Frozen iMac with Beachball

[Computing Gran]

Hi all, Computing Gran here. Been doing pretty well, but today disaster.
Late 2012 iMac, 21.5", Mojave OS - computer turns on, runs through start up,
lets me login, then just the desktop picture on screen, no files or dock, etc.
After a few minutes the screen goes black and the dreaded beachball begins.
Have been through all the resets, recovery mode, utilities, etc. But nothing seems to help.
Can you?

 

[hughvane]

I cannot predict what this might do to your iMac, but it sure helped mine (see specs) when it stalled after an update.

Shut your computer down, force method if necessary, then unplug it and leave it for a couple of hours. Then plug it back in, boot, and see if there is an improvement.

 

[Rod]

Oldest trick in the book and still works in a number of cases. Do get back to us if no joy, or if it works for that matter. We love to hear good news.

 

[Computing Gran]

I cannot predict what this might do to your iMac, but it sure helped mine (see specs) when it stalled after an update.

Shut your computer down, force method if necessary, then unplug it and leave it for a couple of hours. Then plug it back in, boot, and see if there is an improvement.

Thanks, hughvane, but it didn't work for me. Computer started, ran log in. After I entered password and hit return, the password/box disappeared, but my icon did not and the screen froze with the desktop photo - no files, dock, etc. The curser was visible and moveable but there was nothing to click on except the icon and that did nothing. Tried 'force quit' keys to no avail.

I sure would appreciate it if someone has an an idea how to solve this.

 

[Computing Gran]

Oldest trick in the book and still works in a number of cases. Do get back to us if no joy, or if it works for that matter. We love to hear good news.

Thanks, Rod. But no good news. See reply to hughvane.

 

[pigoo3]

Late 2012 iMac, 21.5", Mojave OS -

It's difficult to say exactly what could be the issue at this point...of course some good Q&A here...we should be able to figure things out.

Too bad the reboot idea that was suggested did not work. Always a great idea to try first.

One thing that can cause big issues for a computer is how full the internal storage device is. Any idea how full your 2012 iMac's internal storage is (I'm assuming it's a spinner hard drive)?

I'm guessing from what is described that you may not be able to this the "normal" way. Something to try is booting into the Recovery Partition.

To do this reboot the computer...then immediately press & hold the 2-key combo of command + r keys (the command key is the one that has the 4-leaf clover like symbol on it).

Once in the Recovery Partition...launch Disk Utility...and see what it says about how full the hard drive main partition is.

Nick

 

[MacInWin]

Maybe try a Safe Boot? Blocks anything in your account from loading, which may let you get control.

 

[Computing Gran]

It's difficult to say exactly what could be the issue at this point...of course some good Q&A here...we should be able to figure things out.

Too bad the reboot idea that was suggested did not work. Always a great idea to try first.

One thing that can cause big issues for a computer is how full the internal storage device is. Any idea how full your 2012 iMac's internal storage is (I'm assuming it's a spinner hard drive)?

I'm guessing from what is described that you may not be able to this the "normal" way. Something to try is booting into the Recovery Partition.

To do this reboot the computer...then immediately press & hold the 2-key combo of command + r keys (the command key is the one that has the 4-leaf clover like symbol on it).

Once in the Recovery Partition...launch Disk Utility...and see what it says about how full the hard drive main partition is.

Nick

It says macOS Base System Disk Image Volume Mac OS Extended 2.01 = Used 1.28 GB. Free 732.9 MB
Macintosh HD APFS Volume APFS 1 TB shared by 4 volumes = Used 149.35.
Other volumes 5.04 GB. Free 845.6 GB

 

[pigoo3]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like your iMac has a 1TB drive (1 terabyte). Why it has 4 volumes I'm not sure...but maybe this is something to explore another day.

If you can boot into the Recovery Partition once more...launch Disk Utility again...then select the disk in the left column...then click "First Aid"...then click "Run". Hopefully if there are any issues Disk Utility can find & fix it.

