iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch Stalling At Startup

[Peter Natscher]

Hello Mac Forum/OS Group,

Lately, my morning routine Startup of my iMac has been stalling, desktop doing nothing and running so slow that trying to launch any app, it just sits with a spinning beach ball. This can last from five minutes to indefinitely. I end of having to Force Quit or cut the power and Restart the system a few more times to clear things up so by the fourth or fifth Startup, my desktop finally operates properly. My ESET Cyber Security app is set to be ON automatically after Startup. Are Startup apps getting in the way at the system Startup? What might be going on to cause this problem the past month.

Thanks,
Peter

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
OS El Capitan 10.11.6

 

[pigoo3]

My ESET Cyber Security app is set to be ON automatically after Startup. Are Startup apps getting in the way at the system Startup?

- Startup apps are certainly a possibility. I would disable all of them (at least temporarily) to see if that helps.
- Not sure what the reason is for running ESET Cyber Security app. There are no Mac virus's in the wild. So you really don't need this.
- Try installing and running "Malwarebytes".
- Try installing & running the maintenance app called "Onyx". Just click on the automation button.

And maybe let up know how full the storage is on this computer.

HTH,

- Nick

 

[chscag]

We really have no idea what you're running at startup but it does sound like that might be a problem. Your machine is fairly new and should be responding much quicker than what you described. I would suggest taking a close look at what you're running at startup and possibly eliminating them from startup one by one until you find what might be holding things up. Also, you mentioned an ESET Cyber Security app. Is this an anti virus app or some kind of scanning app? It might be what's causing the delay on startup.

 

[IWT]

This is what it is: https://www.eset.com/int/home/cyber-security/

Reading the blogs etc, this was devised for Windows and then reinvented for Macs.

Ian

 

[Peter Natscher]

- Startup apps are certainly a possibility. I would disable all of them (at least temporarily) to see if that helps.
- Not sure what the reason is for running ESET Cyber Security app. There are no Mac virus's in the wild. So you really don't need this.
- Try installing and running "Malwarebytes".
- Try installing & running the maintenance app called "Onyx". Just click on the automation button.

And maybe let up know how full the storage is on this computer.

HTH,

- Nick

----------

1. My iMac storage is: 400GB free of 500GB SSD, so storage is not a problem.
2. ESET has caught and isolated a fair amount of "dangerous" emails that arrive through my Outlook 2011 mail client, so I think it's worth keeping this app. I will disable it from auto-launch at OS Startup each morning.
3. I used to use Onyx a few years ago on past MacPro's but now use MacBooster3.
4. I will take a look at "Malwarebytes" as a replacement for ESET.

Thanks!

 

[Slydude]

If you want some indication of where the problem might be try creating a second user account. Log into the new account. Do not Allow MacBooster 3 or ESET to load / affect that account Make sure there is nothing from either program in the login items for the new account.

Also, from a cursory examination of the MacBooster site it seems that some of its functions are the same / similar to those provided by ESET. It is entirely possible that these two programs are conflicting with / contradicting each other. Especially if they both load at startup.

 

[ferrarr]

Just because ESET caught bad emails, does not mean anything in those emails would affect your Mac, most likely harmful to Windows OS.

 

[harryb2448]

Two options. Remove that added no use software, or leave her like it is.

 

[pm-r]

my morning routine Startup of my iMac has been stalling

Maybe a bit OT here, but I'd question why you're shutting down your Mac daily and wonder if any of the normal early am Mac maintenance routines are even getting done.


That's assuming the recent OSs even still run such maintenance scripts.





- Patrick
==========

 

[Slydude]

My understanding is that users no longer need to worry about this issue. If the Mac is not running when the time comes to run these scripts they will be run at the next available opportunity when the machine is running. The best summary I could find is Randy's excellent site

X 10.5 and later your Mac will run its maintenance scripts automatically at the next available opportunity if you put your Mac into sleep mode all night. Though the scripts still won't run if you shut your Macintosh down at night.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6552347
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2143195&tstart=0
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/launchd.html
NOTE: As of OS X 10.5 the maintenance scripts are no longer handled by the UNIX facility "cron", they are now handled by a similar facility called "launchd," if that means anything to you.

http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html#note2

TBH this would be low on my list of troubleshooting steps to examine. If the OP has run Onyx I believe that takes care of things.

 

[IWT]

As Moderator Slydude said in post #6, I believe a substantial part of the problem here is that the OP has two AV systems running concurrently - for that is basically what MacBooster is, It runs constantly in the background providing "real-time protection", scans for viruses and the like and does "background cleanups" to ensure "optimal performance".

Eset does much the same, although more targeted against viruses.

We have seen this scenario before where each AV system sees the other as a threat and where they also block Apple updates because these affect the whole system and are similarly perceived as threats.

There has been much wise advice about creating another account. If the OP does this and deactivates both Eset & MacBooster from running at all, I think the Mac will start to behave normally. The key is getting rid of both Eset & MacBooster.

