The rainbow-colored spinning beach ball in macOS Mojave can be quite a painful sight for many Mac users. For some who are lucky, it’ll just disappear in a matter of seconds, but more often than not, it stays for minutes and minutes, leaving users hopelessly locked out of their Mac.

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Mac OS X 10.2/Jaguar gave the cursor a glossy rounded 'gumdrop' look in keeping with other OS X interface elements. In OS X 10.10, the entire pinwheel rotates (previously only the overlaying translucent layer moved). With OS X 10.11 El Capitan the spinning wait-cursor's design was updated. It now has less shadowing and has brighter, more solid. If your Mac operates on OS X El Capitan or later, make sure your software is up to date and move on to the next fix. Upgrade the RAM. If you run demanding or memory-hungry applications or if your Mac is getting old, it may need additional RAM or storage space. Sleep of Death and Mac OS X. From Jimmy James Champlin. Charles, I've had it happen with OS X as well. On an iMac (summer 2001) 500 and a blue G3/400, versions through 10.1.2 wouldn't wake from sleep when Network Time was enabled. 10.1.3 and later don't have the problem. Interesting to note that Mac OS 9.1 and 9.2.x will work properly with.

Now, since there is no definite way to deal with the spinning beach ball in Mac and there is no clear reason why it’s showing up in the first place, allow us to break things down for you.

In this post, we will discuss everything we know about the spinning beach ball in Mojave, including potential reasons why it surfaces and ways to get rid of it.

What the Spinning Beach Ball Signifies

Also called the “spinning beach ball of death,” the spinning beach ball in macOS Mojave is simply an indicator that your Mac is no longer capable of handling the tasks given to it at the moment.

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Technically, every app on Macs has a corresponding server. Once the app receives more tasks than it can process, the server will automatically “release” the spinning beach ball. Sometimes, it’ll show in an instant, but most of the time, it will take about five seconds for the app to become non-responsive.

Aside from being unable to process more tasks, there are other reasons why the spinning beach ball of death appears. These include:

1. There is a standalone issue within the app.
2. Your hardware is faulty.
3. You have an insufficient RAM.

Depending on the cause, the solutions vary. However, the most common way to get around the problem is to simply find the right software and execute the appropriate system commands.

Stopping the Spinning Beach Ball

In case you find yourself stuck in a frozen app, then there is one thing you can do: Force Quit. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Click the Apple icon.
2. Select Force Quit.
3. Choose the app that is no longer responding.
4. Click Force Quit.

Forcefully quitting an app sounds like a brutal way to resolve your problem. Worse, it does not even address the real reason why the app got stuck in the first place. Well, it could just be a random glitch, but if the app keeps freezing to the point that other software and programs are already affected, then you may need to take a closer look.

Application Keeps Freezing

Since Mac apps don’t usually have a proper uninstaller, you would need to move them to the Trash bin. As a result, traces of the app are left behind, and these app leftovers are possible culprits over why the spinning beach ball surfaces.

Now, if a certain app keeps freezing every time you open it, you might need to reset or reinstall it.

Resetting an App

To reset an app, you have to access and use its own settings or preferences. But in the event that an app does not allow you to access its settings because it keeps freezing, you may try using third-party tools.

There are plenty of apps out there that allows you to reset a Mac Mojave app. Perform a quick search online or seek recommendations from friends if you need to.

Generally, to use such third-party apps, you have to download and install them first. From there, follow the on-screen instructions provided and you’re done.

If the beach ball keeps rolling whenever you attempt using the app again, you may need to reinstall the app completely. Instead of selecting Uninstall, click Reset. Just always remember that moving the app to the Trash bin won’t solve the problem.

Why Your Entire Mac Mojave Is No Longer Responsive

What if your Mac, not just an app, becomes unresponsive? What’s causing the spinning beach ball to occur and how do you get rid of that annoying ball? Again, depending on the reason, the solutions vary.

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1. Your Processor Is Overworked.

One possible reason is that your Mac computer is getting old and abused. You can find out if the model of your Mac is causing the problem by checking your CPU usage. To check your Mac’s CPU usage, open Activity Monitor. You can find it under the Applications/Utilities folder.

In this folder, you can see your current system load in percentage. If all the processes amount to more than 50 percent and some processes remain opened for long, then it could be an indicator that your processor could no longer handle the tasks. To fix a processor that is overworked all the time, the only thing you can do is to get a new Mac.

2. You Have a Low Disk Space.

You need not fill your startup disk with lots of unnecessary stuff to see the pesky ball. A heavily loaded hard disk with large files can already trigger the ball to show up.

