Spinning "beach ball" problem

I bought my imac 2.0 800mhz (1 gig of RAM) in May of this year and gradually the spinning beach ball has happened more and more. It happens when there's only firefox open so it's not a case of me running too much and it now happens regularly - everything freezes for about 30 seconds until it's sorted itself out. It even happened today on the login screen after I switched my mac on. I've run disk repair and it doesn't seem to affect the problem.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Well since you have run repair from disk utility try downloading MainMenu or Oynx and do a complete system clean up.
Personally i use and love MainMenu and when you set up configuration dont check the spotlight rebuild or the remove .DS_ files ....
I run this fortnightly andnever get a spinning wheel of death anymore..

Worth a try and they are both free...
Oynx is a little more complex to use IMO

cheers

Thanks for your reply - I linked to the mainmenu page you sent but doing a little search I also found mainmenu by a company called creativebe!
MainMenu | Keep your Mac in shape Which is the real mainmenu? Am I missing something here? I am totally non-technical so please excuse my ignorance!

Is it always only with Firefox? Have you updated to Firefox 3.5.6?

The mainmenu link i gave you is for version 1.7.4 which is a free version as its a older one. The main menu you went to is the latest version which will give you a 30day trial then you need to donate $20 odd dollars to keep using it. The 1.7.4 is still good to use and its free.
As from where you got it from there are a lot of sites that will advertise it and have it as a download, but you will probably still download it from the main page of the company it came from...
You can download it from anywhere but as i said the 1.7.4 version is free.

I personally bought it as the latest version bc i was so happy with the outcome and ease of use from it...

At end of the day its your choice of which version you get.
get the latest and if like it drop back to the free version or donate to have the full new version ...
If that makes sense lol

Cheers

Aside from cleaning, usually does it, how much free space do you have remaining on your drive? If you're getting under 15% and definitely under 5%, this can also cause your machine to slow down nastily as you no longer have any space for virtual memory.

pussycat and bobtomay - thanks for your replies. I'm on firefox 3.5.6 and I've got 200 GB left on so it's neither of those issues. I'm going to give mainmenu a try - thanks tatooedmac.

tattooed mac - don't mean to be stoopid but now I've got macmenu I don't really know what to do with it! Do I tick all the boxes in the "configure" section except the two you mentioned? What about the other options - for example, what are batch tasks? What do I do with the other options on "system"? Do I need to clean user cache? I really didn't understand what the growl application is but they recommend I install it! Phew - why don't they make this stuff easy for mere mortals to understand?

bobolu said:

tattooed mac - don't mean to be stoopid but now I've got macmenu I don't really know what to do with it! Do I tick all the boxes in the "configure" section except the two you mentioned? What about the other options - for example, what are batch tasks? What do I do with the other options on "system"? Do I need to clean user cache? I really didn't understand what the growl application is but they recommend I install it! Phew - why don't they make this stuff easy for mere mortals to understand?

Click to expand...

Ahhh a new day ...

Mate there is no stoopid question in this forum .... We are all learning all the time ...

When you have it up and going, ( i always got mine sitting in menu bar ) goto batch tasks and then configure. Tick everything in there except 'Spotlight Reindexing' and 'Remove .DS Store_Files' and then click on Execute Batch Tasks.

Just a matter of sitting back and letting it do what it needs to do.
The time it takes depends on how much junk is in your system and needs to be cleaned out. My 1st time it ran it ran for like ages and now its a swift 15 mins or so....

You dont need to worry about anything else apart from Configure and then execute

On the Growl Notifications you dont really need it but it is good if you want to watch what is happening as MM runs its tasks. It puts up a LIVE log window basically so you can see the progress of the run.
You can configure Growl for a lot of other program notifications as well, like iTune, will show the song playing .... and so on, but thats for another day ...

Hope that helps mate

Cheers

Cheers mate - I've done as you said and really appreciate your patience - you'll go to Mac-heaven! Unfortunately, the spinning beach ball is still with me - even as I try to type this I've had to stop and wait for it to go. What do you reckon to Archive and Install?

