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XprotectService's massive data reading slowing my computer down - Help please

XprotectService is currently insisting on reading many GB of data every bootup, which slows down the responsiveness of my computer. It gets even less responsive once the data read gets into the teens of GB. And I don’t think it's near done then, because the last time this happened, it went over 30 GB at one point. I have no idea what made it clear up last time.


Does anyone know what could cause this and/or how I can fix it?



Some info:


I am running Catalina OS. (Though I may have been running Mojave last time, not sure.)


I have tried booting into Safe Mode and it happens there, too.


I am using a secondary, non-admin account, though I have access to the admin account if needed.


I normally leave the computer on and restart daily, but I've shut it down twice today, and we had a power outage 2 days ago (luckily I think it was just on the user login screen at the time, unless it wasn't finished booting up. But the problem seems to have started today.)

Posted on Oct 16, 2024 7:22 AM

Reply
5 replies

Oct 16, 2024 7:59 PM in response to RYz

Boot into Restore mode,CMD+r keys...


Look at top of screen for Utilities menu...


In Disk Utility>View, select Show all Devices, highlight the top left entry.


Run Disk First Aid on all items in the left panel, from top down.


Are you running any VPN, Anti-Virus, or Cleaning apps?


We need to see what all is running, a report from this will not display any personal info...

Using EtreCheck - Apple Community


EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info. Give it Full Disk Access.

https://www.etrecheck.com/


Give etrecheck Full Disk Access before running.


Thanks for Old Toad’s etrecheck instructions…

Slow iMac 2017 - Apple Community


You can use Drive DX to possibly get a better view of Drive health…

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx

Oct 22, 2024 12:35 PM in response to RYz

RYz wrote:

I haven’t done that Restore -> First Aid thing yet, partly because I expect it will show all my partitions. I have 4 partitions with a different version of Mac OS on each one, Catalina being the most recent. Should I really be scanning all of them with Catalina’s version of First Aid?

Yes, it is safe to run First Aid on all the other partitions/Containers for the other installed macOS operating systems. The only time it is not safe is when the OS which created the file system is newer than the OS you wish to use repair the file system.


You will want to run First Aid on the hidden Container(s) which will automatically scan all other APFS volumes within that Container. You definitely want to do this for the Catalina Container since you are having issues Catalina itself. However, Catalina can see & access the volumes/Containers for the other installed macOS operating systems so scanning them should also be done.


Even if First Aid says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll back through the report to see if any unfixed errors exist. If there are errors, then run First Aid again until the errors are gone. If the errors remain after several scans, then those errors probably cannot be repaired.


Drive DX says pretty much everything’s 100%. There are 2 warnings plus the Reallocated Sector Count says failing, though? I’m not sure what to make of that combination.

Post the complete DriveDx text report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper on the forum editing toolbar. "Warning" & "Failing" conditions listed by DriveDx differ on how they should be interpreted depending on whether the drive is a hard drive or an SSD. If they exist for a hard drive, then it means the hard drive is worn out & failing respectively and should be replaced. But for an SSD, they don't necessarily have the same meaning since SSDs behave differently than a hard drive....an SSD's health report needs to manually interpreted.


More than likely the warnings DriveDx is showing is why the system is not performing well if it uses a hard drive (perhaps even if it is an SSD).

Oct 23, 2024 9:07 AM in response to BDAqua

  • "Reallocated Sector Count says failing


Just about the worst error you could have, druve is failing, get everything backed up asap.:)"



Yikes, I was sure that was a minor one. Will do. Thanks!


And thanks HWTech too, I will get on that!


Especially now that I've had a weird graphical error with the screen blinking into the look of a Activity Monitor CPU History Core (all black with red and green squares at the bottom.) That was during times of high activity on a high-graphics use program.



Oct 22, 2024 10:05 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks. (Delayed by sickness, sorry)


It seems to have cleared up after reading probably enough gigs to equal the entire partition I’m using. But it may be back as it happened once before this.


I haven’t done that Restore -> First Aid thing yet, partly because I expect it will show all my partitions. I have 4 partitions with a different version of Mac OS on each one, Catalina being the most recent. Should I really be scanning all of them with Catalina’s version of First Aid?


Drive DX says pretty much everything’s 100%. There are 2 warnings plus the Reallocated Sector Count says failing, though? I’m not sure what to make of that combination.


Oh, I'm not using any VPNs, or Cleaning or AntiVirus apps other than what came with the system.

XprotectService's massive data reading slowing my computer down - Help please

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