Is my 2015 MacOS dying or what?

[DougieCooper95]

Hello, all. I've posted here about an issue I had regarding firefox logging me out. That's still a problem but it's nothing compared to what's going on with my computer which is honestly making me go insane. It's a MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 from 2015.

My computer is mostly just very, very slow and it gets much slower later on in the day. It either buffers a lot or an application quits. My computer doesn't have a lot of GB, it has 11.5GB at the moment, but even when I delete a lot of files and get 20+ GB, it doesn't help at all. Finder is also probably the slowest application, it's always buffering, always slow.

This morning I had to switch off my computer because not only were tabs and videos buffering constantly, every application suddenly went into I think it's the mission control mode? Without me clicking anything. It just suddenly went into that mode and I couldn't exit out of it or change it at all (which meant every screen was small and I couldn't do anything) so I had to turn off my computer.

Also, random files appearing on my computer (think I made a thread here about that too) which I understand isn't anything suspicious (json/jsonlz4?) but I never used to have them pop up on my finder, it just randomly started appearing on there.

Really don't know what's going on and it's giving me a massive headache. Is my computer outdated? Do I need to delete way more files?

 

[IWT]

Thank you for your further post. I'm sorry you've had so much grief.

First off, your 2015 is not too old at all. I suspect that you have far too little unused storage space.

You maybe have said in other posts, but which Mac is it: iMac, MacBook series etc?

Also, can you confirm whether your Mac's Internal Drive is Spinner, Fusion or SSD. That would depend on which model you have.

Next, can you tell us the total storage capacity of your Drive, please?

As a general rule, not sacrosanct, you should allow 10-15% of the storage to be free/unused. With 11GB free ( you said recently), your total storage capacity would be 120-180 GB and I'm sure it's a lot more than that; so our first aim is to offload enough data to have at least 10-15% free.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

To answer Ian's questions, click on the  in the upper left corner, then About This Mac and post what you see there. It should give you something like MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-1nch, Mid 2015), which is my own machine. Then Memory. Once you have that, you can close that window then right click on the Macintosh HD and Get Info and read the size of the storage and how much is free.

 

[DougieCooper95]

So I have a desktop iMac OS. My memory is 8GB 1867 MHz DDR3. I have a SATA disk? I now have 24 GB (out of 1TB) after deleting a lot of files but it's still being slow.

 

[ferrarr]

Yes, you are low on disk space. You need to move (or delete) some of the files. You can use an external drive to move the files over.

 

[DougieCooper95]

Okay, thank you. How much space should I keep free?

 

[ferrarr]

Usually, I try to keep 10% disk space empty.

 

[IWT]

I now have 24 GB (out of 1TB) after deleting a lot of files but it's still being slow.

As an addition to Bob's very helpful comments, I would say that given your Mac's Hard Drive is 1TB, you should aim for an absolute minimum of 100GB free. 150GB would be even better, particularly as you have a Spinning Hard Drive.

That's a lot to move, I understand that, but the Drive needs room to manoeuvre. As Bob suggests, acquire a 1TB (or more) External Hard Drive (EHD) - they are not expensive these days. Then move, not just data, but Libraries over to the EHD eg Music, Photos. These are usually the "biggies".

You currently have 24GB free. As an example of how small that is, the macOS 11 Big Sur (BS) Installer comes in at just over 12GB. That's just the Operating System!

If you need help with moving stuff, especially Libraries, tell us and we'll help you.

Ian

 

[DougieCooper95]

Thank you everyone, I am now deleting files to make more space.

But now I have more problems! I don't think I should make a new thread for this.

So Finder wouldn't relaunch at all. At first, every time I typed something into recents, it would buffer for a while. So I went to the apple logo and force quit the app. After that, it said application not responding and I couldn't relaunch it at all.

I went into disk utility and ran first aid but it didn't give me any info after so I assume it found nothing?

But after that, a whole new slew of problems.

My keyboard (it's a sandstrom bluetooth) stopped working for no reason. I restarted my mac and my keyboard worked again and I can open Finder.

But after that....

My Finder NOW doesn't show anything if you type into recents/my mac. Nothing at all.

And my sound isn't working. I went into system preferences and it says no input devices found??

What the **** is going on?!

 

[MacInWin]

So Finder wouldn't relaunch at all. At first, every time I typed something into recents, it would buffer for a while. So I went to the apple logo and force quit the app. After that, it said application not responding and I couldn't relaunch it at all.

What do you mean "typed something into recents?" "Recents" is just a list of the recent things you have used Finder to get to. Nothing to type.

Finder must run. If you quit it, it will respawn. It is a key component of the operating system and cannot be stopped.

Have you rebooted? That may be the best way to unscrew the situation. Don't restart from the menu. Power it totally off, then wait 10 seconds and power it up again.

 

[DougieCooper95]

What do you mean "typed something into recents?" "Recents" is just a list of the recent things you have used Finder to get to. Nothing to type.

Finder must run. If you quit it, it will respawn. It is a key component of the operating system and cannot be stopped.

Have you rebooted? That may be the best way to unscrew the situation. Don't restart from the menu. Power it totally off, then wait 10 seconds and power it up again.

I have a folder called Recents, you type anything into it, it goes into two folders you can pick: Recents and My Mac.

