[johnzoidberg]

It started happening very recently, but whenever I am in the Finder, I would frequently get the beach ball "busy" cursor. Sometimes, after a while, the Finder would become responsive again, but other times, I am forced to relaunch the Finder. It is very annoying, and I'm not sure how it started happening in the first place, seeing that I didn't install any new software or do anything different. I trashed the Finder prefs, that I still get beach balls at random times, when a few days ago, I rarely got them. Any ideas what is happening?

[OmniX]

Originally posted by johnzoidberg:
It started happening very recently, but whenever I am in the Finder, I would frequently get the beach ball "busy" cursor. Sometimes, after a while, the Finder would become responsive again, but other times, I am forced to relaunch the Finder. It is very annoying, and I'm not sure how it started happening in the first place, seeing that I didn't install any new software or do anything different. I trashed the Finder prefs, that I still get beach balls at random times, when a few days ago, I rarely got them. Any ideas what is happening?

first of all, please report which version of the finder you are using, and if you are using Panther try upgrading to 10.3.7 (10.2.8 for Jag).

second: no idea what the problem is but you migth try looking at your console logs (/Applications/Utilities/Console.app); you might see warnings or errors there that could give you a hint at what's going (repeatedly) wrong.

g'luck,
ox

[johnzoidberg]

Sorry, I'm using the latest Panther version 10.3.7..

I'm not sure what is causing it, it just cropped up today, and just works erratically, at random times while I'm in the Finder, I would just get a beach ball. I don't remember doing anything different than what I usually do.

[bergy]

Hello ...

You don't have any Norton Products do you ....?

First thing you could try is
Repairing Disk and Permissions ....

[johnzoidberg]

Originally posted by bergy:
Hello ...

You don't have any Norton Products do you ....?

First thing you could try is
Repairing Disk and Permissions ....

Nope, no Norton products installed. Only TechTool Pro 4.

I already repaired disk permissions.

[ashtoash]

I know everyone is going to disagree with me.. But do this anyway and they will go away.

1. Repair Disk Permissions. Applications > Disk Utility
2. Use a defragmentation program. I recommend iDefrag.

Most people will tell you (even apple's site) that the disk doesn't get fragmented. Just run iDefrag and when you are done no more beach balls loading finder windows. Try it. You'll be delighted.

**Update, this will fix the problem if it's beachballs when loading windows or switching finder views. anything else it might not be the solution...

Originally posted by johnzoidberg:
It started happening very recently, but whenever I am in the Finder, I would frequently get the beach ball "busy" cursor. Sometimes, after a while, the Finder would become responsive again, but other times, I am forced to relaunch the Finder. It is very annoying, and I'm not sure how it started happening in the first place, seeing that I didn't install any new software or do anything different. I trashed the Finder prefs, that I still get beach balls at random times, when a few days ago, I rarely got them. Any ideas what is happening?

[bergy]

Did you "repair disk" as well? ...

Repair Disk

These steps will check for, and usually repair, any corruption on your OS X boot volume

(1) Boot from your Mac OS X Install Disc 1 CD. Put CD in drive, wait for it to show up on the desktop, then go to upper left of screen under the Apple menu and choose restart. Immediately hold the "c" key down until you see the apple logo.

(2) When the Installer window opens, select Installer > Disk Utility from the Apple® menu bar.

(3) When the Disk Utility window opens, select "Macintosh HD" in the list on the left.

(4) Select the First Aid tab on the right

(5) Select the "Repair Disk" button on the lower right of the screen.
If errors are returned repeat this process 2 or 3 times until they are gone.

If you still get errors then you will need to use a third-party disk utility to repair your Mac OS X boot volume, such as Alsoft® Disk Warrior®

(6) After Repair Disk completes go to Disk Utility > Quit. Focus returns to Installer.

(7) Go to Installer > Quit. In the next menu choose Quit again and the computer will restart in OSX

[wadesworld]

The one time this happened to me, I eventually realized that it was opnly happening when I clicked on folders on my FireWire drive. I eventually concluded that the FireWire controller was going bad in the external box. (I had tried to go cheap on the Firewire enclosure - a mistake - I threw it away and put the drive into a enclosure from WeibeTech - more expensive, but no problems since.)

Wade