It is rare but your Mac can freeze and become unresponsive. While the macOS Mojave update brings a lot of great features, users are reporting number of issues, such as the battery drain problem. One other problem that’s affecting many Mac users is the entire computer freezing when attempting to login. Are you having freezing issues too during or after login. Is your Mac unresponsive and misbehaving? This article explains what you can do to fix this problem. These tips may help you resolve your issue.
Try backing up your Mac before trying the tips below.
- If your Mac freezes after you login, some single app may be causing the problem. Simply press the Command+Option+Escape keys together (or click Force Quit from the Apple menu). Force Quit Applications menu will appear. Select the unresponsive app or apps and then click Force Quit.
- Start up your Mac in safe mode. This is one of the most common steps when troubleshooting your Mac. If your Mac is not starting normally, safe mode is the next step you should try to troubleshoot. To start your Mac in safe mode, follow the instructions below:
- Turn off your Mac
- Turn on your computer and immediately after (immediately after you hear the start up sound) the computer is powered on, press and hold the Shift key.
- Release the Shift key when you see the login screen
- If your computer does not freeze in safe mode, restart your Mac normally, without pressing the Shift key.
- If safe mode does not help you, you may try macOS recovery. Here is how:
- Turn off your Mac
- Turn on your Mac and immediately after press and hold the Command – R keys together. Keep holding the keys until you see the Apple logo. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo.
- You will see the macOS utilities window
- Select Disk Utility and click Continue
- Select View > Show All Devices
- Select your start up disk
- Then click the First Aid button and then click Run
- Then restart your Mac normally by choosing Restart from the Apple meu.
- If you are still having your problem, reinstall macOS. Here is how:
- Turn off your Mac
- Turn on your Mac and immediately after press and hold the Command and R keys together until you see the Apple logo.
- macOS Utilities window will appear
- Select Reinstall macOS and follow the instructions.
See also: Mac White Screen
ROBERT PATRICK HARTLE says
November 26, 2018 at 9:39 pmOh stop it people! I’ve been using Mohave since the day released including on an OLD MacBook Pro Mid 2012. I use all current versions of software on this OLD MacBOOK Pro including Adobe CC 2018 with no issues. I have it maxed out with 16GB ram and a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. Stop your whining and get some work done… more fake news. The System Freezes are probably people having 10 Porn Sites open at once. Get your hands out of pants and your Mac will work better!
Hawk says
December 13, 2018 at 4:26 amshut the fuck up man, you don’t know jack! so many people report this to apple! try not to talk, breath instead its really good for your brain! it helps your brain to shut the fuck up! fuck face.
Don Richards says
April 2, 2019 at 3:05 pmWow, maybe try a more constructive response next time. Although his response is clearly naive and completely off, your response is only making it difficult to help.
Melanie Cooper says
December 27, 2018 at 6:47 pmDo some real work and see what happens.
Clay says
March 2, 2019 at 3:48 pmRobert, glad to hear you’re not experiencing problems but many are, including me. I’m an Apple fan and have used MacBooks and iMacs for 15 years. Have never encountered any serious problems with any Apple OS prior to Mojave.
Apple has yet to certify a GPU driver from Nvidia which is causing hangs and poor performance with some MacBooks like mine from 2014-2015. My MacBook Pro hangs and freezes at least 5x a day.
As an aside, many in design communities are also scratching their heads with Apple’s decision to remove Cover Flow from Finder view. Cover Flow was the best way to view thousands of large image files including RAW formats. Not a show stopper, but frustrating on top of performance issues I’ve never experienced from Apple.
Don Richards says
April 2, 2019 at 3:13 pmRobert, I also have maxed my system out but with 64GB (not 16GB) ram and a 1TB Aura Pro X SSD and also am experiencing unusual stuttering. My system is in a university enterprise environment running several applications that push both the CPU and GPU, not something lightweight like Photoshop. As far as the nature of the sites I have loaded, stuff like stack overflow, localhost, and some Google docs. Not really what you were describing. I would suggest in the future not to be so dismissive. You use of a computer is only one of many ways to run a system. For some of us, we use our systems at capacity for over 8 hours a day, not just when we click “export” in PS.
blastar says
November 29, 2018 at 12:55 pmWhat a bullshit, Xcode is enough to make it freezing on MBP 2015
Agris says
December 24, 2018 at 2:15 pmAll was fine for 3 years using mac, now it freezes alos every day and helps only hard turn off and then on, looks like safari is the reasnon, but not shure
Rnd says
December 25, 2018 at 3:14 pmSame here. Leaveing idle for a few hours and when I back, just beachball. On force quit, application window stays on screen. Cannot quit, cannot start anything. Only power of helps. MBP 2016 TB
Mike says
January 11, 2019 at 7:26 pmexact same thing happening here. hours later, spinning beachball on certain apps. Try to open activity monitor, and it never opens. Every app I try to open not responding.
