Tell me about the stupid colorful spinning pin wheel on your mac

[look 171]

I ran anti virus program and found nothing

What is the deal with the #$%*@ pin wheel? Running script? Seems to do it a lot on this site and its none stop. I use Firefox and does it on Safri also. Any tips on how to get rid of it?

[stomachmonkey]

LOL, it's part of the operating system, it means , Hang tight chief, something is going on that is taking longer than it should.

It's the same as the old spinning hourglass or blue donut under Windows.

[id10t]

XKCD's memorial to Jobs

[RedBaron]

1: Your HD could be failing with bad sectors
-Go to disk utility - > Verify disk
2: Try refreshing firefox

You could try buying an SSD,that would fix it.

[look 171]

refreshing Firefox doesn't do a thing. What's a SSD?

[look 171]

Originally Posted by id10t

XKCD's memorial to Jobs

Yeah, that lil' f'ker. Tried different Browser and still does it. Its on for 3-4 min then as soon as It goes away, I click on something, then the damn thing comes on again and repeats itself again.

[sand_man]

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by look 171

Yeah, that lil' f'ker. Tried different Browser and still does it. Its on for 3-4 min then as soon as It goes away, I click on something, then the damn thing comes on again and repeats itself again.

Jeff, I'd rather look at that stupid spinning wheel than the stupid snow that's falling here.

I hope all is well, and your dad is recovering.

[craigster59]

I had that problem on my Macbook. It turned out to be 2nd party anti virus ware. Sophos Anti Virus was the name of the program. Must have installed it by accident and it was checking every single page I would click on and spin.

[look 171]

Thanks Jim. He's doing fine and clear of pneumonia and going home in the next couple of days. Finally eating better and hope to be back to normal soon. The clots will dissolve on its own.

Hey, just one more season so you should enjoy it. Its been over cast on and off here but not much rain. I am still waiting or El Nino.

[craigster59]

If you see an icon similar to this ("S" in shield) at the top right near your WiFi symbol Sophos is running and slowing you down. Some programs auto install it on mac when you download their program

[Neilk]

From everything I have read, Mac anti-virus programs seem to cause more problems than they prevent, so I would uninstall it.

[craigster59]

Originally Posted by Neilk

From everything I have read, Mac anti-virus programs seem to cause more problems than they prevent, so I would uninstall it.

That was the remedy, runs like a champ now.

[rusnak]

The beach ball of death.

You must have upgraded to Yosemite or even worse, OSX El Capitan, which is the DSL of operating systems.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by look 171

Yeah, that lil' f'ker. Tried different Browser and still does it. Its on for 3-4 min then as soon as It goes away, I click on something, then the damn thing comes on again and repeats itself again.

Go up to the right hand corner and click the magnifying glass.

Type in Activity Monitor.

Launch it.

Across the top you can choose different parameters to look at.

Start with CPU. When the list populates click %CPU to sort by descending order. (If you get 0's click again)

See which processes are hogging the CPU. For instance if you were running Chrome and had a run away process you would see Google Chrome Helper at the top.

Any process you see running consistently above 30-50% is problematic. Spiking for a second is not an issue, it's being pegged at a high value that indicates a problem.

[scottmandue]

Whatever you do do not look directly at the rainbow spinning pin wheel!

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Neilk

From everything I have read, Mac anti-virus programs seem to cause more problems than they prevent, so I would uninstall it.

Most of them do, even under Windows where it's unfortunately a necessary evil.

[dyhunter]

My mac was also running slow. I found out it was trying to upload all my pictures to my icloud drive.

Dave

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

whatever you do do not look directly at the rainbow spinning pin wheel!

lol!

[id10t]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Go up to the right hand corner and click the magnifying glass.

Type in Activity Monitor.

Launch it.

Across the top you can choose different parameters to look at.

Start with CPU. When the list populates click %CPU to sort by descending order. (If you get 0's click again)

See which processes are hogging the CPU. For instance if you were running Chrome and had a run away process you would see Google Chrome Helper at the top.

Any process you see running consistently above 30-50% is problematic. Spiking for a second is not an issue, it's being pegged at a high value that indicates a problem.

It is a Mac. It has a *real* OS as a subsystem. Open a terminal and run top or ps