My Mac is frozen (Spinning pinwheel of death)
Today, I received an email from “Laura” and it got me thinking. I have heard a lot of people talk about the “Spinning pinwheel of death” as Mac’s version of Windows’ “Blue screen of death”. Here’s her question:
Yesterday while using my mac, I got a busy wheel. my computer wont let me do anything else. fortunately, it ran out of battery so it just shut off. however today when i plugged it in to recharge and turn on, the busy wheel is still there, it wont let me do anything on the computer at all. any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Have you been in this situation and how did you fix it? Help Laura out and I know I would love to know, just in case…
Just hold down the power button til it shuts off, then turn it on again.
Usually this is only an application specific problem. One program is misbehaving and my just need to be force quit. The dock or other apps should still work.
If the ENTIRE computer will not boot correctly, you should try booting with shift held down. That should still boot the system with minimal services. (Please update that procedure if I’m out of date.)
Worst case scenario:
You may need to boot from your install disks and reinstall the base system. Done properly this will not cause any issues other than needing a few software updates.
It does sound like an issue with a startup application. Though, I’m guessing here because there really isn’t enough info to go on.
While it’s usually just one app that’s frozen, the pinwheel can often not let you click off that app.
Pressing option+command+escape bings up OS X’s force-quite dialogue. Try force quitting whatever’s frozen. Sometimes, though, even this doesn’t work.
In that situation, I’d recommend what Dustin said, and hold down the power button to force a restart.
I faced the same issue many times on my macbook pro. may be because i try all the softwares releases for mac. some application may be creating any problem.
But always i tried to force power off the mac. as Dustin said, holding the power button for few seconds. After the restart,it should be normal. All the best!
As previously stated, just hold down the power button preferably while the computer is powered until it turns off. Your computer was not “fully” shut down even though a low battery triggered a shut down. Rebooting OSX will normally fix most problems. Get OnyX and learn to run the maintenance scripts occasionally as well to fix any other potential problems.
I have tried all the above. We even had a reinstall of all the operating discs. It worked fine for about 24 hours then after taking longer than normal to boot up, the spinning pinwheel no matter what I click on. Have powered off and then back on, but the same thing. None of the apps will come on.
Deb,
Well… I don’t know what to tell you. I’m thinking that sounds like something in the hardware failure department. Sounds like a call to Apple is the only thing left.
Sorry to hear…