Mac freezing a lot after upgrading to OS X Lion, what to do

July 31, 2011

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The new Mac OS X Lion is still, at least I’m finding, very buggy and you might see the spinning ‘beach ball’ a lot more often after your upgrade. Users are reporting a lot more freezing issues, general sluggishness and lack of response.

If you find an unusual amount of apps not responding as they use to, and some of the symptoms reported above, you might want to consider to do a fresh re-installation of Snow Leopard and immediately upgrade to Lion.macbook-dvd

It’s not as difficult or time consuming as you may think and very recommended for a better performing OS X.

 

Before you start, download form HERE the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo and save it on an external storage (USB key)

-Make a bootable USB stick with the version of OS X Lion you’ve previously downloaded (follow instructions HERE)

-Meanwhile Export your Bookmarks, Address Book, 1Password and any other document you need onto an external drive.

-Insert the Snow Leopard installation disk, turn off the machine and reboot holding the C key down. Re-install Snow Leopard. (I always recommend to format the HD before installing the OS X. After choosing the Language, when the installation begins from the disk, in the Menu Bar select Disk Utility under Utilities. Select the HD and format it. Close Disk Utilities and continue installation)

-Once done, install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo, install the Migration Assistant from the Software Update.

-Reboot and install Lion from the USB Stick

 

We’ve had few reports of users saying the machine works a lot better, faster, stable after fresh installation.air

“Well I have done an upgrade with significant issues: Natural Scrolling slow if not inactive, repeated hangs and spins, full screening Safari issues. Many apps failing to work-and overall sluggish performance on my Macbook Pro October 2010 with 4GB RAM 250 GB HDD. The clean install has given me a smoking’ hot system though! At first I was skeptical due to the issues, no longer.” Said one of our readers.

 

If you are not confident enough to do this, your other option is to automatically restart your Mac when it freezes.

-Open System Preferences and go to Energy Saver.
Check the Last option: Restart automatically if the computer freezes


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  • Dave

    Took your advise and did a clean install. However after about w days it got worse than before.

    • silversurfer

      Oh dear! How can that be possible? And why after few days? Are you on an iMac?

  • Jonny

    Problem that ticking restart if computer freezes does not help either.

    • silversurfer

      Well guys…Apple has to debug Lion, a lot. I’m actually surprised they’ve released it in such a buggy state. Never had as many issues with other OS X!

      • Rich

        This reminds me of the first release of OS X. Lots of beach balls. The difference is that at that time, it was clear they were going somewhere great with it. This release looks like it’s in pursuit of a very bad idea: Let’s make OS X desktop into iOS on an iPad! Yay. Not.

        • Silversurfer

          Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve rolled back to Snow Leopard: couldn’t take it any more. Will wait for 10.7.5 before attempting again ;-)

  • Shawn

    I am noticing the same symptoms, and I just did a fresh install of Snow Leopard about six weeks prior to the Lion update. It happens when saving a Word document. I also get some very buggy behavior in Safari. If I zoom on a page, then zoom back (using gestures like I would on an iPhone/iPad), then I can’t scroll or click links. I have to refresh the page.

    Also I noticed that dashboard widgets no longer have animations when you place them on the dashboard. I recall a ripple effect.

    This is a surprising update. Not at all the quality as in the past.

  • Jim

    I installed Lion on the first day. It is BUGGY. Beachballs, System Freezes, instant on doesn’t always work correctly, wireless keyboard, track pad and mouse get “lost”. Leopard and Snow Leopard worked great but Apple needs to fix Lion. (iMac, Mac Mini and Macbook Air).

  • Steve

    Hi,

    lots of problems with my iMac after upgrade to Lion. After few days using Lion some application start freezing: Firefox, 1Password and etc. It was not possible to shut down computer, grey screen and closing animation in the middle. 20 minutes, 2 hours – nothing. Pushing ON/OFF button and shutting down by this way.

    Did reinstall, all from the beginning. First Snow Leopard then upgrade to Lion. First 3 days everything is just perfect, after same issue.

    What to do?! :)

    • silversurfer

      Hi Steve,

      for some reasons to me unknown, iMac users are experiencing lots of issues with Lion and it won’t be long before Apple releases the first update, hopefully with lots of debugging.

      If I were you, I would downgrade to SL 10.6.8 and wait at least for 10.7.2 before upgrading again.

      Sorry I don’t have a quick fix for you, but Apple really has to fix all those bugs, there’s nothing we can do from our side.

      Cheers

  • judith

    my mac is driving me crazy , its soooo slow, it freezes all the time, waiting balls every 10min, my ical isn’t working anymore, all data mixed up. safari problems, things aren’t working as they used too. I’m not that computer geek and my husband upgraded my mac, I work on it non stop for years.. and since last 2 week update it’s been driving me crazy.. I just want to go back and downgrade to the times everything was fine and running..

    I hate sometimes that we have to upgrade all the time. my mac is now 6 years old and slowly getting to senior for these things. In some way not so sustainable if you want to use your mac for years, instead of buying the ‘latest’ all the time. This mac been around the world with me on work trips and on full on duty.. but he doenst like the Lion version at all..

    • silversurfer

      Sorry to hear that Judith,
      Apple is working on fixing the buggy Lion…but if you cannot easily downgrade to Snow Leopard, you are going to have to stick to it and be patient.

  • Sammy

    I have the same problem with my Black Macbook 2007. (4GB) It’s now slow after upgrading, but so far, Firefox has been getting the beachball of doom SO many times. But I going to guess it could be Firefox seeing it takes almost a GB off my memory (Not joking). And Photoshop is surprisingly okay.

    But sometimes I do see the beachball more often that it did in Snow Leopard. It was super fast, but after Lion, it’s lagging, which is annoying. I hope they get it fix soon or sadly, I might have to downgrade. Is it possible to downgrade?

    • silversurfer

      Hi Sammy,

      you’ll have to format the HD and re-install SL to downgrade.

      • Sammy

        So that’s how it works. Once Lion settles in and if it’s still too much for my computer, I’ll downgrade. Thank you for the answer! :)

        • http://www.naturalway.co.za Sharkmearer

          This is actually all bullshit! Mac are getting as irritating as MS. They are using us as guinea-pigs.. All this rolling back and re-booting takes time and money! No wonder they were able to sell it for $30!?!

  • http://www.kingrosales.com/ King Rosales

    I installed Lion last week and thats when I noticed the beachball effect Last Tuesday. I didn’t think there may be a problem until 2 days later. Oddly, I have almost the identical computer at home but I don’t get the beachball there. The beachball has already happened 5 times in the last 3 hours and I just need to find the time to reinstall everything before I do.
    Thanks for this post, I hope it gets rid of the beachball effect :P

  • Maik Lohse

    I would totally downgrade back to SL – if I hadn’t moved to iCloud and now am stuck with it since I can’t use Contacts, Calendar etc with iCloud under SL :-(

    • Silversurfer

      LOL, hard choice eh?!

      I’m using (basically never) Lion on a virtual machine. That could be a solution for you too.


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