Anyone else finding that Tahoe 26 freezes up every few minutes?

I had the same issue with my Mac Mini M2 Pro freezing and just being totally unusable. I contacted Apple Support several times with no resolution other than my device is new enough that it is supported for Tahoe OS26. I called them back today and demanded that they help me roll back my OS to Sequoia. At first they tried to tell me that I couldn’t roll it back. Thet told me it would reinstall OS 26. This was not true! When when through the steps it offered me to install Sequoia and that’s what I did. The blazing fast performance has been restored to my Mini and it is functional again. I recommend trying Tahoe only in virtualized environment until they release the stable RC. Otherwise it is just too unstable for everyday use

No issues here (M4 Pro MBP).

If you haven't, shut down the Mac (Apple menu, NOT just a restart) then start it back up.

If still happening, see if the problem is present when you boot in safe mode, which disables 3rd party extensions and performs some system cleanup.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

If not, then it suggests an extension conflict. Check System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions for likely culprits, or try process or elimination.

This "System Settings — Spotlight — Search Privacy — add your hard drive. Come out of settings, close it, restart, back into settings and remove hard drive. This forces indexing to stop and restart." fixed it for me.

Thanks a lot!

I had exactly the same problem, and it got progressively worse until the Mac unusable. There was a kernel task running in the background that would frequently spike the CPU causing the glitches. The Mac is less than 3 months old, has 32gb ram and a 10

core CPU, but just running finder and nothing else was causing CPU spikes! After 4 calls to AppleCare, they grudgingly agreed that rolling it back to sequoia would be the best option (which was a bit of an arduous process). It seems to have returned to its former self now but I lost pretty much a full day of work sorting it.

I have a solution🎉!!

My M3 Pro MBP was freezing every two minutes, ish since Tahoe. Phone to Apple support for an hour didn't really solve anything, so I tinkered about. This is what I did — something worked because it doesn't happen any more — I did it all pretty fast so I'm unsure which step exactly worked, but this works...

System Settings — Spotlight — Search Privacy — add your hard drive. Come out of settings, close it, restart, back into settings and remove hard drive. This forces indexing to stop and restart.

Delete everything from user/library/cache and Mac/library/cache

disk utility - hard drive - data - delete all Time Machine snapshots

delete start up items and processes that aren't used

That's it.

I suspect the answer is step 1, so do that and restart, and see how you go. I think the best thing, is when there is a full system update, to erase the Mac and start from scratch. Updates never seem to work 100%.

Don't delete anything if it'll affect what you do. With me, it didn't, but it was a risk. Step 1 doesn't involve deleting anything.

I wanted to share my experience. I started having this annoying issue randomly, much later after the OS update to Tahoe, and also happened spot with Sequoia as well. So I suppose it is not strictly Tahoe related.

However, I have resolved (or so it seems) by excluding the ~/Library/Caches/ from Spotlight privacy configuration in the Preferences panel.

Only one thing solved this for me, and it was the brute force method.

I had to wipe my drive (had 2 boot backups and a time machine so didn't stress), rebuild from my time machine backup, reinstall the original OS, create a new user ID (only temporarily), then upgrade to Tahoe and THEN use migration assistant to rebuild.

not one single freeze since. I did this on the advice of Apple technicians. It was onerous, but I picked a time when I wouldn't be using the computer anyway.

dhp317 wrote:

Thanks for your appropriate suggestions. I should have mentioned that I have done that. If anything, the freezing up was more frequent in safe mode. I think I will roll back to Sequoia and hope something gets patched.

Safeboot is more trouble shooting and not meant to run smoothly— just to differentiate issue than what got you here, and remove system cache files. Its going to be choppy yes.

" system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily"

the etrecheck as suggested may reveal something or reinstall the macOS on top of your existing macOS to resolve major upgrade issue How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support Aoole makes this part easy

no issue like yours on a 2019 Intel MPB 16" macOS 26

I turned off Apple Intelligence and Spotlight. That helped. I particularly disliked being served up a distillation of any webpage I called up! As to the Mail hangs, I think it may be a cache issue. Every couple of days - and I’m not shilling here - I run CleanMyMac. Everything then runs smoothly for a while. But Tahoe really is a dog.

My reason for problems in Tahoe was LittleSnitch, an update solved the freeze and losing Network connectivity.

Before you jump off that cliff, download etrecheck and post the report it generates here.

https://etrecheck.com/en/index.html

It may help us identify what's bogging your system down. There' may very well be extensions or software installed that are causing problems with Tahoe.

Probably easier to troubleshoot this than to nuke it and re-install.

I have a Mac Mini 2023 M2 Pro 32 GB. Installed 26.0.1 a couple weeks ago, and had several hard freezes since. Also freezes when asleep - used to go weeks if not months between reboots, but not with 26! Also, the UI is very jerky, window movement random, and I’ve lost connection to the touchpad a few times. This Mini has run buttery smooth and fast since the day I got it, until 26.0.1. Guess it’s time to call Apple and back out to Sequoia. Rather, I suppose it’s a reinstall of Sequoia.

Does anyone have a pointer or link to the backout process? Or do I have to call Apple? TIA.

P.S. I’ll try some of the hacks/workarounds mentioned (thanks!), but I don’t have high hopes.

I have a mac mini m4 processor. Tahoe freezes up often have to force quit good chrome of all things, Mail and Messages same things. They work for a little while then just freeze. Thinking of rolling back the upgrade.

I'm also running it on an M4 Pro Mini. Not a single issue as you describe. Also, no issues on an M2 MacBook Pro. I suspect it is some incompatible system modification. Etrecheck can show you what you have installed.

I also have the same issue MacBook Pro M4 Max freezing up for a couple of seconds on every few minutes and this started after upgrading to 26.0 and 26.0.1 didn't fixed the issue either. I hope they will release the bug fix update soon.

peterhamm wrote:

I've never experienced this in a MacOS upgrade, and they do get to test these things, so yes... It is, in a very real sense, their fault that 1. This happens and that 2. I virtually can't find the source of the problem without investing in a third party app.

Just to be clear, the way developing operating systems work is, not just for macOS but Windows and Linux as well.

Apple develops a new version of macOS. They make it available for third-party developers to test months before it is released. The first developer release of Tahoe was June 6th. Apple does not test the OS against the tens of thousands of third-party apps that are available, possibly hundreds of thousands. It is up to third-party developers to make sure their apps are compatible with the latest version of macOS.

It is up to users to make sure the software they have installed and use is compatible before they install a new version of an operating system. In the case of Apple, it is literally impossible to test every machine and configuration a user may have. So no, it's not Apple's fault.

As far as finding your particular problem, first you need to test in Safe Mode because that limits what third-party software you may have installed when you start your Mac.

Hopefully that clarifies the issue.