Programs crashing

[Marie89]

This problem has been getting worse for months. Whenever I open any application, email, safari, finder, etc. I get the "spinning beach ball". It takes so long for the program to open that I walk away and do other things. Sometimes the program just crashes or the computer shuts down. I have Malwarebytes. After each scan it tells me my computer is clean. I often have to force quit applications. Recently the top application on the "force quit" list is "front end application". Is there a way for me to fix this or do I have to take it to an expert?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

• Which model Mac?
• Which version of macOS?
• How much free space is left?
• Any other issues lately?

C

 

[TonyAguila]

This problem has been getting worse for months. Whenever I open any application, email, safari, finder, etc. I get the "spinning beach ball". It takes so long for the program to open that I walk away and do other things. Sometimes the program just crashes or the computer shuts down. I have Malwarebytes. After each scan it tells me my computer is clean. I often have to force quit applications. Recently the top application on the "force quit" list is "front end application". Is there a way for me to fix this or do I have to take it to an expert?

It is helpful to provide information about your system (Mac model, macOS version, storage type and size (SSD or hard disk), memory… at the very least).

With that said, the first thing I would try when that situation comes up is to perform a Safe Boot. Preferably from a cold start (shut down and boot), immediately hold down the Shift key until the progress bar below the apple logo appears. This startup process will take longer than usual since it will perform a disk check/repair (fsck), and flush caches, among other things.

When done, go ahead and log in. Things will be sluggish, which is normal. Then do a normal restart. Check to see if the beachballing has gone away. If it persists, let us know. There are other things to try, e.g. SMC and PRAM reset, etc. One thing at a time.

 

[Marie89]

Hello and welcome.

• Which model Mac?
• Which version of macOS?
• How much free space is left?
• Any other issues lately?

C

macOS Catalina iMac 21.5", late 2013 847.386 GB available of 1 TB Memory 2 x 4GB, both in use 1600 MHz DDR3 memory module
Email crashed this morning.

 

[TonyAguila]

macOS Catalina iMac 21.5", late 2013 847.386 GB available of 1 TB Memory 2 x 4GB, both in use 1600 MHz DDR3 memory module
Email crashed this morning.

Good. To make it easier to identify your Mac, go to  -> About This Mac and the window will show the version of macOS installed as well as other details: model, processor, memory, etc. If you click on System Report… the new window will default to Hardware Overview with more detail about your Mac.

Make a note of Model Identifier. This is key to identifying your model. For your iMac, it will be either iMac14,1 or iMac14,3.

Anyway, that is good news that you have Catalina installed. Up to macOS Mojave, Safe Boot included checking all of the snapshots from your Time Machine backups, which can be large and a great number. This operation alone can take up to a half hour or more. With Catalina, your safe boot shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, depending on your drive (hard disk or SSD).

If your macOS Catalina is up-to-date, it should be at 10.15.7.

I suggest you do a Safe Boot as I detailed previously, and take it from there.