After running Disk Utility/First Aid...reboot the computer normally...and see there is any improvement.

Definitely give the Booting into "Safe Mode" idea Member MacInWin suggested. This may give you greater access to investigate things. Here's an Apple document explaining Safe Mode:

Start up your Mac in safe mode

Starting up your Mac in safe mode may help you diagnose problems with your Mac.

support.apple.com

Nick

 

[Computing Gran]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like your iMac has a 1TB drive (1 terabyte). Why it has 4 volumes I'm not sure...but maybe this is something to explore another day.

If you can boot into the Recovery Partition once more...launch Disk Utility again...then select the disk in the left column...then click "First Aid"...then click "Run". Hopefully if there are any issues Disk Utility can find & fix it.

After running Disk Utility/First Aid...reboot the computer normally...and see there is any improvement.

Definitely give the Booting into "Safe Mode" idea Member MacInWin suggested. This may give you greater access to investigate things. Here's an Apple document explaining Safe Mode:

Start up your Mac in safe mode

Starting up your Mac in safe mode may help you diagnose problems with your Mac.

support.apple.com

Nick

I did the first aid and got the same results as before when trying to log in. So that didn't work.

Then I tried the Safe Boot. It took forever to get to the log in page. I put in my password, clicked return and the password/box disappeared. Safe Boot , the time and the wifi icon showed up in the upper right where the menu bar should be, but that was all. No bar, no dock, no files. The gear wheel started spinning, then the screen went black. The cursor was there and movable.

SIGH!

 

[pigoo3]

Too bad those ideas didn't work. We got to get trying.

Try this...reboot the computer...then immediately hold down the Option key. When you do this you're asking the computer to show you all hard drive partitions you can boot into. Since Disk Utility said your hard drive has 4 volumes on it...want to see if it has more than one bootable hard drive partition on it.

If it has more than one bootable partition...try booting into each of them...and see if you have any success. If you only get one choice...then that's ok too...then we know there's only one bootable partition.

Nick

 

[Computing Gran]

Too bad those ideas didn't work. We got to get trying.

Try this...reboot the computer...then immediately hold down the Option key. When you do this you're asking the computer to show you all hard drive partitions you can boot into. Since Disk Utility said your hard drive has 4 volumes on it...want to see if it has more than one bootable hard drive partition on it.

If it has more than one bootable partition...try booting into each of them...and see if you have any success. If you only get one choice...then that's ok too...then we know there's only one bootable partition.

Nick

When the screen went black, but with cursor, I just walked away from it to do other chores. When I touched the keyboardist now the screen lit up with my desktop photo, and all the previously missing items, dock, menu bar, and files. But when i click on anything the dreaded beachball comes back. So I'm going to just let it sit while I finish other things and see if it corrects itself. If not I'll try your above suggestion.

I really appreciate you helping me. I don't know where you are, but I am just north of Lytton, BC. You may have seen in the news last summer that Lytton was 95% destroyed by a wildfire. I have no knowledgeable Mac people near who can help and any commercial computer repair shop is a minimum of 2 hours drive away.
I love my mountain home, but when technology goes wrong it is very frustrating.

 

[ferrarr]

But when i click on anything the dreaded beachball comes back.

This is the sign of a dying drive. Do you at least have a backup strategy in place so you won't lose any of your important data?

 

[pigoo3]

When the screen went black, but with cursor, I just walked away from it to do other chores. When I touched the keyboardist now the screen lit up with my desktop photo, and all the previously missing items, dock, menu bar, and files. But when i click on anything the dreaded beachball comes back.

This is just a guess...but sounds to me (due to the computers super slowness & beachballs) that one of the following is the issue:

* Hard drive may be failing.
* Hard drive is extremely full.
* A rogue app or apps is installed on the hard drive that are eating up lots of CPU resources.
* Hard drive needs some serious maintenance.

