I finally bit the bullet recently and upgraded to El Capitan from Mountain Lion. Everything appeared to go swimmingly and I have no complaints about performance. However I clicked on Network settings in System Preferences and System Preferences just froze up. Force quitting and rebooting makes no difference and I can't access any other part of the System Preferences menu as it opens on the Network settings panel and promptly freezes up again. I've tried repairing permissions, booting in safe mode and deleting some of the System Preferences caches and plists recommended on the Apple forums but nothing is working. Any other suggestions? I'd prefer to avoid a clean install if possible ...
System Preferences freezing after El Capitan upgrade
- Thread starter wendy
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Cory Cooper
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Hello and welcome.
-Which plist and cache files did you delete per their suggestions?
C
-Which plist and cache files did you delete per their suggestions?
C
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.systempreferences
I have tried most of the suggestions in this thread - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7253713?tstart=0 with the exception of testing from a guest account because I can't get into System Preferences to set one up!
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.systempreferences
I have tried most of the suggestions in this thread - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7253713?tstart=0 with the exception of testing from a guest account because I can't get into System Preferences to set one up!
Cory Cooper
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-Did you try checking Open in 32-bit mode in Get Info for the System Preferences app?
-Do you have anything in /Library/PreferencePanes or ~/Library/PreferencePanes? Maybe an old/incompatible PP is trying to load.
-You could try deleting those files again, in addition to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemprefs.plist and restarting.
There is an app that can create and install another user on your Mac, but we will save that as a last resort. We should be able to get this resolved.
C
-Do you have anything in /Library/PreferencePanes or ~/Library/PreferencePanes? Maybe an old/incompatible PP is trying to load.
-You could try deleting those files again, in addition to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemprefs.plist and restarting.
There is an app that can create and install another user on your Mac, but we will save that as a last resort. We should be able to get this resolved.
C
No I didn't open in 32-bit mode because that's not what the instructions said. They said to check that the 32-bit mode checkbox was unchecked, which I checked and it is.
Yes there's some items in /Library/PreferencePanes - Flash player, Flip4Mac, Java control, Growl (which I no longer use) and the Wacom tablet (which has never worked with this machine). There's nothing in ~/Library/PreferencePanes. Should I delete all these?
Yes there's some items in /Library/PreferencePanes - Flash player, Flip4Mac, Java control, Growl (which I no longer use) and the Wacom tablet (which has never worked with this machine). There's nothing in ~/Library/PreferencePanes. Should I delete all these?
Cory Cooper
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-Try checking the 32-bit mode box and see if it will open.
-You could try deleting them, but you will have to reinstall those that you want to continue to use. I would try deleting Growl and Wacom first.
C
-You could try deleting them, but you will have to reinstall those that you want to continue to use. I would try deleting Growl and Wacom first.
C
Cory Cooper
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Good that it opens.
-Is it still freezing?
-Can you now access/change your Network settings?
-Is the version of System Preferences on your Mac 14.0?
C
-Is it still freezing?
-Can you now access/change your Network settings?
-Is the version of System Preferences on your Mac 14.0?
C
To access the Network panel System Preferences said it would need to quit and reopen. Having done so it's back to square one - stuck on the Network panel with a spinning beach ball. Force quit and reopened again OK. Yes it's version 14.0.
(This may be a red herring and I have no idea if it's related, but the only other thing I've noticed since upgrading is that right clicking/cmd clicking on a file to bring up the 'open with' drop down takes an incredible amount of time to populate with the appropriate apps.)
(This may be a red herring and I have no idea if it's related, but the only other thing I've noticed since upgrading is that right clicking/cmd clicking on a file to bring up the 'open with' drop down takes an incredible amount of time to populate with the appropriate apps.)
Cory Cooper
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-Are you now using an eternal hard drive to keep a current Time Machine or other backup of your data?
-How recently did you upgrade to El Capitan?
-Are you updated to 10.11.3?
-You could always download and install the OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 Combo Update over the top of your current El Capitan installation.
C
-How recently did you upgrade to El Capitan?
-Are you updated to 10.11.3?
-You could always download and install the OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 Combo Update over the top of your current El Capitan installation.
C
I have both Time Machine and CCC backups. I upgraded about 10 days ago and it's current to 10.11.3. I can only do things like this when staying with friends with good internet because my wireless broadband connection isn't up to downloading OS upgrades. I did create a bootable USB flash drive with El Capitan on it however (in case I needed to do a clean install) and I do still have the install program on the machine. So are you suggesting I should just let it run again?
Cory Cooper
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No, don't run the full installer. There is a combo update at the link I provided, which only installs the files that have changed since 10.11.
-Since the 32-bit mode works, is Network the only Preference Pane that freezes now?
-Can you access any of the other Preferences?
-Can you go into Users & Groups and create another user to test with?
C
-Since the 32-bit mode works, is Network the only Preference Pane that freezes now?
-Can you access any of the other Preferences?
-Can you go into Users & Groups and create another user to test with?
C
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Cory Cooper
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No worries about the Combo Update then.
Yes, create an admin account called Test or something - we can delete it later after troubleshooting with it. Then, logout of your account, login to the new account, and see if the issues persists.
C
Yes, create an admin account called Test or something - we can delete it later after troubleshooting with it. Then, logout of your account, login to the new account, and see if the issues persists.
C
Cory Cooper
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OK...so it is only affecting Network now?
C
C
Cory Cooper
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I doubt that other software could cause this issue.
-Did you uncheck the 32-bit mode box to see if all the others still work normally?
C
-Did you uncheck the 32-bit mode box to see if all the others still work normally?
C
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Glad you got your issue resolved. Cory is definitely an expert at quite a few things!
As for any causes of the issues you had, that could depend on a number of factors. As it is, you did make a huge jump from Mountain Lion to El Capitan. Did you just take the upgrade path? Myself, when I moved from Yosemite to El Capitan (not as huge an upgrade as you did), after (of course) making a SuperDuper! backup to an external device (actually two external drives), along with insuring that my 5 critical apps each had the necessary upgrade for El Capitan compatibility, I erased and formatted my internal drive first (I have SSDs inside each of my Macs), then did a clean installation of OS 10.11.1 (yes, not the initial release of El Capitan, and I had my reasons), and then used Migration Assistant to "migrate"/copy all the necessary "stuff" from my backup. That process, for both of my machines, went very well.
Of course, I am very "anal" when it comes to disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs (hardly ever need to do repairs), as I tend to keep my Macs "lean and clean". For your situation, it could be difficult to try and pinpoint why you encountered issues. I wish I could be of more help. Maybe Cory can chime in and offer some expert opinions.
One other thing: what version of El Capitan are you using? Version 10.11.3 came out over a month ago, and if you need it, you can get the OS 10.11.3 Combo Updater from here:
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1859?locale=en_US
Make a backup first, though, before applying it, just in case. And, OS 10.11.4 has been in beta testing for quite a while, and I recently read that Apple plans on releasing the final version around March 15th.