Ian

 

[harryb2448]

Also go into System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items and make sure there is nothing there that is selected to slow down the boot process. If you have a standard platter drive, boot time should be around 1 minute, and if PCI-E flash storage, about seventeen seconds which is what mine runs.

Obviosuly you are from the Windows environment where these things are a must. Peter get over that as Windows viruses cannot execute on the Unix system and there are no Mac OS X viruses. It could well be these items are in the Login Items and run their full course before allowing boot. This software is crippling your lovely iMac.

 

[Peter Natscher]

I didn't know that the Mac OS runs early-am scripts anymore. Why leave a computer running all night long when not in use? Heat and dust ages computer boards and components and a computer can build up heat over time and that's 100% more air borne dust flowing through the components. Just my thoughts!

Maybe a bit OT here, but I'd question why you're shutting down your Mac daily and wonder if any of the normal early am Mac maintenance routines are even getting done.


That's assuming the recent OSs even still run such maintenance scripts.





- Patrick
==========

 

[Peter Natscher]

No, I only run MacBooster3 to occasionally clean the system up. It's not running all the time or at startup. The ESET AV was running all the time. MacBooster3 sits unlaunched in my Dock and I enable it every few days to let it do its job.

Note: I made the decision to uninstall the ESET AV and haven't had any startup issues since.

As Moderator Slydude said in post #6, I believe a substantial part of the problem here is that the OP has two AV systems running concurrently - for that is basically what MacBooster is, It runs constantly in the background providing "real-time protection", scans for viruses and the like and does "background cleanups" to ensure "optimal performance".

Eset does much the same, although more targeted against viruses.

We have seen this scenario before where each AV system sees the other as a threat and where they also block Apple updates because these affect the whole system and are similarly perceived as threats.

There has been much wise advice about creating another account. If the OP does this and deactivates both Eset & MacBooster from running at all, I think the Mac will start to behave normally. The key is getting rid of both Eset & MacBooster.

Ian

 

[chscag]

Note: I made the decision to uninstall the ESET AV and haven't had any startup issues since.

Good deal. We suspected that might have been what was causing the slow startup. Thanks for posting back and letting us know.

 

[Peter Natscher]

Ha! I've been a Mac user since the beginning in 1982! The only Windows I use is on my 17" MacBook Pro residing on its 50-50 partitioned drive using Boot Camp. I know viruses can't hurt Macs but I don't want to be sending/forwarding around virus-laden emails to my friend's Windows computers.

Also go into System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items and make sure there is nothing there that is selected to slow down the boot process. If you have a standard platter drive, boot time should be around 1 minute, and if PCI-E flash storage, about seventeen seconds which is what mine runs.

Obviosuly you are from the Windows environment where these things are a must. Peter get over that as Windows viruses cannot execute on the Unix system and there are no Mac OS X viruses. It could well be these items are in the Login Items and run their full course before allowing boot. This software is crippling your lovely iMac.

 

[Slydude]

I didn't know that the Mac OS runs early-am scripts anymore. Why leave a computer running all night long when not in use? Heat and dust ages computer boards and components and a computer can build up heat over time and that's 100% more air borne dust flowing through the components. Just my thoughts!

I'm going to see if these scripts are still being run though I think that they are. The methodology has changed a bit over the years. I think that beginning with OS X 10.5 if a script did not run at its scheduled time it ran the next time the Mac was running.

As far as why one would leave a computer running all night when not in use, this is part of the Unix core of the OS.

 

[pm-r]

I'm going to see if these scripts are still being run …

They used to show up under Console's listings under "daily". "weekly" etc., but I don't notice them there lately when running OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.

I think I recall reading about Apple changing how they work and possibly now use some other method now that I think about it a bit more, but would love to hear what you find.






- Patrick
==========

 

[MacInWin]

I didn't know that the Mac OS runs early-am scripts anymore. Why leave a computer running all night long when not in use? Heat and dust ages computer boards and components and a computer can build up heat over time and that's 100% more air borne dust flowing through the components. Just my thoughts!

Actually, most hardware fails at power on and power off changes. Leaving it running reduces the overall stress of operations as everything is at an optimum temperature. It is true that heat is the enemy of electronics, but the surge of electricity at power on and off is an even bigger enemy. As for dust, unless you live in a very dusty area, the normal buildup of dust can be removed with a simple vacuuming at the vent outlets, or by taking off the back cover and gently blowing the dust away. There is little to no reason NOT to leave it running. By letting it run overnight, the clean up scripts can run and you don't need any special software to do that.

I strongly recommend you get rid of ESET and MacBooster3. Neither is really good in the long run. This isn't Windows, where that sort of thing is needed and useful, this is a different environment. Your decision to uninstall ESET AV has already demonstrated that it was the cause of the startup issues, so feel free to also move away from MacBooster3. Let macOS be macOS.

 

[IWT]

And, Peter, thank you for taking and testing our advice. Good to know that all is well.

Ian