When an app on your Mac needs extra time to complete a task and becomes unresponsive while doing so, a rainbow-colored spinning wheel will show. Every app on your Mac has a window server, a system process that facilitates communication between an app and your screen. A window server will display the rainbow spinning wheel when an application goes into a non-responsive state, which takes about 4 seconds after it encounters a task it can’t immediately finish. For Mac users, the rainbow-colored circle is an unpleasant sight. If you’re fortunate, it goes away quickly, but more frequently, it stays for minutes, locking you helplessly out of the program or your entire Mac.
SPINNING COLOUR WHEEL
It serves as a system indicator at first. The Spinning Wait Cursor is its official name; its less official moniker is the Spinning Beach Ball of Death, or SBBOD. The ball denotes that your Mac is now unable to handle all of the duties that have been assigned to it.
Every application on your Mac has a “window server.” The spinning ball is automatically displayed by the window server when an app receives more events than it can handle. The app typically takes 4 seconds to determine that it is not responding.
Why does the Mac spinning wheel of death appear?
First, there can be a problem with a certain app on its own. Second, there’s a chance that the hardware or RAM is flawed. We’ll go over each potential problem and examine its various solutions. Although purchasing a new Mac may be the only option in some situations, the majority of issues may be resolved with the proper software or system instructions.
What to do if the spinning wheel appears?
The best approach to stop the spinning wheel is to simply wait it out, but there are a few other methods you may try if it persists or keeps popping up.
In order to fix an application with a spinning cursor:
- In the top left corner, click the Apple icon.
- Select Force Quit (or press Command-Alt-Esc).
- Choose the app that is unresponsive.
- Hit Force Quit.
Simply stopping the process is a harsh solution that doesn’t deal with the problem that produced the freezing. It might have been a mistake in the program, but if it persists or spreads to other programs and services, you need to investigate further.
Reinstall or reset the frozen program. Application remnants are common when moving programs to the Trash since Macs lack a good uninstaller. If you ignore some of these, the problem will persist because they may have contributed to the appearance of the spinning wheel.
If the wheel appeared then vanished fast, your Mac was only momentarily overwhelmed. In these circumstances, you can typically continue working as usual. However, if you’re concerned, close all open windows, tabs, and applications.
You can force your Mac to shut down if it has become completely frozen. Holding down the power button for around 10 seconds, pressing Control + Option + Command + Power, or pressing Control + Option + Command + Eject at the same time will force the computer to shut down.
