MacBook Pro Late 2016 periodically freezes for ~20sec

A few times a day my MBP (Running Mojave 10.14.6) freezes nothing works - then, after about 15-20 seconds it goes back to operating and any clicks done take effect. Anyone else experiencing this? Any quick checks before I start deleting apps and going through a long process? The only really new thing I added was the Microsoft Browser Edge - but I haven’t enough correlation to think it is causing the problem. Thank you in advance. David

Some ideas for troubleshooting:

Check with Activity Monitor during the freeze? Check afterwards to see if any app is unexpectedly hogging memory. Open the console and look for suspicious entries just before and during the freeze.

Alan,
Thank you.
I have the Activity Monitor on but when the mac freezes, so does the monitor. Nothing changes. I’ll check to see if I can spot anything hogging when it comes back. I hadn’t thought about Console. Thank you.

David

Had a similar problem with my 13" MBP running Mojave. It ended up being quite strange, so probably doesn’t apply to you, but just in case…

I noticed that the problem only occurred at my office, never at my home. When it was happening (which was not every day), it would happen every few minutes throughout the day and was a serious impediment to work (though the freezes seemed to only last 4-5 seconds, so somewhat shorter than yours). I learned nothing from Activity Monitor or logs. Re-starting (even after a full power off) did not make a difference. Several software updates failed to resolve it. I did not find anybody else reporting similar problems.

I did suspect a network issue, since that was the only real difference between the two environments, but turning Wi-Fi off and on again made no difference. However, switching to a different network (I had both 2.4 GHz and 5GHz networks available) often would make the problem go away for that day but it would soon come back regardless of which network I was using.

Finally I discovered that deleting the network from the “Preferred Networks” list (System Preferences… > Advanced) and re-adding it would fix the problem for at least a few weeks, effectively reducing it to a non-issue.

I have since changed machines to a 16" MBP (running Catalina) which hasn’t had the problem. Hope this helps someone…

–Ron

No solution. Same problem. Mojave latest. Touchbar MBP. No Microsoft Edge. Seems to have arisen in the last few months only. Thought it might be an operating system thing, so haven’t tried to fix it.

I experienced that problem too on my 2013 13" MBP on Mojave. I never figured it out, always suspected something related to i/o, probably network, but my wifi at home is usually stable and fast (reliable Gigabit fiber on LAN side), and I had no other problems with other devices. Then my 2020 13" MBP arrived with Catalina and I have never seen that problem since. One issue that Catalina might have indeed solved.

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Right now, I’m running with Safari off and haven’t had the problem.

Will have to spend a day with a different browser, but I just felt that might be a contributing factor. The reason is that Safari has frozen on its own without the entire computer freezing and I’ve force quit it and most times (I think) Safari has been on when the computer froze.

Will let you all know how that goes.

David

If you have Dropbox installed, make sure it is up to date.

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Thank you re: Dropbox. I deleted Dropbox and haven’t had the problem. Don’t know if there was interference with Safari and Dropbox but Safari hasn’t frozen up either.

I think I had the latest version of Dropbox.

Many thanks!

David

Another option might be Hazel, LaunchBar, and/or Default Folder X if you have favorites or rules that refer to a not always connected network volume…although I’ve not seen the problem with Hazel specifically both of the others can temporarily seize up the UI while they’re looking.

I’m still looking for a way to keep network volumes mounted under Catalina…they stayed mounted pretty well under earlier versions but with Catalina they disappear a lot more on sleep than in the older OS versions.

Well -
Safari still freezes - but not the computer. Dropbox not reinstalled.
I can force quit safari - but it happens often so is a pain.
David

My son experienced a similar problem with his MBP under Mojave.
In the end the solution was to move up to Catalina via a clean install. Afterwards he restored from iCloud, some selected files from the clone, I – of course – made him do beforehand. Installing of programs from scratch (keep those code handy!)

Everything is better and as it should be now.

Background: he inherited my 13’’ MBP which in turn was the sibling of a long line of Mbps and so over time probably inherited a huge amount of files in its libraries… weaning that out manually was never an option.

Greetings, Rolf

Rolf,
Thank you.
That was the direction I was heading. Just hadn’t liked the probs I’ve been hearing about with the Catalina mail.

david

I’m having some similar experiences and once I saw the over-large cursor that you get when you’ve allowed Apple CS to share your computer!! Could it be summat on Apple’s servers trying to connect again and failing BUT like any “good” robot it keeps trying???

I have the same issue with Safari freezing (especially in Scribd.com) on my MacPro 2010 running Mojave. I can fix the Safari freeze by hitting ⌘-Tab twice, to swap out of Safari and right back again, and then the browser immediately responds by executing what I clicked on. This sounds like an issue with Safari, networking, and Mojave.

I had precisely the same issue with my MacBook Pro 15" Retina, also running Mojave 10.14.6. It would just freeze completely. No keys would work—so force quitting an app, or a forced reboot, or opening Activity Monitor or Console were out of the question, since NOTHING functioned. Then after 20, maybe 30, seconds it would come back to life and, as you say, process all the keyboard actions I’d been trying since it froze.

It’s difficult to believe it’s a network, or Dropbox problem. Would that really lock everything out?

Anyway, it hasn’t happened for a couple of weeks. If it starts happening again I’ll try not running Safari—though this will be hard given that I live in my browser, and no other is set up with the extensions, etc, that I use in Safari.

I wish I could provide some insight. Sorry!

When I first noticed this to be a problem, I also stumbled on this page.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/05/22/macos-10-15-slow-by-design/

Whether the posters there are referring to the same thing as I was experiencing, I don’t know. Because I didn’t research further.