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Freezes in 10.14.6
#52246 08/19/19 09:12 AM
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Since updating to 10.14.6 I've been experiencing brief freezes, which include my cursor disappearing, as I try to work.

At first I thought it was caused by some of the sports sites I visit, but it's not limited to them, and it's also happened in TextEdit.

I've tried working with Activity Monitor on my desktop, but I haven't learned anything from it.

Am I alone in this?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
artie505 #52247 08/19/19 09:39 AM
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Have you installed the macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Supplemental Update? I don't know if that will help, but you could also (re)apply the macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Combo Update. At a guess, Apple has updated it to include the Supplemental Update.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
jchuzi #52248 08/19/19 10:29 AM
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Thanks, Jon, but I"ve already installed the Supplemental, and macOS wouldn't allow me to run the Combo when I tried. (I updated via the Delta.)

I'm about to rerun the Supplemental, and if that doesn't help, I guess I"ll run the 10.14.6 installer.

Update: Well, so much for rerunning the Supplemental..."Operation not permitted."

I guess the installer it is.

Last edited by artie505; 08/19/19 10:37 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
artie505 #52261 08/19/19 11:50 PM
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Reinstalling macOS didn't help either...very frustrating! mad


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
artie505 #52263 08/20/19 01:02 AM
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The re-install should have eliminated the OS or anything in the OS as a problem. So now it is back to Old Fashioned Troubleshooting101.
  1. This sounds like something is momentarily tying up the I/O subsystem. Eliminate possible hardware problems by disconnecting as many external devices as possible — especially USB devices — and if the problem goes away try reconnecting them one at a time until the problem re-appears
  2. The next thing I would do is run Etrecheck and see if anything suspicious shows up in any of its reports. If you have Etrecheck Pro, pay particular attention to any performance issues and especially the detailed performance reports.
  3. boot from a test account and if the problem goes away it is likely something in your Startup items, or ~/Library/LaunchAgents
  4. If the problem still exists in the test account — try a Safe Boot and see if the problem goes away. If it does then look at /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons for potential culprits


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
joemikeb #52268 08/20/19 07:18 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
The re-install should have eliminated the OS or anything in the OS as a problem.

Anything other than a bug, that is. frown

I'd revert to 10.14.5, but going backwards is more of a PIA than I care to deal with, particularly since the issue is only an intermittent nuisance, not a tearing-my-hair-out thing.

Originally Posted By: joemikeb
So now it is back to Old Fashioned Troubleshooting101.
  1. This sounds like something is momentarily tying up the I/O subsystem. Eliminate possible hardware problems by disconnecting as many external devices as possible — especially USB devices — and if the problem goes away try reconnecting them one at a time until the problem re-appears
  2. The next thing I would do is run Etrecheck and see if anything suspicious shows up in any of its reports. If you have Etrecheck Pro, pay particular attention to any performance issues and especially the detailed performance reports.
  3. boot from a test account and if the problem goes away it is likely something in your Startup items, or ~/Library/LaunchAgents
  4. If the problem still exists in the test account — try a Safe Boot and see if the problem goes away. If it does then look at /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons for potential culprits

Thanks, but...

1. No external devices connected.

2.EtreCheck (non-Pro) doesn't show anything out of the ordinary.

3. & 4. Neither test account nor safe boot is a viable approach, because the freezes are so few and far between that I'd never be certain whether none happened because of my boot state or because none happened.

I'm going to keep working with Activity Monitor open and see what I can see; it's just occurred to me that the process at the top of the CPU column immediately after the freezes end (AM freezes too.) may be my culprit. (If I find consistency I can file a feedback report with Apple.)


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
artie505 #52272 08/20/19 03:09 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
I'm going to keep working with Activity Monitor open and see what I can see; it's just occurred to me that the process at the top of the CPU column immediately after the freezes end (AM freezes too.) may be my culprit. (If I find consistency I can file a feedback report with Apple.)

Marcel Bresink's Hardware Monitor ($9.50 USD & free trial) might be better for monitoring your system operations than Activity Monitor. It uses fewer resources, offers more graphical information, and puts everything on your menu bar in a variety of formats. On demand will show the top 5 process using a given resource.

NOTE: Hardware Monitor is fully supported by the developer, but it is end of life and no longer under development. The developer explains why the product is eol.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
joemikeb #52277 08/21/19 07:08 AM
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Thanks for suggesting Hardware Monitor; I took a look at its documentation, and I don't see how it deals with what I'm looking for at the moment, but on the other hand, I may not be looking for what I should be looking for.

At any rate, I'll stick with Activity Monitor for a while, and if I still need help I"ll try HM.

Update: Actually, I'm beginning to think that the reinstallation turned the trick and that what I thought have been recent freezes have just been "normal" macOS activity.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
artie505 #52280 08/21/19 04:25 PM
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I respect your decision to stick with Activity Monitor and I'm not pushing Marcel Bresink's System Monitor but I did want to add that it took me a while to get System Monitor configured to my taste — what to display on the menu bar, choosing among the many options of how to display the data — and even longer to discover that the items on the menu bar were clickable and revealed a lot more detail, not to mention what to include in those. Once you get the hang of it you can quickly configure it to display precisely what you feel you need to diagnose a given issue. This does not replace Activity Monitor, but IMO it is a lot easier to interpret "on the fly" when troubleshooting intermittent bugs.

You can see examples of the various menus here.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Freezes in 10.14.6
joemikeb #52295 08/22/19 11:13 AM
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I haven't experienced a hard freeze since I reinstalled macOS 10.14.6 (I've passed on the Supplemental this time, because it doesn't relate to my MBP.), so this is moot in that respect, but it's worth continuing the discussion from a troubleshooting point of view.

I looked at your screenshots and at the data on the System Monitor website, and it struck me as being too complicated for me to even figure out what I would want to monitor, let alone how to interpret its results.

In fact, it might actually have given me my answer right out of the box, and I wouldn't have recognized it as my answer...which, of course might simply have been due to my lack of understanding of the various things that may have caused my problem in the first place.

On the other hand, it makes sense to me that whatever was at the top of Activity Monitor's CPU column when it froze would presumably have been the process that caused the freeze...easy as pie...if it repeated.

I'd certainly have looked into trying System Monitor if AM hadn't helped me out, though.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

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