To clear a fully-loaded hard disk drive, you simply need to do a cleanup. The good thing is that it’s a relatively easy task. You can download Outbyte MacRepairto do the cleaning for you. Just run it, wait for it to finish scanning your system for any junk files, and you’re all good. It’s also a handy app for prepping your Mac for optimal performance.

3. You Have an Insufficient RAM.

Another possible reason why the spinning beach ball is showing up is that you have an insufficient RAM. To find out if you need more RAM, check the Activity Monitor again. Under the Memory tab, check the Memory pressure table graph. If it is red, it means your RAM is strained under the active apps.

To resolve your RAM problem, you need to upgrade to a bigger RAM. That means you need to buy a new one and install it. Oftentimes, an 8GB RAM is enough for most apps and tasks, but if you need to render heavy videos all the time, then you will need more RAM.

Summary

Some of the solutions we shared require updating hardware, but others merely need cleaning your system. There are other ways to get around the dreaded spinning beach ball issue on Mojave, but we hope we were able to tackle the basic stuff that you might need in order to temporarily fix the issue.

If you know other effective ways to deal with the spinning beach ball in macOS, let us know. Drop your comments below!

The spinning pinwheel is a variation of the mouse pointer arrow, used in Apple's macOS to indicate that an application is busy.^[1]

Officially, the macOS Human Interface Guidelines refers to it as the spinning wait cursor,^[2] but it is also known by other names, including the spinning beach ball^[3], the spinning wheel of death^[4], the spinning beach ball of death,^[5] or the ferris wheel of death.

History[edit]

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A wristwatch was the first wait cursor in early versions of the classic Mac OS. Apple's HyperCard first popularized animated cursors, including a black-and-white spinning quartered circle resembling a beach ball. The beach-ball cursor was also adopted to indicate running script code in the HyperTalk-like AppleScript. The cursors could be advanced by repeated HyperTalk invocations of 'set cursor to busy'.

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Wait cursors are activated by applications performing lengthy operations. Some versions of the Apple Installer used an animated 'counting hand' cursor. Other applications provided their own theme-appropriate custom cursors, such as a revolving Yin Yang symbol, Fetch's running dog, Retrospect's spinning tape, and Pro Tools' tapping fingers. Apple provided standard interfaces for animating cursors: originally the Cursor Utilities (SpinCursor, RotateCursor)^[6] and, in Mac OS 8 and later, the Appearance Manager (SetAnimatedThemeCursor).^[7]

From NeXTStep to Mac OS X[edit]

NeXTStep 1.0 used a monochrome icon resembling a spinning magneto-optical disk.^[a] Some NeXT computers included an optical drive which was often slower than a magnetic hard drive and so was a common reason for the wait cursor to appear.

When color support was added in NeXTStep 2.0, color versions of all icons were added. The wait cursor was updated to reflect the bright rainbow surface of these removable disks, and that icon remained even when later machines began using hard disk drives as primary storage. Contemporary CD Rom drives were even slower (at 1x, 150 kbit/s).^[b]

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With the arrival of Mac OS X the wait cursor was often called the 'spinning beach ball' in the press,^[8] presumably by authors not knowing its NeXT history or relating it to the hypercard wait cursor.

The two-dimensional appearance was kept essentially unchanged^[c] from NeXT to Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server 1.0 which otherwise had a user interface design resembling Mac OS 8/Platinum theme, and through Mac OS X 10.0/Cheetah and Mac OS X 10.1/Puma, which introduced the Aqua user interface theme.

Mac OS X 10.2/Jaguar gave the cursor a glossy rounded 'gumdrop' look in keeping with other OS X interface elements.^[9]In OS X 10.10, the entire pinwheel rotates (previously only the overlaying translucent layer moved).With OS X 10.11 El Capitan the spinning wait-cursor's design was updated. It now has less shadowing and has brighter, more solid colors to better match the design of the user interface. The colors also turn with the spinning, not just the texture.

System usage[edit]

In single-tasking operating systems like the original Macintosh operating system, the wait cursor might indicate that the computer was completely unresponsive to user input, or just indicate that response may temporarily be slower than usual due to disk access. This changed in multitasking operating systems such as System Software 5, where it is usually possible to switch to another application and continue to work there. Individual applications could also choose to display the wait cursor during long operations (and these were often able to be cancelled with a keyboard command).

