Mac Beachballin'
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- mg33
Can anyone tell me what's going on with this problem?
Occasionally I'll be working in a progam - last night it was Photoshop CS3 with Bridge - and I'll get the beachball. It spins for about 10-15 seconds, then changes to the mouse arrow, then back to beacball, and so on and so on.
I can't click anything in the dock, I can't Force Shutdown with the bluetooth keyboard or the mouse keyboard either. The only option is to unplug everything and remove the battery from the back to shut it down.
Anyone had this? Any tips on what is going on? Any suggestions for a better way to shut down than taking the battery out?
Thanks.
- pascii0
sorry ;) i don't know, but i would suggest a archieve and install from the dvd. solves most of my problems
- ESKEMA0
remove the battery? pushing the power button a few seconds should work, no need to remove the battery. did you ugrade the ram? conflicting memory can cause this.
- kult0
Use Windows.
- emecks0
get a firewire disk and create a system mirror on there.
any new programs make a new mirror - super simple and fast.
use timemachine for backing up your files on a different drive.
problem solved.
- mg330
what does that accomplish emecks? I do have a 320 GB Firewire 800 drive.
- StratusGD0
Try booting off your system restore disk. Instead of installing OS X though, open up Disk Utility and try to repair the disk and repair permissions. Neither is a magic bullet, but maybe you'll find something.
Also, I think the restore disks have a hardware test. With the CD/DVD in the drive, boot up with the option key held down (like when you want to choose what drive to boot from). You should see a Hardware Test option come up. Start the test, and walk away - it takes a while, but will let you know if something's up.
- madirish0
you have maxed out all virtual memory and processor power on a calculation/operation. give it time to get through what you threw at it and it will be fine.
- emecks0
means a clean system mg33 :)
Anytime you have a problem you can restore the system to before the problem occurred, see? You can even take it a step further and run your Mac from the external HD...
I've got a 1.5 TB Maxtor FW disk for my own system, run my iMac and MacBook off of it. My clients (if it's a lot of work) supply me with a FW drive which I mirror a clean system onto and work on that HD, then when I'm finished they get the HD with all of my work on it and I don't have to organise any files
Getting another FW disk for the missus and her system will be installed on it
- crayz0
cmd + ctrl + power button . solves all your problems quickly...
- MSL0
How much RAM does your Mac have and how much free space do you have on your HD?
- mg330
I have 2GB of RAM and probably at least 60 GB free.
- MSL0
Have you booted from the Install DVD and repaired permissions? Is it specifically Adobe apps you have problems with?
- mg330
I think so. I was working on a 200MB + PSD file, with some photos on my external drive but the main PSD saved on the laptop.
I can't recall that it was another program that froze.
- ESKEMA0
did you try to wait for the processes to resolve? how long did you wait?
- MSL0
Check to make sure that 'Adobe Updater' is working correctly (or better still set to not check for updates). Bridge will also try to randomly connect to internet services (like adobe stock photos service) and if they are not found or time out causes the symptoms you are experiencing.
- mg330
All night. Beachball was happening prior to 12:25 am, and when I turned on the monitor this morning, 12:25 am was the time shown in the clock, and no more beachball. I could move the mouse, but not click anything and not use the keyboard controls.
- mg330
Thanks for the tips everyone, please keep them coming.
I'm still a bit new to my MBP, and fyi it's a refurb of the 2.24 Ghz version just prior to the new ones.
Aside from the stupid problems with the Leopard graphics update (February?) that prevents it from waking in clamshell mode when connected to an external monitor, I'm really enjoying it.
I guess at this point I just need to know the absolute best practices for stability and dealing with problems.
- mistermik0
6gm ram - bridge still acts like shit on a stick.
the best one is saving to web from potatoshop - can do my shopping while that ball spins.
