OS X Forgetting Settings

Hey everyone,

So, I've got an odd problem that I can't wrap my head around so I thought I'd tap into the knowledge around here.

In short, it would seem that my Mac has amnesia. About a week ago, I noticed that it forgot to launch my login items even though the list still had each of the respective apps listed. A few days later, I found that stock OS X apps that I had removed from the Dock ages ago had all of a sudden been re-added (Reminders, Notes, Launchpad and Mission Control). Two days ago, my Mac shutdown for no apparent reason, giving me a kernel panic style graphic notifying me that it had shutdown for no reason (thanks, I wasn't aware that this had just happened). This morning, OS X once again forgot about my login items even though they were once again listed. Finally, I've noticed that, when waking from sleep, it is excruciatingly slow to the point where there is a white progress bar as it loads the lock screen.

This collection of problems started appearing in the last week or so. Add to that they are seemingly unrelated and I'm at a loss here as to how to fix this. Some of it would appear to be hardware related (possibly) while other issues are quite obviously software related which only makes this more perplexing.

Things I've done so far: repaired disk permissions and run OnyX's automation with default settings. I haven't done a hardware test because I'm 99% sure this is a software issue since, not only do I have that gut feeling (I know, an accurate response to this) but the hardware is only a few months old.

Ideas? Possible solutions?

I wonder if you have an incompatible login item that managed to sneak in under the fence rather than get put in the incompatibility folder.

The items I have there have been there for quite a while and caused no issues until recently. The only new addition would be the Android File Transfer Agent which doesn't seem to be generating any logs or errors. However, Dropbox and Alfred are both listed before the AFTA which, assuming this is the case, should launch first (I'm making an assumption that the list reflects execution order).

I'll try disabling the AFTA for now to see if that's causing the issue with the login. However, that doesn't explain anything else.

I have seen Dropbox cause slow shutdown but not the other things

Hmmm, I'm still on the lookout for the issues (thanks for the suggestions so far). I cleaned out my login items list and only added a few things I know I need.

I'm still getting the progress bar when I wake the machine up from a long period of sleep. That progress bar kind of looks like the sound input meter in System Preferences (picture of this below). Here's a picture of what it looks like. Although that doesn't necessarily bother me, it's new (so something changed that I didn't consent to) and when it's finished, the lock screen is "frozen" for a period of time before it registered button clicks and mouse movements.

That progress bar is different sorry I never seen that .
Does your MBP have a SSD?

Have you reset your NVRAM / PRAM yet ??

I'm inclined to think it's the hard drive going. While some of the items you've mentioned could be software, I think all of them could be directly attributable to bad blocks on the drive.

Have you tried a Verify/Repair of the drive?

And do you have a bootable backup you can run for a day to check out to see if it has the same issues?

osxx said:

That progress bar is different sorry I never seen that .
Does your MBP have a SSD?

Click to expand...

No, a regular old disk.

TattooedMac said:

Have you reset your NVRAM / PRAM yet ??

Click to expand...

No but nothing that is stored there would be of any relevance here.

bobtomay said:

I'm inclined to think it's the hard drive going. While some of the items you've mentioned could be software, I think all of them could be directly attributable to bad blocks on the drive.

Have you tried a Verify/Repair of the drive?

And do you have a bootable backup you can run for a day to check out to see if it has the same issues?

Click to expand...

I have OnyX do it when I run that every few weeks. Since these issues started cropping up, I've since run it so I don't think it's a permissions issue.

It could be the hard disk. I hope it's not - I'm inclined to believe that, as a hard disk only a few months old, it's in tip top shape. However, anything is possible. I'll run some tests and see what I find.

Verify/Repair of the drive is different than repairing permissions.

You'll need to open up Disk Utility and run Verify Disk from the First Aid tab.

It sure is but I was unaware, until just now after checking, that OnyX doesn't repair it. Since it verified the hard disk when it's opened, I had naturally assumed it also repaired it.

Anyhoo, that's not the issue - the disk was fine. SMART is good to go as well.

Just found this with a description of your screen and loading bar. https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3593
Just a thought but have you tried booting into safe mode I can't remember if it shows something that needs addressing in that mode or not.