Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 2: Getting your Mac up and running again
• Part 2 of 2: Determining the cause

The pizza wheel. The beach ball. The spinning spinning wheel of death. Whatever you want to call it, the rainbow-colored ball that appears on your Mac's screen and refuses to go away is a bad omen that your computer has crashed. Apple offers a number of ways to unfreeze a frozen Mac computer.

To step

Part 1 of 2: Getting your Mac up and running again

1. Force a crashed program to close. If a program has crashed, but your computer is still responding, you can force the program to quit and continue using the computer. There are several ways to stop a crashed program:
   • Click on your desktop or any other open window to take focus from the crashed app. Click the Apple menu and select "Force Quit". Highlight the crashed program and click "Force Quit" to close it.
   • Press ⌘ Command+⌥ Option+Esc to open the Force Quit menu. Select the crashed program and click "Force Quit".
   • Hold the test ⌥ Option button pressed andCtrl-Click the app's icon in the Dock. Select "Force Quit" from the menu.
2. Restart your stuck Mac computer. If your system is not responding, or if you cannot access any of the "Force Quit" menus, you can force the computer to restart. There are several ways you can do this even if you can't move the mouse cursor.
   • Press ⌘ Command+Ctrl+⏏ Eject to force the computer to restart. The test ⏏ Eject is located in the top right corner of the keyboard. Newer MacBooks may not have ⏏ Eject-test.
   • If the keyboard command doesn't work, or you don't have one ⏏ Ejectbutton, then press and hold the power button for about five seconds to turn off the computer. The power key is located in the top right corner of MacBook keyboards, or on the back of iMacs and other desktops.

Part 2 of 2: Determining the cause

1. Determine if the problem is with a program or with your system. If the crash only occurs when running a specific program, then it is most likely the program causing the problem. If the freezing happens randomly, or when performing everyday tasks on the computer, there is probably an operating system problem. If the computer freezes when using a peripheral device, such as a printer or USB stick, that device could be the problem. Having a general idea of ​​the cause can help solve the problem.
2. Check your free space. If your startup disk runs out of free space, the system may become unstable. Your startup disk (the disk containing your operating system files) should generally have at least 10 GB of free space. If you have less than this, errors can arise.
   • The fastest way to check your available space is to click the Apple menu and select "About This Mac". Click on the "Storage" tab to view your used and available space.If you have less than 10 GB of free space, delete some files or programs you no longer need.
3. Update your programs and operating system. The crash may be a known bug that has been resolved with a more recent version of the program or OS X operating system. Updating your software can fix the problem you are experiencing.
   • Click on the Apple menu and select "Software Update". Download and install any available updates. This tool finds and installs updates for your operating system and any programs installed through the Mac App Store.
   • Update programs from outside the App Store separately. If you have installed programs from outside the App Store, you will need to run the Update tool for each program or download the latest version from the website and install it.
4. Disconnect all your peripherals. Sometimes a problem with a device can cause your computer to freeze. Disconnect all your peripherals, including printers, scanners and external hard drives or USB stick.
   • Connect the devices one at a time and test each device to see if it gets stuck. This can help you determine which device is causing problems.
   • If you've found a specific device that is causing your computer to freeze, check online to see if others have had the same problem with the device and if the manufacturer has found a solution.
5. Run a Safe Boot. If none of the above steps helped resolve the freezing issue, then a Safe Boot can help. This loads only the essential files that OS X needs to run and automatically runs various troubleshooting scripts.
   • To start a Safe Boot, restart your Mac and hold the key ⇧ Shift as soon as you hear the startup chime. This will load Safe Boot mode. If your Mac reboots automatically from Safe Boot, it is probably trying to fix a problem with the boot drive.
   • If the computer does not hang in Safe Boot mode, restart your computer as normal to see if the problem is resolved during Safe Boot.
6. Repair your startup disk in recovery mode. If there is a problem with your startup disk, you may be able to fix it using the Disk Utility in Recovery mode.
   • Restart your computer and hold ⌘ Command+R. pressed during startup.
   • Select "Recovery HD" (depending on version) from the menu that appears.
   • Select the "Disk Utility" option.
   • Select the drive you want to check for errors and then click the "Repair" or "First Aid" tab.
   • Click on "Repair Disk" to start scanning for problems. If any problems are found, Disk Utility will try to fix them automatically. This can take a while.