After upgrade to Sonoma, opening of PAGES docs is VERY slow

I simply gave up on Sonoma v14.7.2 and Pages v14.3 and upgraded my 16-in 2021 MBP M1 Pro to Sequoia v15.2. Now Pages v14.3 opens a 179-page document in under 10 seconds from the double-click.

The Apple product teams have their hands full addressing new and the support of introduced Apple Intelligence integration with applications on Sequoia. I doubt that the Pages lethargy issue on Sonoma will get fixed due to redirected developer focus.

14.7.2 was so bad for me that my MBP M1 was unusable for anything 'pro'.  It wasn't only Pages that was ruined. Keynote was the same. Photos took ages to launch most times, and sometimes failed over and over again. Capture One 'recents' catalogues didn't work at all. And virtually everything felt unreliable or tediously slow. 

This week I finally updated to Sequoia 15.2 and - somewhat amazingly - everything is working perfectly again. It even seems snappier than ever now - though that may be the result of spending so long trying to live with with the mess that is 14.7.2.

I know there are some people contributing to this thread who aren't able yet to switch to 15.x - due to compatibility with key apps and plug-ins, and I can readily understand how desperate a situation that is to be in.

But if you can - (check compatibility with your own key apps first, of course) - based on my own experience, the upgrade does appear to be the only way out, and well worth while. 

After a restart, it may take far longer than two minutes for all of the customary (initial) operating system processes to quiet down. Attempting to open a Pages document when competing with the related CPU and Storage demands by other processes certainly can delay opening a Pages document.

I am using an M4 Mac Mini Pro running Sequoia v15.1 and have Pages v14.2 installed. I have a four-page Pages document with two small images mixed in with the text. After 10 minutes from a boot/reboot, I can double-click on that Pages document and it is opened in under 2 seconds. The file is on my Desktop.

Pages is the only application that can open Pages documents in their original formatting, so no need to set any default application for that purpose. Alternatively, the current LibreOffice 24.8.3 can open Pages documents containing only text though it cannot edit them, so of limited usage.

Mike.Minh wrote:

VikingOSX wrote:

One last straw… press and hold the shift key while launching Pages.

No luck, we get the same slow loading time. Taking the container out is yet to come. After that I will have to develop a plan how to move from one user to a new one.

Arrgggh.

Before I do that, there is one other symptom pn birth of these MacBooks of which I initially thought it must be unrelated. I am beginning to think it could be related.

Downloaded documents (PDF) show under Safari’s downloaded documents, you can normally double-click from there to open them. I get a message “Can’t open because none of the available apps can open it.” If I go to the Downloads folder, I can open the very document without problem.

(Safari 17.6, not yet upgraded to 18.1)

On Sequoia v15.1.1 with Safari 18.1.1. when I right-click on a link to a PDF and it downloads, it will remain in the ↓⃝

panel on Safari. When I double-click that downloaded entry on the Safari downloads panel, it opens in Preview.

It must be a regional thing - in my IT department, when we did an OS update and some programs lost functionality - I.E. were slow to open or lost some features like Apple programs did under this sonoma 14.x update - we called it "broken." Apps affected on my machine are Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Textedit and Preview so far. My Adobe apps - Lightroom Classic, Lightroom and Photoshop seem to be un-affected.

Hello,

Same issue for me. Updated from Ventura to Sonoma (14.1.7) a few days ago and Pages and Numbers are slow to load and respond and save/rename. Takes about 30-60 seconds to load in a document. I am on a MacStudio M1Pro.

I went to the Genius Bar and they couldn't find any issues and the only solution they offered, was to take to computer for further testing. But all diagnostic they were able to run at my appointment showed no issues.

I have uninstalled and installed Pages/Numbers numerous times, etc..no change. I guess the last step will be to do a clean install.

You should realize that anyone posting here is a fellow Mac user, not on Apple's payroll, and no Apple employees participate in these user-supported, public communities. We cannot fix issues in Apple's products that require product team(s) code-level intervention.

The closest you will get to communicating with the Apple product team is on the application menu for Pages, Numbers, or Keynote as a Provide ___ Feedback menu item. Declamatory shouting (using capitals) will not help.

Owning a Mac does not require you to use Apple's Pages, Numbers, or Keynote. There are a substantial number of alternatives including some (e.g. LibreOffice) that are entirely free.

Apple has placed the next round of macOS updates in release candidate status. That means that another update for Sonoma is forthcoming in the next couple of weeks and it may (or may not) resolve the current issues discussed in these threads.

Since the upgrade to Sonoma 14.7.2 on M1 MBP, multiple apps are slow to open, slow to save, and often crash or hang on quit. Affected apps are Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools, Microsoft Office. Probably others, but those are the apps that I'm cursing at lately. To me it appears to be a disk access issue. As if read/writes are blocked or slowed by security in the OS. I would upgrade to Sequoia, but Pro Tools and many plugins are not compatible yet.

I'm seeing reports over on Mac Rumours that 14.7.3 tht this update fixes the issue. I did the keychain reset fix so I can't test it, but would be interested to know if it solves the problem for anyone here who hs held back on trying that.

Looks like we are getting MacOS updates next week so will give that a try and then go for a clean install if that does not fix it.

@Mike.Minh I have tried all of the same solutions that you have posted here with no result. Thanks to you and VikingOSX for stating issues and solutions clearly. Has anyone heard of the same problem with Pages 14.2 running on macOS 18.1 or macOS 18.1.1 ?

Avoid survey questions in the communities as the Terms of Use discourage it.

I have run Pages v14.2 on both Sequoia v15.0, 15.0.1, 15.1, and now v15.1.1 without any appreciable lag in opening documents. It takes under 6 seconds to open a 179-page Pages document from my Desktop, and I find that acceptable. That same document exported to Word and opened in MS Word v16.91 takes about 8 seconds because Word is a much larger application.