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even minimizing the windows of the affected application (although moving the window is still possible in OS X, as well as previously hidden parts of the window which are usually redrawn, even when the application is otherwise unresponsive). While one application is unresponsive, typically other applications are usable. A file system and network delays are another common cause.
467:
is an application that comes with the Mac OS X Developer Tools. Along with its other functions, it allows the user to monitor and sample applications that are either not responding or performing a lengthy operation. Each time an application does not respond and the spinning wait cursor is activated,
411:
The icon is meant to indicate that the application is temporarily unresponsive, a state from which it should recover. It may also indicate that all or part of the application has entered an unrecoverable state or an infinite loop. During this time the user may be prevented from closing, resizing, or
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that receives events from the operating system (for example, key presses and mouse button clicks); and if an application takes longer than 2 seconds to process the events in its event queue (regardless of the cause), the operating system displays the wait cursor whenever the cursor hovers over that
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By default, events (and any actions they initiate) are processed sequentially, intended to limit the trivial amount of processing from each event. The spinning wait cursor will appear until the operation is complete. If the operation takes too long, the application will appear unresponsive.
141:
388:, where it is possible to switch to another application and continue to work there. Individual applications could also choose to display the wait cursor during long operations (and were often able to cancel this display with a keyboard command).
236:
Wait cursors are activated by applications performing lengthy operations. Some versions of the Apple
Installer used an animated "counting hand" cursor. Other applications provided their own theme-appropriate custom cursors, such as a revolving
384:, the wait cursor might indicate that the computer was completely unresponsive to user input, or just indicate that response may temporarily be slower than usual due to disk access. This changed with multitasking operating systems such as
425:
for lengthy processing, allowing the application's main thread to continue responding to external events. However, this greatly increases the application's complexity. Another approach is to divide the work into smaller packets and use
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the spinning wait-cursor's design was updated. It now has less shadowing and has brighter, more solid colors to better match the design of the user interface and the colors also turn with the spinning, not just the texture.
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When color support was added in NeXTStep 2.0, color versions of all icons were added. The wait cursor was updated to reflect the bright rainbow surface of these removable disks, and that icon remained, even when
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With the arrival of Mac OS X, the wait cursor was often called the "spinning beach ball" in the press, presumably by authors not knowing its NeXT history or relating it to the HyperCard wait cursor.
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Instruments can sample the process to determine which code is causing the application to stop responding. With this information, the developer can rewrite code to avoid the cursor being activated.
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288:. Some NeXT computers included an optical drive, which was often slower than a magnetic hard drive. This made it a common reason for the wait cursor to appear.
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253:' tapping fingers. Apple provided the standard interfaces for animating cursors: originally the Cursor Utilities (SpinCursor, RotateCursor) and, in
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or disk read-errors—will cause the wait cursor to appear across multiple applications, until the hard disk and virtual memory system recover.
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Excerpt from “Troubleshooting Mac OS X” book where there are some information on how to deal with
Spinning Wait Cursor problems.
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Apple's guidelines suggest that developers try to avoid invoking the spinning wait cursor, and instead suggest using other
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first popularized animated cursors, including a black-and-white spinning quartered circle resembling a
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Ars
Technica Jaguar review: "The dreading "spinning rainbow disc" has an all new look in Jaguar"
691:"Frozen: How to Force Quit an OS X App Showing a Spinning Beachball of Death – The Mac Observer"
576:"Mini-Tutorial: The dreaded spinning pinwheel; Avoiding unresponsiveness/slow-downs in Mac OS X"
924:
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364:, the entire pinwheel rotates (previously only the overlaying translucent layer moved). With
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233:. The cursors could be advanced by repeated HyperTalk invocations of "set cursor to busy".
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403:, or just performing a lengthy operation and ignoring events. Each application has an
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186:, but it is also known by other names. These include, but are not limited to, the
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225:. The beach-ball cursor was also adopted to indicate running script code in the
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in applications can cause them to stop responding to events; for instance, an
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The two-dimensional appearance was kept essentially unchanged from NeXT to
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Photo of the underside, showing the rainbow effect depicted on the icon
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Applications SPOD if they don't service the event loop for two seconds
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gave the cursor a glossy rounded "gumdrop" look in keeping with other
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began using hard disk drives as primary storage. Contemporary
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was used as the first wait cursor in early versions of the
798:"WWDC 2012 – Session 709 – What's New in the File System"
529:(a then new type of media that was built into the early
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which otherwise had a user interface design resembling
16:
Cursor on macOS indicating that an application is busy
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or a deadlock. Applications afflicted rarely recover.
399:. This could indicate that the application was in an
1089:
1063:
1022:
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950:
887:
377:In single-task operating systems like the original
844:Troubleshooting the "Spinning Beach Ball of Death"
421:Developers may prevent this by using separate
865:
662:"How to Fix a Spinning Wheel of Death on Mac"
308:drives were even slower (at 1x, 150 kbit/s).
8:
604:"macOS Human Interface Guidelines: Pointers"
416:Guidelines, tools and methods for developers
53:Learn how and when to remove these messages
872:
858:
850:
128:Learn how and when to remove this message
110:Learn how and when to remove this message
73:This article includes a list of general
567:
515:
633:"Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball"
720:"Using the Cursor Utilities (IM: Im)"
7:
475:indicators, such as an asynchronous
391:After the transition to Mac OS X (
79:it lacks sufficient corresponding
14:
34:This article has multiple issues.
