Beach Ball of Death

I own a 15“ MacBook Pro running under Mac OS X Yosemite and I’m continuously getting the “Spinning Beach Ball of Death”, which freezes Safari and stays on the screen for long periods of time. I’ve tried different tips, such as deleting the Cache.db file, but it does not work. What else can I do to get rid of it?

Reboot the computer more frequently.

- Nick

How much memory? How much free space on the drive?

Thanks for your reply. It has 4 Gb of RAM. 139.83 GB free space on the hard drive.

Well, so much for that theory.
Are you actually quitting apps or are you clicking the red button and just closing windows?
How many apps do you have running?
Are you by any chance running MacKeeper or CleanMyMac or anything like that?

I’m just clicking the red button and closing windows.

I can’t tell how many apps I am running; it depends on what I’m doing, but almost several apps always. Right now just one, but I didn’t get the Beach Ball yet.

I’m not running neither MacKeeper nor Clean My Mac nor anything like that.

That's part of the problem. Unless you need it, quit an app. If it's still running it's using resources. Granted, not that much but still some. It adds up.
Download the version of Onyx for your operating system and run the automation tab. That's all you need for "cleaning", about once or twice a year depending on usage of your computer. I think I run it once a year, whenever I remember.
Titanium Software - Home

Just because you have Yosemite doesn't mean you have a "newer" MBP.
I have a 2010 and it will run Yosemite as well.. according to this list your MBP could be as old as 2007
Here's a List of Macs Compatible With OS X Yosemite
Go to About this Mac under the apple in the top left of you desktop..
>More Info..
>System report in the overview tab
Then in that window 2nd line from the top youll see something that says MacBook Pro x, y. That lets us know how old it is and if-so-facto how much RAM the MBP can take.

As for properly closing Apps/programs.. as your reading this go to the top left of your window and click the Safari (or what ever web browser you use) drop down.. at the very bottom it will say 'Quit _____". If you hit that you are properly closing the application. The fast way is to hit Command+Q (that is the same as Alt+F4 if you are familiar with windows). Command+Q works with every application that I use on a regular basis.. exclude maybe some games idk about. You need to close things properly or you will get memory sucked into these background apps all the time. Your mac isn't like an iPhone/iPad/iPod since they do not get bogged down with 15 games open in the background.

Once you start closing apps correctly.. check and see what apps you have opening at boot up..
>System Preferences
>Users and Groups
>Login Items
If there is a lot of things on that list (that are check marked) take some things off.. that will help if rebooting doesn't work.
Once you've done those things.. and After clearing caches, checking permissions, making sure the HD isnt more than 85% full (you never told us how big your HD is), checking how many apps you have open (hitting Command+Tab will show you the major ones that would use the most resources), & rebooting your computer... I would recommend getting more ram if your problem persists.

Go to everymac.com to see the max capacity ram for your model (Macbook x,y). APple will often only offer to sell you a certain amount of ram when the machine will in fact utilize more.. that is not always the case but some times it is.

From what you said above-your MBP has 2 2GB Ram sticks installed. That means if you get the biggest pair of Ram sticks it could possibly (DEPENDING ON YOUR MODEL)go to 16GB (2x8GB), you may not be able to go that high.. but almost certainly could go to 8 GB (2x4GB sticks. You'll figure that out once you find your model under everymac.com.

hth

Dear Ttaylo394,

Thanks so much for your help. I’m following your directions.

My 15” MacBook Pro is from mid 2010, but I don’ see how much RAM the MBP can take. It only reads 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3. Previous line reads: Processor 24 GHz Intel Core i5.

As for properly closing Apps/programs I only see “Quit Safari”

As for what apps I have opening at boot, I found 8 (2 of them, “Canon IJ Network Scanner” and “iTunesHelper" are repeated). The others are: Garmin Express Service (related to my GPS device); SpeechSynthesisServer; Safari; TuneUpMyMac; AdobeResourceSynchronizer. I have unchecked all of them.

The HD has a capacity of 274.36 GB, being available 135.81 GB.

After going to everymac.com, I’m not sure what’s the max capacity Ram for my model, but I will try again.

Thanks again for your help.

As a previous post, more RAM always benefits Yosemite. Yosemite will launch in 2GB, but will be practically unusable. It can be usable in 4GB depending how many apps you have open, but certainly won't have stella performance. 8GB of RAM is really the practical usable minimum for Yosemite.

You may have already tried the following, but if not I would recommend these options. Rebuild disk permissions, run Disk Utility disk repair option from your recovery partition, start in safe made, then when booted to your login restart. Running Onyx as recommended above can also be useful.

If you still have problems after following everyones recommendations I personally would run Disk Warrior over the hard drive to check for corruption, then do a bad block check via Techtool Pro in case the hard drive is failing, but these are commercial software applications.

Antroxu said:

TuneUpMyMac; AdobeResourceSynchronizer. I have unchecked all of them.

Click to expand...

I very much recommend uninstalling TuneUpMyMac. Nothing but bad news.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=tuneupmymac+malware

Antroxu said:

Dear Ttaylo394,

As for what apps I have opening at boot, I found 8 (2 of them, “Canon IJ Network Scanner” and “iTunesHelper" are repeated). The others are: Garmin Express Service (related to my GPS device); SpeechSynthesisServer; Safari; TuneUpMyMac; AdobeResourceSynchronizer. I have unchecked all of them.

Click to expand...

Just an FYI unchecking these items does not stop them from loading. If you look carefully that column says "Hide". It hides the item as you log in. Other than Tune Up My Mac the rest look pretty ordinary although they use some resources.

Not sure why the Canon and iTunes Helper stuff is doubled. You can probably safely delete one of them. If you are not using a Canon printer/scanner it's safe ro delete both.

As far as only seeing the Quit command for Safari that is because it is the active program at the moment. If you switch to another program then the Quit command has the name of that program.

Here's an easy way to tell how many programs are open. Press Command and Tab simultaneously. Icons will appear on the screen. Each icon that appears is a program that is still running. If you want to quit one of the programs keep pressing Command and Tab till you highlight the one you want to quit. Then release Command Tab and press Command Q.

Edit: The mid 2010 MacBook Pro can take 8 GB of ram according to the MacTracker application.