After the transition to Mac OS X (macOS), Apple narrowed the wait cursor meaning. The display of the wait cursor is now controlled only by the operating system, not by the application. This could indicate that the application was in an infinite loop, or just performing a lengthy operation and ignoring events. Each application has an event queue that receives events from the operating system (for example, key presses and mouse button clicks); and if an application takes longer than 2 seconds^[10] to process the events in its event queue (regardless of the cause), the operating system displays the wait cursor whenever the cursor hovers over that application's windows.

This is meant to indicate that the application is temporarily unresponsive, a state from which the application should recover. It also may indicate that all or part of the application has entered an unrecoverable state or an infinite loop. During this time the user may be prevented from closing, resizing, or even minimizing the windows of the affected application (although moving the window is still possible in OS X, as well as previously hidden parts of the window being usually redrawn, even when the application is otherwise unresponsive). While one application is unresponsive, typically other applications are usable. File system and network delays are another common cause.

Guidelines, tools and methods for developers[edit]

By default, events (and any actions they initiate) are processed sequentially, which works well when each event involves a trivial amount of processing, the spinning wait cursor appearing until the operation is complete. If processing takes long, the application will appear unresponsive. Developers may prevent this by using separate threads for lengthy processing, allowing the application's main thread to continue responding to external events. However, this greatly increases the application complexity. Another approach is to divide the work into smaller packets and use NSRunLoop or Grand Central Dispatch.

• Bugs in applications can cause them to stop responding to events; for instance, an infinite loop or a deadlock. Applications thus afflicted rarely recover.
• Problems with the virtual memory system—such as slow paging caused by a spun-down hard disk or disk read-errors—will cause the wait cursor to appear across multiple applications, until the hard disk and virtual memory system recover.

Instruments is an application that comes with the Mac OS X Developer Tools. Along with its other functions, it allows the user to monitor and sample applications that are either not responding or performing a lengthy operation. Each time an application does not respond and the spinning wait cursor is activated, Instruments can sample the process to determine which code is causing the application to stop responding. With this information, the developer can rewrite code to avoid the cursor being activated.

Apple's guidelines suggest that developers try to avoid invoking the spinning wait cursor, and suggest other user interface indicators, such as an asynchronous progress indicator.

Alternate names[edit]

The spinning wait cursor is commonly referred to as the (Spinning) x (of Death/Doom).^[d] The most common words or phrases x can be replaced with include:

• Disk
• (Beach) Ball^[11][12]
• (Rainbow) wheel
• Pinwheel
• Pizza^[e]
• Pie
• Marble
• Lollipop

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

1. ^NeXT Optical Discs, Photo of the underside, showing the rainbow effect depicted on the icon (a then new type of media that was built into the early NeXT Cubes.)
2. ^often an external AppleCD drive was used
3. ^not a single bit was changed
4. ^named after the Blue Screen of Death
5. ^frequently encountered across Mac users forums as The SPOD

References[edit]

1. ^'Mini-Tutorial: The dreaded spinning pinwheel; Avoiding unresponsiveness/slow-downs in Mac OS X'. CNet. 10 March 2005. Retrieved 16 July 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
2. ^'macOS Human Interface Guidelines: Pointers'. developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
3. ^'Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball'. Macworld. 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
4. ^'How to Fix a Spinning Wheel of Death on Mac'. MacPaw. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
5. ^'Frozen: How to Force Quit an OS X App Showing a Spinning Beachball of Death – The Mac Observer'. www.macobserver.com. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
6. ^'Using the Cursor Utilities (IM: Im)'. Developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2010-04-30.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
7. ^'SetAnimatedThemeCursor'. Developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2010-04-30.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
8. ^Macworld 2002-04-01
9. ^Ars Technica Jaguar review: 'The dreading 'spinning rainbow disc' has an all new look in Jaguar'
10. ^'WWDC 2012 – Session 709 – What's New in the File System'(PDF). Apple. Retrieved 2018-05-23. Applications SPOD if they don’t service the event loop for two secondsCS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
11. ^Swain, Gregory E. (28 May 2010). 'Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball'. ((MacWorld)). Retrieved 16 July 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
12. ^Todd, Charlie (9 March 2012). 'Spinning Beach Ball of Death'. ((Improv Everywhere)). Retrieved 16 July 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)

External links[edit]

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• Apple Human Interface Guidelines: Standard Cursors from Apple's website.
• Perceived Responsiveness: Avoid the Spinning Cursor from Apple's website.
• Troubleshooting the 'Spinning Beach Ball of Death' Excerpt from “Troubleshooting Mac OS X” book where there are some information on how to deal with Spinning Wait Cursor problems.