Mac keeps freezing

[MacInWin]

Sophos has been reported to have some problems. I don't run any A/V, so I can't tell you what they are. ClamXav has been reported to be the best scanner, and can be "passive," only scanning when and what YOU want it to scan. But since there are no viruses for OS X in existence, neither of them is needed. In fact, what both of them scan for are Windows viruses and about all they find is embedded viruses in emails and attachments from Windows machines. Nothing there to harm OS X at all. About all you need to protect yourself from malware is to use common sense, plus Adblock+ and Ghostery to prevent adware from getting to you, plus AdwareMedic to remove the annoying adware that does get past and create the occasional browser hijacks.

Just try uninstalling Sophos and see if the problem goes away. If it doesn't, you can always reinstall it.

 

[lclev]

Yes, what ^^^ Jake said. This sounds more like a potential network issue. It seems strange all browsers are having issues. Mavericks is not that old and very stable. More information would help.

Lisa

 

[johnodd4]

Honestly i can answer this and you would be surprised about the freezing issue.

The freezing issue with chrome and with firefox is because chrome and firefox now come with a extension for shopping that is in all terms malware it attacks safari and even adds shopping links to chrome and firefox a lot of users have had to remove it.

it is not a virus its a piece of malware get a malware scanner

 

[Mikethebook]

Thanks, Jake. I'll take your advise but maybe install ClamXav. I have Adblock+ but need to check into Ghostery and AdwareMedic. There no information I can give you, Lisa. This morning, I'm back on Chrome and so far there's no sign of trouble so maybe the fault corrected itself or running Onyx did. Never had a problem like it before.

 

[Mikethebook]

This morning the computer froze again. I'm not sure whether it was related to a browser, though. I think Chrome was minimised but I was closing a Finder window or trying to when it froze. This time, the mouse remained mobile but I couldn't do anything with it, access Force Quit or the Dock or any of the menus. Frustrating!! I've no idea what the problem is. I had already removed Sophos too.

 

[MacInWin]

What version of OS X are you running? You may have to reinstall the OS. I noted you have 2GB of memory. That's pretty small and could be compounding the problem.

EDIT: I just looked at your original post, so you are at Mavericks, up-to-date. You can reinstall Mavericks OVER your current installation by holding down Option key when booting, then choose "recovery" and boot from the Recovery Partition and then reinstall Mavericks. Make a backup first, but it shouldn't mess with your data if you don't format the drive. Actually, before you go to the install, from the Recovery partition try Disk Utility and verify/repair the Mavericks drive. That MIGHT sort the problem, but I suspect you'll end up reinstalling Mavericks.

 

[Mikethebook]

Thanks for your message. I actually have 4GB RAM - I need to update that - and I have run Disk Utility verify. After booting from the Recovery Partition how does one reinstall Mavericks and will it definitely just overwrite the existing Mavericks? Also what will happen if the computer freezes while doing the overwrite? Presumably it shouldn't pose a problem. Your help is much appreciated.

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks for your message. I actually have 4GB RAM - I need to update that - and I have run Disk Utility verify. After booting from the Recovery Partition how does one reinstall Mavericks and will it definitely just overwrite the existing Mavericks? Also what will happen if the computer freezes while doing the overwrite? Presumably it shouldn't pose a problem. Your help is much appreciated.

Follow Apple's instructions. It is SUPPOSED to just overwrite the OS, but that's why you make a backup. Nothing is certain in this world. If the computer freezes, you could end up with an unusable drive, so backup before you start. Getting the thread here? Backup, backup, backup. Then try the reinstall.

 

[Mikethebook]

Thanks a lot.

 

[Mikethebook]

I'm backed up to CrashPlan and also Carbon Copy Cloner (a bootable copy). IF the reinstall of Mavericks fails and I can't restart the computer. What do I do to restore the CCC copy to the drive. Do I restart holding the Option key and select the CCC drive?

 

[bobtomay]

Yes...

If you have not tested your clone backup by booting to it you should be, to make sure that it is ok and functional.
Do that first, and play around with it a little (5-10 minutes) so you know how the OS functions while booted to an external drive before the reinstall.

 

[lclev]

Yes and if you reinstall from your backup, I suggest after it is done and you have rebooted, using disk utility and let it rebuild permissions (and verifying or repairing the disk won't hurt either.)

Lisa

 

[Mikethebook]

Thanks. That sounds sensible.

 

[Mikethebook]

Reinstallation from the Recovery Partition failed . . . and it suggested I download Mavericks from the App Store which or course is not possible now. Fortunately, everything seems intact. Perhaps also fortunately I have Mavericks on a USB Drive and when I rebooted holding down the Option key and clicked on it, the only relevant option that came up was "Install a new copy of OS X." But if I choose that option will it overwrite everything including all my files or just the previous version of Mavericks?

 

[MacInWin]

If you downloaded (purchased, in Apple's terms, even though it was free) Mavericks, it should still be available to you to download. Did you try, or did you just assume it wasn't available? Is the Mavericks on the USB Drive the installer? Sounds like it is. If you have that, you must have downloaded it at one time, so it should be available again. I don't know if that option to install is going to do a clean install (erasing everything) or not.

 

[lclev]

Is it possible we are looking at a potential hardware issue??? For now if everything gets re-installed and is running great then it was a software issue. If not then we can start looking for a potentially different issue.

Lisa

 

[Mikethebook]

I've just reinstalled Mavericks and all its updates. I think there might have been software faults - the Finder Window for Computers came out strange before the update and now its fine but I'm wondering if there are hardware problems too. It froze again when I was browsing and updates were being downloaded. I'm running Repair Permissions and Verify Disk and once that's done only time and testing will tell but what could the hardware problem be if the disk appears fine?

 

[Mikethebook]

Disk is fine but freezing continues. It seems to happen when on Chrome I'm browsing and go to a new website. It's never the same website but sometimes an error message about being unable to access that website comes up and then it freezes. It does seem to be connected with browsing and I assume that the problem still stands with Firefox and Safari as before. What on earth can be doing it?

 

[lclev]

If Chrome is the potentially the problem, use Safari or Foxfire. If it happens with them that will help eliminate Chrome. And hopefully it is not a hardware issue but it is looking a bit suspicious.

Lisa

 

[Mikethebook]

I had the problem with both Safari and Firefox too!! I will try them again next time Chrome does it but it hasn't frozen for an hour or two. What sort of hardware issue could it be?