quit the browser. If you can, you should report the problem the site’s Webmaster.

Ad-blocking—whether it’s built into your browser or enforced by an add-on—may also cause a browser to hang. In this case, Force Quit the browser, then disable ad-blocking for that particular site.

The Bottom Line

While you can’t prevent every instance of the SBBOD—it is there to tell you your Mac is busy—a little patience and an occasional Force Quit or Restart should make those instances a bit more bearable.

Gregory Swain runs The X Lab, a site dedicated to troubleshooting Mac OS X. He also writes and publishes the Troubleshooting Mac OS X e-book series.