There is one super-duper faster way of determining what's up...and that's to boot the computer from an external drive (with an bootable macOS installed on it). When this is done...we're not relying on the computers internal drive for the OS. The internal drive basically/temporarily becomes a simple data drive of sorts.

If it were possible for you to do this...you more than likely would need a 2nd Apple computer & and an external drive to get this done. Unless of course you already had an external drive with a macOS installed in it.

Nick

 

[Computing Gran]

This is the sign of a dying drive. Do you at least have a backup strategy in place so you won't lose any of your important data?

I tried to do a backup of important files to a thumb drive, but couldn't get the drive to show up on the desk top. If it is dying, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do next.
And yes, I do have 'external drives' checked.

 

[Rod]

If you do not have the resources mentioned above by Nick your remaining options would be;
1. to ask a friendly Mac user if they would be willing to allow you to create a bootable MacOS installer on their device. It will not harm their device and the storage used can be easily erased after the process but it does involve downloading a MacOS installer from the App Store and a 20GB USB thumb drive. We can provide step by step instructions for this.
2. purchase a MacOS installer on eg. eBay preferably the same OS to the one you are running.

If neither of those options are possible for you my last ditch advise would be to try reinstalling the MacOS from the Recovery Partition. BUT, be aware that if the HD is failing attempting to reinstall the OS may result in a complete crash.

By far the safest way to proceed would be to find an external source to boot up from. Then as mentioned your internal HD will be like a storage device that you can transfer your important date from to another External HD.

 

[Computing Gran]

This is just a guess...but sounds to me (due to the computers super slowness & beachballs) that one of the following is the issue:

* Hard drive may be failing.
* Hard drive is extremely full.
* A rogue app or apps is installed on the hard drive that are eating up lots of CPU resources.
* Hard drive needs some serious maintenance.

There is one super-duper faster way of determining what's up...and that's to boot the computer from an external drive (with an bootable macOS installed on it). When this is done...we're not relying on the computers internal drive for the OS. The internal drive basically/temporarily becomes a simple data drive of sorts.

If it were possible for you to do this...you more than likely would need a 2nd Apple computer & and an external drive to get this done. Unless of course you already had an external drive with a macOS installed in it.

Nick

You're losing me with booting up from an external drive - no idea how to do that and no external drive. But do have two MacBook Pros - could I use one of them? And what kind of cords would I need?

Is there a way to use migration assistant to wirelessly transfer files to my MacBook Pro?

I'm going to be away from my iMac until Friday. I'll try to get back at this on the weekend.

 

[Rod]

"You're losing me with booting up from an external drive" Imagine you took your hard drive out of the iMac and put it on the desk next to it, connected by a cable. It would then be "external" and you would start up (Boot) from that.
A bootable external hard drive (EHD) is merely a USB connected storage drive with a MacOS installed on it that you can choose at startup to be the source of the Operating System.
It can be a USB thumb drive or a 500GB storage drive.

 

[hughvane]

Chipping in again on this thread, my iMac is still operating adequately, but despite its impressive 3.4 Ghz i7 processor, is as slow as a wet week on startup (my i7 Mini leaves it for dead), causing palpitations when the progress bar retracts some way, only to proceed once again. Boot sectors of the HD faulty?

Running both OnyX, and First Aid from Disk utility, found no faults. I await delivery of the 128 Gb thumb drive on which to install a bootable Catalina volume so I can perhaps effect better repairs, should they be possible from a home situation.

To Computing Gran - I used to live remote rural, so had to be largely self-sufficient in dealing with Mac issues, so I would suggest that you take or freight your iMac to an Apple repair facility - should one exist within realistic distance. You can talk through the issues you're facing on a phone with a hands-on technician. I've been there, done that - and it worked!

 

[Rod]

PS. From one computing Grandpa to one computing Gran i think youre doing pretty well.