# Mac dopers, lend a hand, please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2015, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164 "2015-03-04T01:47:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/1 "2015-03-04T01:47:38Z")
I have a four year old Mac Book Pro. When I see the spinning beach ball for extended time (2-3 minutes), I do a restart. Then follow it with a Permission Repair. The permission repair is always full of Permissions Repaired "Library/Printers/Epson. Every time. I have never connected a printer to the Mac Book. Why is it always repairing these permissions? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/2 "2015-03-04T01:50:58Z")
First of all, you need to figure out why your machine is hanging. Doing a forced reboot on a regular basis isn’t a great idea. Secondly, stop doing permissions repair. It’s mostly voodoo, and a force reboot won’t change permissions. The reason that it’s complaining about the Epson driver is because the receipt for it is wrong. It’s just a cosmetic issue. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/3 "2015-03-05T21:30:55Z")
Use Activity Monitor to see what’s hogging your processor cycles the next time you beachball. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/4 "2015-03-05T23:45:04Z")
Do an fsck. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/5 "2015-03-05T23:50:19Z")
Gracias troopers! What is a fsck? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/6 "2015-03-05T23:55:42Z")
File System Consistency Check. Basically, it’s running Disk Utility -\> Repair Disk. But, I doubt that’s going to fix anything. ---
**Author:** ![TheCuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thecuse/32/2854_2.png) [@TheCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCuse)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/7 "2015-03-06T00:05:41Z")
What OS are you using? What are you Mac Book Pro specs? What applications/programs were you running at the time? As beowulff said—the Epson printer permissions is not a big deal. It’s a file that is in your system preferences (pre-loaded). Have you ever used Onyx? It’s good for running the necessary scripts. Your Mac should usually run a daily script, a weekly script, and a monthly. If your Mac is shut down when those scripts normally run, then they won’t run. I think the daily one does when you boot up. Onyx is a free application and you can manually run those scripts. Have you ever run a disk utility (i.e., TechTool Pro or Drive Genius) on your system? It’s nice to have one of those (they are not that expensive). You can also try to create a new user account and see what happens. If things are okay, then we will know it’s definitely a bad preference file somewhere causing the spinning beachball. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/8 "2015-03-06T00:27:45Z")
Another vote for Onyx. Clearing the font cache usually helps in my case - I open and close a lot of fonts in my job. ---
**Author:** ![andrewm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@andrewm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewm)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/9 "2015-03-06T01:48:22Z")
Just reiterate: the beachball does **not** necessarily imply that the whole system has frozen - it’s really just a “foreground app is not responding” indicator. When it occurs, have you tried switching to a different program, launching Activity Monitor or Console, or force-quitting the foreground app? One possibility on a four-year old machine is that your hard drive is failing. If the machine isn’t completely freezing, identifying messages will probably appear in Console. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-dopers-lend-a-hand-please/714164/10 "2015-03-06T01:58:03Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > I have a four year old Mac Book Pro. When I see the spinning beach ball for extended time (2-3 minutes), I do a restart. Then follow it with a Permission Repair. > > The permission repair is always full of Permissions Repaired "Library/Printers/Epson. Every time. I have never connected a printer to the Mac Book. Why is it always repairing these permissions? My iMac does that too, with those same folders, and I have no problems with it. So whatever the cause, I’m sure it has nothing to do with your problem.