1081:List of SMTP server return codes
180:macOS Human Interface Guidelines
144:Spinning Wait Cursor as seen in
64:
23:
1076:List of FTP server return codes
768:from the original on 2015-10-03
701:from the original on 2020-03-22
672:from the original on 2020-03-22
643:from the original on 2020-03-22
614:from the original on 2022-06-21
42:or discuss these issues on the
1:
159:and a variation of the mouse
555:not a single bit was changed
199:spinning beach ball of death
284:icon resembling a spinning
273:NeXTStep monochrome (2 bit)
1149:
261:(SetAnimatedThemeCursor).
1107:2024 CrowdStrike incident
1071:List of HTTP status codes
499:Spinning wheel (throbber)
338:. This continued through
265:From NeXT Step to MacOS X
1035:Bad command or file name
741:"SetAnimatedThemeCursor"
504:Pointer (user interface)
408:application's windows.
346:, which introduced the
295:NeXTStep color (12 bit)
195:spinning wheel of death
94:more precise citations.
977:Device and data errors
456:caused by a spun-down
432:Grand Central Dispatch
316:
296:
274:
249:'s spinning tape, and
148:
963:Fatal exception error
840:from Apple's website.
762:"Macworld 2002-04-01"
743:. Developer.apple.com
722:. Developer.apple.com
366:OS X 10.11 El Capitan
340:Mac OS X 10.0/Cheetah
314:
294:
272:
143:
697:. 2 September 2015.
452:system—such as slow
354:Mac OS X 10.2/Jaguar
286:magneto-optical disk
184:spinning wait cursor
171:to indicate that an
1102:Windows wait cursor
1040:Halt and Catch Fire
1030:Abort, Retry, Fail?
951:Application failure
695:www.macobserver.com
608:developer.apple.com
489:Windows wait cursor
348:Aqua user interface
328:Mac OS X Server 1.0
182:refer to it as the
968:Segmentation fault
900:Fatal system error
542:often an external
523:NeXT Optical Discs
477:progress indicator
448:Problems with the
344:Mac OS X 10.1/Puma
317:
297:
275:
259:Appearance Manager
149:
1115:
1114:
1097:Spinning pinwheel
920:Red Ring of Death
915:Linux kernel oops
838:Pointers in macOS
386:System Software 5
315:Mac OS X (24 bit)
153:spinning pinwheel
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130:
120:
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1055:Does not compute
1009:Not a typewriter
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807:. Archived from
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382:operating system
245:'s running dog,
178:Officially, the
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90:this article by
81:inline citations
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1128:Computer errors
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905:Guru Meditation
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584:. 10 March 2005
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494:Spinning cursor
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257:and later, the
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146:OS X El Capitan
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86:Please help to
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1014:PC LOAD LETTER
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881:Error messages
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832:External links
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639:. 2010-05-28.
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473:user interface
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450:virtual memory
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358:OS X interface
336:Platinum theme
302:later machines
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215:classic Mac OS
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1050:Out of memory
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814:on 2023-09-05
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443:infinite loop
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401:infinite loop
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910:Kernel panic
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816:. Retrieved
809:the original
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770:. Retrieved
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745:. Retrieved
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724:. Retrieved
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703:. Retrieved
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645:. Retrieved
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616:. Retrieved
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586:. Retrieved
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419:
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373:System usage
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278:NeXTStep 1.0
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152:
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78:
50:
43:
37:
36:Please help
33:
1004:lp0 on fire
465:Instruments
405:event queue
397:application
231:AppleScript
173:application
92:introducing
1122:Categories
818:2018-05-23
772:2015-10-02
747:2010-04-30
726:2010-04-30
705:2020-03-22
676:2020-03-22
647:2020-03-22
618:2018-01-24
563:References
531:NeXT Cubes
362:OS X 10.10
282:monochrome
247:Retrospect
223:beach ball
217:. Apple's
211:wristwatch
197:, and the
190:beach ball
75:references
39:improve it
895:Bomb icon
458:hard disk
428:NSRunLoop
379:Macintosh
251:Pro Tools
227:HyperTalk
219:HyperCard
188:spinning
175:is busy.
100:June 2016
45:talk page
1045:HTTP 418
999:HTTP 500
994:HTTP 404
989:HTTP 403
984:HTTP 402
766:Archived
699:Archived
670:Archived
641:Archived
637:Macworld
612:Archived
483:See also
332:Mac OS 8
324:Rhapsody
255:Mac OS 8
241:symbol,
239:Yin Yang
163:used in
157:throbber
1090:Related
925:Sad Mac
588:16 July
544:AppleCD
423:threads
350:theme.
280:used a
205:History
161:pointer
88:improve
666:MacPaw
454:paging
306:CD-ROM
229:-like
193:, the
77:, but
1133:MacOS
1064:Lists
1023:Other
958:ABEND
940:Black
812:(PDF)
805:Apple
801:(PDF)
510:Notes
393:macOS
243:Fetch
169:macOS
165:Apple
935:Blue
590:2012
581:CNet
439:Bugs
342:and
151:The
430:or
167:'s
1124::
821:.
803:.
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664:.
635:.
610:.
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533:.)
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209:A
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679:.
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125:(
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107:(
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98:(
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51:(
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