Yea you can do.
What OS have you got on it??

I admit i had to do this 3months into me owning my MB because of silly things i did learning, but was well worth it. I had leopard and did one just before SL came out so if it didnt work i wasnt that concerned. It worked perfectly.
But make sure you have everything backed up to a Ext HD 1st, to be on the safe side.
As good as Macs are they arnt failsafe.
Some say you 'archive and install' as a last resort but IMO i have no trouble doing again if the situation arose .....

Good luck

Cheers

tatooedmac - thanks for your help - please bear with me, can you just answer me a few questions on archive and install? If not I do understand - it's just that it's really difficult to find this basic info and finding people like you to help is like another Christmas present!

Before I get all emotional about the mac community I'll continue.... I know that I go to my login page and then put in DVD1 to begin the archive and install.

Do I need to unplug all usbs, printers, ext hard drive etc first?

If I click on the install to keep my user files will my desktop look exactly the same after the install as it does now - if not how do I find my folders I use for work (word files, excel etc)?

I've got Time Machine, so do I need to back everything up?

Yesterday I downloaded mainmenu - do I need to back this up?

Finally, will Firefox look the same in terms of the address bar or will my contacts be stored via time machine?

Thanks very much!

Mate been a cpl of days, sorry bout the delay....
To be safe unplug everything peripheral.... Back up with TM to be on the safe side. Even though its a Mac they rnt failsafe.
Once you click on the install once its done all your settings, desktop, dock and every folder you had on the old one will be the same. Firefox should be the same as was before the A & I.
Same with Mainmenu ..
To be honest for the money it might be worth buying Snow Leopard and doing a install with that. It is cheap enough and you will get a minimum 6GB back on your HD. Would be same as doing it with Leopard disk to and in 40 odd minutes you will be up and running ....
If you go the SL way all you will have to do is update all those programs you have in Applications to be able to run with SL.. Not hard at all.
If you still got ?'s just ask away

TattooedMac - thanks for all your help - sorry for the delay but I've finally worked out what the reputation system is!

I'm going to do the A and I later and I'll let you know what happens.

I've been trying to find out about Snow Leopard but it's had a lot of criticism and only three stars on the apple site. Of course people tend to whinge more than praise on the internet (!) so it's hard to know. What's your opinion of SL - I reckon I can rely on you for an honest straightforward opinion!

Cheers!

Mate mine and all those that have upgraded here in the forums, would say its well worth the money. Only Cost me $29 AUD and i couldnt be happier. My system is faster, only a bit but its faster, i got 7.2GB space back on my HD after the install. They have crammed more into SL than leopard and made it smaller ..... Brilliant.
If i was you i would take the leap if you can. And as i posted above you will only need to do updates for the Apps you already have (Do them as you need them) and do the SL 10.6.2 Combo update and download it straight from  and get it HERE.
Do a back up 1st to be on the safe side and you will be fine.
You will probably need to install Rosetta as well and that can be found on the SL install disk. Do that after the A&I .....
ALL IN ALL worth it IMO
Good luck and let us know how it goes

Cheers

And try a little more memory in the machine as 1GB is practically zilch these days.

harryb2448 said:

And try a little more memory in the machine as 1GB is practically zilch these days.

Click to expand...

Thanks for adding that mate .. Sometimes you do pass over the obvious !!

Thanks harry and tatooedmac - did the A and I and for the last hour things have been fine - no spinning beach ball - yee-hah! Thanks so much for your help - I love mac people! I think I'll go for the extra memory AND Snow Leopard now. One final thing - as a matter of interest, how often can you do the A and I? Is it bad for the Mac or software in any way?

No mate it isnt bad but ... Some people reckon to do it as a last resort but personally if you cant come up with a solution to your problem and everything is backed up I cnt see why not... On how often i suppose as often as you need to ... No certain numbers on how often
As i said above SL is worth the money its a quick install like 40 minutes and you will get HD space back ..

Glad you havnt the spinning ball anymore .. Great news

Cheers mate - have fun in the sun - and see you the next time!