I happen to have had Activity Monitor already open just now and was able to see that coreservicesuiagent was not responding… along with chrome and dropbox… then I tried to open another another program and that quickly turned to (not responding) as well.
Also, same as above, force quitting app leaves the application window on the screen.
Kino no Tabi says
March 9, 2019 at 12:09 pmI thought I’m the only one but I’m experiencing the exact problem as yours Mike
Rosie says
May 11, 2019 at 1:44 pmI am having the same problems on my new 2019 iMac (3 weeks in from delivery). I never had the same problems on my last iMac which was running High Sierra. This one quits while mid application, then nothing else responds. I can Force Quit using the Command + Option + Shift + Esc key, but then it goes back to Finder window which is also unresponsive, and requires a hard shutdown and then me restarting it again. Does this at least 5 – 6 times a day. This Mac has been pimped up with all highest specs. I would have thought for almost eight and a half thousand dollars I would have got a better machine than this.
Pablo says
December 30, 2018 at 12:07 pmThe same with me.
I run Mojave on MacBook Pro 2018 13″.
Last few days I was editing video on iMovie a lot (not a porn movies :D) and it crashes even 4-5 times a day. Eventually it crashed my project in iMovie – all the clips where disconnected from the source and I had to spent 8h to get this project to the same point when it crashed.
Also leaving Macbook for a night to sync timemachine with NAS server (all apps are closed) fails. After few hours my Macbook is turned off. Each time it hangs it turns off after few minutes.
Apple – work on it.
Rod says
January 16, 2019 at 3:27 amHave all these problems on my iMac, I have done all of the above…same non responsive OS utilities. So what is the fix?
Adrian S says
January 15, 2019 at 3:09 pmI have just updated to Mojave WISHED I hadn’t runs out of memory all the time imovie hangs both browsers are inoperable updated pages can’t cope with it found a memory leak while using audacity with it open more than one youtube tab and it freaks out mail is impossible to accessing under about 10 mins. For me and I can only speak personally it has been a complete disaster. It seems to me that beta testing is only done on the most up to date machines NO TEST at all in my opinion. This machine now operates like oh I don’t know Windows Vista or worse. All those bright sparks at Apple have totally lost the plot. Apple used to be so much better than this. I guess they took on unemployed Microsoft engineers and we are ALL paying the price
david bare says
January 17, 2019 at 5:03 pmthat fucking beachball is a pain in the arse i have tried to sort it out seversl times but it is still fucking me up my last effort will be to reinstsll macos mojave if thst does nlt sork i eill go bsck to pcs and necver use a apple mac again
Paul says
January 28, 2019 at 6:00 pmMy thanks to Macreports for their great Mojave freeze fix suggestions. I tried the first step and Safe Mode seemed to be problem free, so rebooted and freezing seems cured (so far). My 2012 MacBook back on form now, apart from the boot cycle which is still twice as long as its original zippy, straight-out-of-the-box, performance.
Cynde says
February 8, 2019 at 12:48 amLate 2015 imac freezes all the time right after installing Mojave. Never happened in High Sierra. Did all the “fixes” before I even read this, including a clean install. NOT FIXED and Apple doesn’t know what else to tell me. Nice. Not.
Angry mole says
February 22, 2019 at 9:10 amMojave crashed my mid 2012 macbook pro. No fixes, third weekend in a row I’ve fucking wasted trying to fix the fucking thing. Deadlines fast approaching and I haven’t been able to work… cheers assholes.
Beau says
March 15, 2019 at 3:46 amI’m about to Throw my iMac in the bin!
I’m over the constant unresponsive apps & finder it’s doing my head in I’ve tried uninstalling Apps freeing up Ram,Removing old files you nam it I’ve tried whatever I can to Stop this Crap from continually wasting my time with it bullshit freezing.
Since I purchase my iMac it’s been a constant struggle I thought making the move from my MacBook Pro to a desktop iMac would make life so much easier but It’s been the complete opposite, I’ve wasted too much time now trying to get things done I’m at my wits end.
Soooo Over it.
I really want to smash it That’s how fed up I am!
Sue says
April 15, 2019 at 3:04 pmSame … so much wasted time.
Have started using work Dell laptop – so fast and never freezes. So so unhappy with IMac
Rosie says
May 11, 2019 at 1:49 pmI agree. People – DON’T upgrade to the latest (2019) iMac – the same thing is happening, and yet Apple can’t seem to work out any kind of fix for it. I’ve wasted just under eight and a half grand on a complete lemon. Buy any kind of PC and save your money. Mac’s have gone down the gurgles quality-wise since Steve Jobs left us,
Paul Lanyi Jr. says
May 8, 2019 at 1:05 amI just downloaded Mojave a couple days ago. Wish I had read All your comments first. Been nothing but rainbow wheels and screen freezes on my 2013 21 inch. In addition, my older 2009 24″ will not boot up. WTF ? I had been using the Yosemite OS. I Am Not Happy. And Fck That iTunes Disclaimer. Mr. Cook . . You ‘Know’ What You Can Do With That OS ! : >)