The rainbow-colored circle is a painful sight to see for Mac users. If you’re lucky it disappears in a few seconds, but more often it remains for minutes, leaving you helplessly locked out of the app or your whole Mac. Since it’s not always clear how to deal with with the wheeling cursor or what caused it in the first place, let’s break it all down. In this article we’ll take a look at what is the spinning beach ball, why and when it shows up, and what you can do about it.
What is a spinning color wheel?
Methods to Solve the Issue of Mouse Scroll Wheel not working in Windows and MAC The article describes the various techniques that can help users get rid of the scroll wheel issues in their mouse using basic troubleshooting. M500s ADVANCED CORDED MOUSE Full-Size mouse with a contoured design, hyper-fast wheel and 7 customizable buttons $ 29.99 Compare Color Collection Wireless Mouse Compact and comfortable mouse for web scrolling $ 29.99. Scroll Wheel Mouse for Mac Top Selected Products and Reviews Logitech MX Master Wireless Mouse – High-precision Sensor, Speed-adaptive Scroll Wheel, Thumb Scroll Wheel, Easy-Switch up to 3 Devices.
Initially, it’s a system indicator. It’s official name is the Spinning Wait Cursor, not so official — the Spinning Beach Ball of Death or SBBOD. The ball signifies that your Mac cannot handle all the tasks given to it at this moment.
Every app on your Mac has a so-called window server. When an app receives more events than it can process, the window server automatically shows you the spinning ball. It usually takes about 4 seconds for the app to decide that it’s non-responsive.
Why does the Mac spinning wheel of death appear?
Well, the reasons are countless. First, it can be a stand-alone issue with a certain app. Second, it could be faulty hardware or insufficient RAM. We’ll go over each possible issue and see how it can be fixed, depending on the cause. Sometimes, the only way out it getting a new Mac, but most of the cases can be fixed with the right software or system commands.
How to stop the spinning ball on Mac?
In case you just need unlock one frozen application, that’s a job for Force Quit.
To fix an application stuck with a spinning cursor right now:
- Click the Apple icon in the top left corner.
- Choose Force Quit (or press cmd+alt+esc).
- Select the app that won’t respond.
- Click Force Quit.
Simply shutting down the process is a brutal way of problem solving and it doesn’t address the issue that caused the freezing. It could have been an accidental glitch in the program, but if it keeps freezing or spreads further to other software and services, you need to look deeper.
What if the application keeps freezing when you open it again?
Reset or reinstall the freezing application. Macs don’t have a proper uninstaller and moving applications to the Trash bin leaves plenty of app leftovers. Some of them could be the reason why the spinning wheel showed up, so if you leave them the issue will stay.
How to reset a Mac app to its default settings or uninstall it
There are two ways to reset apps: one would be to use application’s own preferences or settings and look for reset options there. But in case the app won’t let you do that (because it keeps freezing), you can turn to third-party solutions, like CleanMyMac X for instance. It’s a handy app for Mac maintenance and cleaning with plenty of useful tools, including reset and uninstallation.
- Download CleanMyMac X, an app for Mac maintenance.
- Open it and click on the Uninstaller.
- Select the app you need to reset from the list.
- Click on the small arrow next to the application icon
- Click Applications Reset.
If the beach ball keeps rolling when you use the app again, reinstall it completely by pressing Uninstall instead or Reset. Remember, simply moving the app to the Trash doesn’t do the trick, since its leftover files remain on your hard drive.
Important: if you have a licence for the paid app, makes sure to save the number somewhere.
What if your whole Mac becomes unresponsive?
Possible issue: Overworked processor
One of the reasons for the wheel to show up could be that your Mac is getting old. You can figure out if that’s the case by checking the CPU usage. To check the CPU usage, turn to Activity monitor. Find it in the Applications/Utilities folder or run a Spotlight search. Or, if you have CleanMyMac X, use it’s Menu in the top bar.
The bottom table shows System load in percentage. If it’s way above 50% and remains there for long, especially without any specific reason like games or heavy rendering programs, this might be the signal your processor is the bottleneck.
Fix: If your processor is overworking regularly, only buying a new Mac will fix the problem entirely. Sorry.
Possible issue: Low disk space
You don’t even need to have a full startup disk to see the nasty ball. Just a heavily loaded hard drive, with lots of large files can already cause troubles with loading.
Fix: Hard drive cleanup. Thankfully, that’s an easy task. You can get CleanMyMac X and in free up tons of space in a few minutes. With CleanMyMac you don’t need to dig into folders and look for files you don’t need, the app will find and sort them, plus all the system junk your Mac has been accumulating for months.
Possible issue: Insufficient RAM
Another possible hardware issue is insufficient Random Access Memory. To figure out if you need more RAM, open the Activity Monitor again. It’s in the Applications/Utilities folder. In the Memory tab, you can see Memory pressure table with a graph. If the graph is red and your memory is constantly strained under all the running apps, you’ve found the problem.
Fix: You can upgrade RAM by buying and installing more of it. It’s usually enough to have 8 GB for most tasks and applications, apart from heavy video rendering and the likes. Here’s a detailed guide on how to upgrade RAM on Mac.
