On 27/03/2025 08:50, John Hill wrote:
I have become increasingly aware of a phenomenon I've never before encountered
on a Mac. My M4/Sequoia gets exhausted.
This mostly manifests itself in two ways. Firstly. the text cursor disappears.
This makes editing difficult to say the least. Secondly, and rather more irritatingly, TouchID stops working and I am continually having to renter my password.
A restart fixeds it - it comes back refreshed and raring to go. Maybe logging out and in would help just as well, but the M4 is back from a restart in a minute or so so it hardly seems worth it.
I've no idea whether this arises in MacOS (in which I would expect others to have observed it) or in one of the applications I mostly use. These are nearly
all Apple except for GraphicConverter, Inkscape and Reunion. A memory leak somewhere, perhaps? It my, of course, be peculiar to the M4 series of iMac, which are only about six months old.
Hello again, Old John. 🙂
This is what ChatGPT had to say on this matter!
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It does sound like a memory leak or some other system resource issue,
but let’s go through a few things to help "Old John" diagnose it.
Possible Causes:
Memory Leak or App Issue
If it were a macOS-wide issue, more people would be reporting it.
Since the issue happens over time and a restart fixes it, it
could be an application leaking memory or hogging system resources.
GraphicConverter, Inkscape, and Reunion aren’t known for memory leaks, but it’s worth checking.
macOS Bug
If he's on the latest macOS, there could be a software bug.
Checking Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor) when things start slowing down might reveal a process using
excessive CPU or memory.
Touch ID and UI Glitches
The disappearing text cursor and Touch ID failure suggest a system-wide issue, possibly related to macOS UI handling or power
management.
Things to Try:
Check Activity Monitor
When the cursor disappears or Touch ID stops working, open
Activity Monitor and check:
CPU tab: Look for anything using high CPU.
Memory tab: Look for excessive RAM usage.
Energy tab: Any app draining battery/power aggressively?
Try Logging Out Instead of Restarting
If logging out and back in solves it, the issue is likely
related to user-level processes (not macOS itself).
Create a Test User Account
Create a new macOS user account and use it for a while.
If the problem doesn’t happen in the test account, it’s likely something in John’s user settings or installed apps.
Update macOS & Apps
Ensure everything (including macOS and all apps) is fully updated.
Check Console Logs
Open Console (Applications > Utilities > Console) and check for
errors when the issue occurs.
Reset NVRAM & SMC (if applicable)
On an Apple Silicon Mac, just shut down fully and restart
(equivalent to an SMC reset).
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Some food for thought there! ;-)
--
Kind regards,
David
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