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Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
I have a mid-2011 iMac with spinning disc drive.
I updated to High Sierra when the full version of 10.13.1 appeared (ie;- I stayed clear of the initial release of the new OS and stayed patient whilst 5 Beta versions of the .1 got out of the way). All worked fine.
Later Safari updated to 11.0.1 and this seemed fine as did Pages which I use several times every day.
In due course I updated Pages 6.3.1, Keynote 7.3.1 and Numbers 4.3.1. No discernible slowing of speed and Pages worked fine.

However, today it's ghastly. First I noticed that Pages was not performing properly. Spinning beachball for ages. For example..... to select a layer on a Pages drawing took 2 minutes to react to a click and then 2 more minutes to indicate that it had reacted and for the beachball to disappear. To "Select All' of say 6 layers in one click could take 10 minutes or more plus a further few minutes afterwards to get rid of the beachball. So a simple minor change to a document might take half an hour !!

I have also been obliged to Force Quit on several occasions. I have also done a couple of close-downs and restarts.

Yes, other applications have slowed noticeably as well but I haven't the patience / time to labour with these as well.

Any ideas?

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Tony Still
It sounds like something is not happy on High Sierra. Personally, I haven't noticed much in the way of performance changes and those that I have are things going faster; as you have mechanical HD, you won't be using APFS yet either.

Try opening Activity Monitor (just type its name in Spotlight), going to the CPU tab and clicking the %CPU column to bring the highest user processes to the top (little arrow[v] points downwards). With any luck, you'll see a recognisable application that's using lots of CPU. Anything using tens, or even 100, per cent is suspect. If it's not an application, please post back here with the process name.

The other thing worth doing is to run Disk Utility and click First Aid for your drive. Just in case!

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Mick Burrell
You don't say how long it worked fine for before it started misbehaving. If it's quite a while (a few days perhaps) it may be nothing to do with the updates. If Tony's suggestions don't pinpoint it, is it possible you have something connecting to the internet in the background - Mail checking for email for example? If so, it may be that your connection is causing the problem.

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
Thank you both for your responses. Will try to progress things tomorrow but will clearly need more head scratching.

Activity Monitor itself was 2%CPU, the highest other was 0.8%, , System 1.7%, User 1.07%, Idle 97.02%.

First Aid......HD was ok, exit code 0, operation successful.


As for Pages, this will not respond to document wanting it to open. Surely the weather is too cold for beachballs !!

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
Just had thought prompted by you Mick. My Broadband contract is renewing today, with same ISP and theoretically no specification changes, but with a financial change (negotiated an imminent increased cost to go away). If I cross my fingers hard, will things improve after midnight ????

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
Before breakfast I thought I would check today's situation.


Broadband renewal confirmed as having occurred and it is working normally. But.......Pages is not. I disconnected the internet link entirely and still Pages slow or nil response. I am puzzled why Pages could be affected by an internet link but obviously I haven't woken up properly yet?

Numbers and Safari seem about normal speed this morning.

If the problem is mainly confined to Pages, should I be ditching Pages app (do I simply trash it ? ) and reinstall ?

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Mick Burrell
Disconnecting the internet link may make it worse if that's the issue - Mail (or whatever) will continue to try if it can't connect. However, if Safari seems normal it's probably not an internet issue.

What CPU usage does Pages show when you have the beachball? Does it happen if you aim for a new document or when you try to open an existing one?

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Euan Williams
Sometimes, (three or four times recently on my own and several other members' Macs) the 'Oh so slow' issue has been due to corrupted cache(s).

The fix on each occasion has been to restart in Safe Boot mode (Shift Key held down until the progress bar appears, ignore flashing screen, and sign in). Then restart 'normally'. This process may take a long time, as will the first 'normal' restart afterwards, and initial startup of software such as MS Word that rely on caches and have to re-establish them.

Note that fonts are regularly cached by applications, and corrupted fonts and their caches can cause all sorts of apparently disastrous issues.

Apple's own FontBook app can check and validate your fonts, for instructions search its Help file for "Install and validate fonts".

If you need more granular access to these things download "Onyx" (free) from here. Version 3.3.9 is for High Sierra.

A Safe Boot followed by a normal restart probably does all these things anyway, so Onyx may not be required - but just in case:
let it sort your disc structure first, and then visit these menu items (accept the pre-selected options):
Maintenance > Rebuilding
Cleaning > System ('CUPS jobs' are print caches - Common Unix Printing Systems)
Cleaning > Fonts.

Read the Help files, and always understand the yellow triangle warnings where appropriate.

Above all, never do anything before breakfast. If there is a problem go for a walk before doing anything dramatic, that's why Mick Burrell always has a few dogs in the family.

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
Doing an electrical job outside in the cold. Came in for warming coffee, (should have added whiskey), to see Mick & Euan's inputs.

Mick.......cannot launch Pages now so cannot try difference between new and existing Pages documents. I was trying to adapt an existing one when the trouble emerged. As to CPU with the beachball 10.1, then 99.9, then 47, then 142.9. and then Pages entry turns red as not responding.

Euan.......must reach a stage with outside electricals before I return to the fray. Thanks.

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Mick Burrell
If those CPU usage figures are for opening by double clicking the existing file it would be interesting to compare with those obtained when opening a new file. (pages turns red I assume in the Force Quit window.)

As you suggested earlier, you could just delete Pages then download it again.

Euan - very droll ;-)

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Euan Williams
Mick - misspelling: should be troll (but only of the traditional Norwegian kind) - one has standards don'tcher know. :-0 ;-)))

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
I trashed Pages and downloaded afresh.

Launching the App produced a CPU of 100 and a "not responding" message, but after a few ups and downs of the CPU it settled at 8 and loaded. Opening a new document was not too bad a speed and showed a CPU of 6.9 and the document could be worked on. Hurrah,,,,,but maybe celebration was premature?

Double clicking an old document with the App already running opened it and gave a CPU of 37.2 which then settled at 2.2. But clicking on any layer produced a beachball, a CPU of 100 and a not responding message and then it all went terribly slow again.

Duties at elderly mother's flat now call, so watch this space for further episodes later !!

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar Mick Burrell
Does this happen with all old documents? If you start a new one and save it, does it happen when you try to open it again? If both answers are "No" then it sounds as if the old document you were trying to open is corrupt.

Re: Oh so slow

Avatar John Nicholas
Yes I was wondering this as well. But the reason I presumed this was not the whole answer was that up to yesterday launching Pages afresh before opening any document at all still produced the beachball and the "not responding" message.

Last night I did all that you and Euan had suggested and had I commented at some ungodly hour past midnight, I would have been saying that the clean-up had not appeared to have altered things.

However this morning maybe things have moved on, and in the light of your queries I would respond as follows:-

Most but not all times, Pages launches OK. The couple of old documents I was trying to use (converted in 2012 from old Clarisworks/Appleworks documents) would not work properly. I tried a couple of existing 2017 documents, some 2012 documents, and at least one other pre 2012 ex Clarisworks/Appleworks documents and these all performed ok.

So I think we must reach this conclusion........... Dump the couple of aged documents which were troublesome (fortunately they are not vital to keep), keep watching what happens as time progresses as I use or create other Pages documents, and hope that yesterdays clean-up etc improved things somewhat except for the "corrupted file".

Thanks to everyone for spending time to assist. I am a little more educated now as to what can happen and how to reach a diagnosis. I hope not to have to add to the post, and have fingers and toes crossed............Doctor why do my digits ache !
 
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