That problem did fix itself as well as the sound issue after restarting but now Finder still buffers whenever I type anything into recents, it doesn't load all files. I'm going to update my Mac tonight and see if the problem is still ongoing tomorrow.

 

[MacInWin]

I have a folder called Recents, you type anything into it, it goes into two folders you can pick: Recents and My Mac.

I'm sorry but that makes no sense to me at all. One doesn't "type" into a folder. You can type into a document and then store it in a folder, but a folder is a place to store things, not a document into which one types. Ditto for "recents." Recents is a smart folder with all of the things you have recently opened with Finder, not a place to type. And what is in Recents changes over time, as things you opened a while ago are no longer recent. Items you haven't been to in a while drop out of Recents.

But whatever, glad you got the sound back.

 

[DougieCooper95]

I'm sorry but that makes no sense to me at all. One doesn't "type" into a folder. You can type into a document and then store it in a folder, but a folder is a place to store things, not a document into which one types. Ditto for "recents." Recents is a smart folder with all of the things you have recently opened with Finder, not a place to type. And what is in Recents changes over time, as things you opened a while ago are no longer recent. Items you haven't been to in a while drop out of Recents.

But whatever, glad you got the sound back.

When I say type, I mean type to search through. I've searched through recents for years so don't really know what you mean. And also, most files are stored into the recents folder and you can scroll down and it shows items from 2019, 2014, 2016, etc. Again, it's been like this for years. Only now, it buffers whenever I type anything into the search bar for the recents smart folder, and the same goes for the "my mac" folder.

 

[DougieCooper95]

Okay, tried downloading Big Sur to see if my issues were resolved only to run into more, typical. I had to delete a lot of GB on the selected volume to install, whatever. Left it over the day as I went to work, came back, found I had to log in, computer restarted because of an "error" and when I went back to Big Sur, I found that a lot of GB had been used up (I assume when I tried to download Big Sur before going to work?) and it told me to delete on the selected volume again!

 

[MacInWin]

If you have a 1TB drive, you should always keep at least 100GB free. If you had 100GB free, none of those issues would have happened. So free up at least 100-125GB, try again. Big Sur download is, I recall, about 8-9 GB just by itself, and it needs a lot of room to work with as in installs over your existing system. And that "buffering" is similarly caused by no working space on the drive, most likely.

 

[pm-r]

FWIW, I would think that there is something else amiss that is causing such a slow down, but I am not saying that clearing out and making more space available will not help.

I have a 2011 iMac with a 1 TB HDD partitioned with Mavericks OS 10.9.5 on a top 300GB boot partition and 50GB free, and this iMac is not slow in any way, considering its age.

For the OP, when was the last time you did a Safe Boot from a cold startup?
Do that and then do any repairs you can with Disk Utility and then just restart normally and see if there is not an improvement.

Do you shut down your Mac After you have been using it for the day, or do you leave it running or put it to sleep???


- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

Patrick, given how APFS uses the drive, and the fact it is a spinner and not SSD, he needs a lot of space for it to be efficient and fast. As we have been telling him, at least 100-150GB free at all times. Until and unless he makes that space available, it's going to be slow.

 

[pm-r]

Patrick, given how APFS uses the drive, and the fact it is a spinner and not SSD, he needs a lot of space for it to be efficient and fast.

OK Jake, I forgot that he is stuck with the APFS format and how it uses the HDD drive but
I didn't realize that it requires that much more free space in order to operate efficiently and reasonably fast.


- Patrick
=======

 

[NSMacGuru]

I want to throw out a big CAUTION sign here, and suggest that DougieCooper stop taking any major actions and let us offer some specific advice.

Going from a problem with the "buffering" and the general way he's describing his computer, I think it's safe to assume that our new friend is not very... technically experienced.

Installing Big Sur as a response to his problems is another huge no-no.

I would suggest that Dougie find someone with Mac experience to provide hands-on assistance... as he's now in rather unfamiliar territory with a completely new OS and a lot of holdover problems from his previous system.

And the suggestion to remove files to free up some space... good idea, with a caveat: I once had a client ask me to provide support when they were having some behavioural issues with their iMac. I began by asking if anything had changed recently. They responded with words that still put a chill through my soul: "I just cleaned up the System Folder...."

A lot of damage can be done if, for example, someone tries to "free up space" by searching the internet for information on how to get into their Photo library via the Finder and then start tossing large image files willy-nilly... resulting in a majorly corrupted Photo library.

My first question to Dougie would be: Did you back up your files before you installed a new operating system on your troubled iMac?

 

[MacInWin]

That's good advice @NSMacGuru, about the files to clear out. Dougie needs to get some of HIS files off the system, safely. But as he is already at Catalina, the System files are not easy candidates for removal because they are on a read-only volume and he has to jump through some hoops to be able to manipulate it. At this point we don't know what he has on his drive, just that he doesn't have nearly the space he needs to run efficiently, and with Catalina converting the drive to APFS, the performance problem is compounded.

I don't know if he installed Big Sur or not. He said he downloaded it but then the install failed, so I think he's still on Catalina, and probably should stay there until he clears out his drive a bit. If he did manage to get Big Sur going, he's still got to clear off 100-150GB to allow working space. And that has to be HIS files as Big Sur is not only read-only but encrypted and he has zero access to it.