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what is causing the multi color ball and how do I get rid of it


what is causing the multi colored ball how do I get rid of it?



Posted on Jun 6, 2022 2:02 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 6, 2022 4:03 PM

Howdy,


The spinning activityIndicator, historically known as the beachball, shows you some sort of activity is taking place, like something loading or processing. If something is very intense or time consuming you can see it for a while. If it is going on "too long" something may be stuck.


If that's happening to me, I check what's happening with Activity Monitor, found in the Utilities folder.

With that you can see which process is taking all the CPU time, Memory, Disk or Network activity.

By default it shows My Processes which are things you are running or running for you, and that may be good enough to see what's stuck.

But you can change it to All Processes to see everything running if needed.


When you find a process that is stuck, make note of it so you can troubleshoot that app if needed, and you can quit or force quit the process, but in general don't quit things you don't know about like most system processes and such.


Please also check your Memory Use with the Memory tab. If you are running out of memory it can really slow down your Mac with no fault of the apps. Quit some apps normally, don't run so many at a time and get more memory if that's possible.

If the Memory Pressure keeps going into the red, you are out of memory; yellow, you are low on memory. Lots of Swap Used is another indicator of needing more RAM.


Once you have identified the App causing the issue, you can troubleshoot that.


ivan


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 6, 2022 4:03 PM in response to LivingLarge-3

Howdy,


The spinning activityIndicator, historically known as the beachball, shows you some sort of activity is taking place, like something loading or processing. If something is very intense or time consuming you can see it for a while. If it is going on "too long" something may be stuck.


If that's happening to me, I check what's happening with Activity Monitor, found in the Utilities folder.

With that you can see which process is taking all the CPU time, Memory, Disk or Network activity.

By default it shows My Processes which are things you are running or running for you, and that may be good enough to see what's stuck.

But you can change it to All Processes to see everything running if needed.


When you find a process that is stuck, make note of it so you can troubleshoot that app if needed, and you can quit or force quit the process, but in general don't quit things you don't know about like most system processes and such.


Please also check your Memory Use with the Memory tab. If you are running out of memory it can really slow down your Mac with no fault of the apps. Quit some apps normally, don't run so many at a time and get more memory if that's possible.

If the Memory Pressure keeps going into the red, you are out of memory; yellow, you are low on memory. Lots of Swap Used is another indicator of needing more RAM.


Once you have identified the App causing the issue, you can troubleshoot that.


ivan


what is causing the multi color ball and how do I get rid of it

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