That’s about it concerning the spinning beach ball and how to deal with it. We hope this guide has been of help and you’ll stop the spinning wheel of death on your Mac once and for all.
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Sep 07, 2020 • Filed to: Windows Computer Solutions • Proven solutions
You are in the middle of your favorite e-book or a graphic editing project and the scroll wheel on your mouse stops working. Can you imagine the distress that can cause? Work hindrances, concentration hampered, and so on, the consequences are countless. While working, none of us realize how often do we use the scroll wheel on our mouse, but when it stops working, and we have to take the assistance of our navigation buttons, we realize the importance of a functioning scroll wheel. Therefore, to avoid being in such a helpless position, we shall discuss the methodologies for Windows and MAC users that can prove to be useful if the scroll wheel doesn’t work.
![Mouse Mouse](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126461594/963456797.png)
Part 1 What are the symptoms of issues with the Scroll Wheel?
Usually, one or more of the following symptoms are experienced when users face issues with their mouse’s scroll wheel.
- All the button assignments would be reset to their factory settings;
- Users won’t be able to change the button assignments for their pointing device;
- The button assignment commands in the IntelliPoint Software program are unavailable or dimmed for the users;
- As discussed in the section ahead, scrolling varies from application to application, with being painfully slow for some, and shockingly fast for others;
Part 2 How to solve the issue of ‘Mouse Scroll Wheel’ not working in MAC?
To overcome the issue with the scroll wheel within our MAC systems, we use the rub and roll technique as discussed in the following steps:
1)Start by unplugging your mouse from the computer;
2)Follow it up by turning the mouse upside down as shown in the image below;
3)You are now required to rub the scroll wheel repeatedly for a minute or so in every possible direction. This can be done with the help of a dry, fresh, and clean piece of linen. If the issue with the scroll wheel is not resolved even then, follow it up by rubbing with a lightly moistened cloth to remove dirt. We recommend the use of alcohol (you can use methylated spirits). As shown in the image, you can also put the mouse upside-down on a piece of paper and continue to roll the ball over that paper;
4)If you do not have immediate access to linen, you can rub the scroll wheel with your cotton shirt, pants, or even jeans.
5)If the scroll wheel doesn’t work even now, you may have to repeat the above steps before considering replacement options.
Part 3 How to fix the ‘Scroll Wheel’ issue in Windows Operating Systems:
While MAC doesn’t offer many options when it comes to fixing the malfunctioning ‘scroll wheel’, users can try multiple troubleshooting techniques to achieve the same in Windows. In the following section, we take a look at few such methodologies.
![Mouse Wheel For Mac Mouse Wheel For Mac](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126461594/631324326.jpg)
1)Uninstall any Conflicting Mouse Software:
Often, the scroll wheel issue is caused when any software conflicts with the working of the mouse. To uninstall any such software, you can follow the given steps;
1)For the ones using Windows 7 or further variants, access the Programs and Features item within the Control Panel. You are required to uninstall any software that might come with Logitech mouse or touchpad software. Tap the Start button, type ‘appwiz.cpl’ in the Start Search Box, and press Enter.
Mouse Wheel Inverted Mac
2)For the ones who are facing the scroll wheel issue on Windows XP, you have to access the Add or Remove Programs item in the Control Panel. This can be done by tapping the Start button, clicking on Run, typing ‘appwiz.cpl’, and then clicking on Ok.
3)You will be guided by on-screen instructions to uninstall the particular software. Follow them and once you are done, restart the computer.
2)What if the Scroll Wheel Issue is Application Specific?
There is a probability that the issue with your mouse’s scroll wheel could be due to an application. This is because, with the ‘high resolution’ mouse devices, there are still some applications that do not correctly interpret the partial scrolling messages. This can be explained further as when the low-resolution wheels scroll up and down, the mouse driver sends a magnitude of 120 each for the wheel up and wheel down. Now, according to official documentation, a scrolling value of 120 (or -120) indicates a single line of scrolling. Therefore, if your application happens to receive less than a full line, it should either scroll a part of a line (which is usually followed by applications like MS-Office) or else, save up the value until a total value of 120 is reached (which is usually accomplished by applications like Notepad).
Microsoft ensures that most mouse devices offer a smoother scroll experience, which allows the scroll wheel of higher resolution to send 4 times as many scroll events, but with 1/4th of the magnitude. This results in scroll speed being in the same, but smoother.
Therefore, the scrolling issue can arise in different applications, and we recommend our users check for the same before calling for technical support.
Usually, it has been seen that users don’t go in for complicated troubleshooting techniques when it comes to fixing the scroll wheel of a broken mouse. In the above section, we have attempted to list out steps that can help you save money on a mouse replacement. Quite often, the issue with the scroll wheel originates due to an incorrect driver, software program that is not compatible or tends to be application-specific. Therefore, if you were able to reset your mouse using the above techniques, thus getting rid of the issues in your mouse’s scroll wheel, let us know your experience in the forums.
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