Apple: Pinwheel of Death?

[Warrior-Mentor]

I'm going through some growing pains with my new Apple...

The pinwheel seems the same as the PC's hourglass....except once it starts, I don't know how to get it to stop loading or doing whatever it's doing. I know there's got to be a short cut besides unplugging the computer.

Any advice?

[Pete S]

Originally Posted by Warrior-Mentor

I'm going through some growing pains with my new Apple...

The pinwheel seems the same as the PC's hourglass....except once it starts, I don't know how to get it to stop loading or doing whatever it's doing. I know there's got to be a short cut besides unplugging the computer.

Any advice?

If you are able to see the dock, click and hold on the icon of the program you are having a problem with. There will be a menu that opens. The last option should be "Quit." Or if the top of the menu in a subdued grey font it will say "Application not Responding," in which case the last option will be "Force Quit."

Another option will be to go to: Hard Drive - Applications - Utilities - Activity Monitor.
In the Activity Monitor application you can "Force Quit" the desired application.

[Lanyard]

I don't think you should be getting the BeachBall of Death too often. Maybe you might need to repair your "Permissions" Go to Applications-->Utilities-->Disk Utility. Open Disk Utility and then select the Hard Drive on the left. This screen should also show the "First Aid" tab as being selected. At this screen press the "Repair Disk Permissions" button. This is a rough "Disk Defrag" for Mac. I will occasionally use this Utility if my system becomes sluggish. Hope this helps.

There is also another location for "Force Quit", it's up at the top left. Hold down the Apple and it is on the resulting drop down list. You can sometimes access this when the Dock is unresponsive.

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by Lanyard

I don't think you should be getting the BeachBall of Death too often. Maybe you might need to repair your "Permissions" Go to Applications-->Utilities-->Disk Utility. Open Disk Utility and then select the Hard Drive on the left. This screen should also show the "First Aid" tab as being selected. At this screen press the "Repair Disk Permissions" button. This is a rough "Disk Defrag" for Mac. I will occasionally use this Utility if my system becomes sluggish. Hope this helps.

There is also another location for "Force Quit", it's up at the top left. Hold down the Apple and it is on the resulting drop down list. You can sometimes access this when the Dock is unresponsive.

All of the above is correct,but another way to force quit I haven't seen mention is to hold down the apple,option and esc keys.....

GB TFS

[magician]

If you are in extremis, and nothing else is working for you, you can always use the Hail Mary key stroke: command-control-power key. This will execute a hot-reboot.

It is not ideal to do this, as it can occasionally result in a Mac that will not boot. If this happens, boot off your system DVD (hold down the C key on restart) and run Disk First Aid from the DVD as described above.

In my experience, the pinwheel of death is most often caused by an application or a drive which is not responding. The system is just stuck waiting.

Force quitting guilty applications is fine under OSX, as it is very rare that other apps will be affected. They run in their own protected memory space. Usually, you can simply restart the application, and resume working.

If you have a drive which is not responding, it will generally be because the cable connector wiggled loose. Just reseat it.

Hope that helps.

[Sweetbriar]

Force quit = option, command + escape key.

It would help if you told us which programs this was happening with most often. I use it most often if something on the internet is trying to force itself on me as if I were Windows and the browser gets slow and cranky. Force quitting won't hurt a thing - use it as you need to.

Sometimes I have to use it on Parallels/Boot Camp because that damn Windows Vista crap won't shut down, too.

[Lanyard]

...there were so many Mac guys on this board. Anyway, the spinning beach ball of death is such an uncommon occurrence for me I did a little search and found the following site. Some very good info here, it turns out it could be quite a few things.

w w w .thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

[Kyobanim]

Damn, I shoulda got a mac.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvXZVJXIyqM

[Warrior-Mentor]

Originally Posted by Sweetbriar

Force quit = option, command + escape key.

It would help if you told us which programs this was happening with most often. I use it most often if something on the internet is trying to force itself on me as if I were Windows and the browser gets slow and cranky. Force quitting won't hurt a thing - use it as you need to.

Sometimes I have to use it on Parallels/Boot Camp because that damn Windows Vista crap won't shut down, too.

It's happening while I'm on the net (safari).

Thanks for all the different options folks have offered up here.

[Sweetbriar]

I use Firefox now and have for a couple of years. I think I switched to it because Safari was doing that to me quite a bit, however I attributed some of it to the fact that I was still on OS 10.3. I can't remember anything about Safari that I miss, but then I'm not too geeky and don't do add-ons. I'm on 10.5 now, but I still don't care to go back to Safari.

[takeumnow]

Seems to be a common problem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1njpRwgvLc

[magician]

Originally Posted by Warrior-Mentor

It's happening while I'm on the net (safari).

Thanks for all the different options folks have offered up here.

Ok.

I think that the most common cause of problems on MacOS X is when folks use plug ins or other non-Apple additions to the OS or to applications like Safari.

I am not lecturing, but running a plain, vanilla system, always works best. Just run Software Update under the Apple menu periodically (or set Preferences to do it automatically), and keep your OS and your apps updated. Resist the urge to modify and install third-party stuff, no matter what it may be.

When the system is hung in Safari, you generally have a network issue. It may or may not even be a problem on your end. You may isolate it to a specific website, which may be trying to install cookies or something into Safari which the app is not permitting. The absence of dialogue boxes explaining what is happening leaves you in the dark, speculating.

Pretty much the only way out is to force quit Safari, and then clear caches, etc. (you can use apps like TinkerTool or Cocktail for this and other housekeeping duties). You can scan and kill virii using ClamXav. All of these apps are freeware or cheapware. And they work very well.

s.
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[wallowinginfun]

Originally Posted by magician

I think that the most common cause of problems on MacOS X is when folks use plug ins or other non-Apple additions to the OS or to applications like Safari.

I am not lecturing, but running a plain, vanilla system, always works best. Just run Software Update under the Apple menu periodically (or set Preferences to do it automatically), and keep your OS and your apps updated. Resist the urge to modify and install third-party stuff, no matter what it may be.
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I have to agree. I tried downloading a couple programs for recording voice to use during lectures in class a few weeks ago. Both of them resulted in my browsers crashing while using the website where I turn in my math homework. It did this in all 3 of the browsers I have tried on my Mac, and when I uninstalled the new programs and decided to use Garage Band instead, along with keeping Firefox 3.0 closed, the problems went away.

There are ten other people in my math class with Macs and none of them had these problems. Also, none of them use Firefox 3.0 or have downloaded any funky programs.