7 Must Know Mac Troubleshooting Tips

Many people turn to Mac computers because they are fairly easy to use and rarely get viruses. However, these devices aren’t perfect.

Thankfully, when problems do arrive, they are more often than not easy to fix. And by learning about the top Mac troubleshooting tips, any Mac user should be able to use their computer without worry.

So what are these top tips? We’re glad you asked. Keep on reading and we will take you through everything that you will want to know.

1. Clearing the PRAM

This is a great troubleshooting tip for when you are experiencing boot problems, such as halted startup or the computer is slow to start.

PRAM is considered to be non-volatile memory and is used by Mac computers in order to save configuration data. However, certain changes might stay stagnant in residual memory. And this can lead to strange behavior from your computer.

In order to troubleshoot this, you want to first turn your computer off. Then, turn the device back on while holding down the [command]+[option]+[P]+[R] keys all at the same time.

You should hear the Apple chime before your computer starts up. Keep on holding the keys down until you hear that second Apple chime to clear the PRAM.

2. Disable Extensions on Boot

If your Mac computer isn’t starting up to the desktop, then you should try this troubleshooting suggestion. This problem can take place when the extensions stop your computer from starting up. It is usually because an app that was installed is failing.

The way that you can fix this issue is to restart your device while you hold down the shift key. Keep on holding the shift key down to turn off the extensions and login items from loading during the starting process.

From a desktop with extensions turned off, “safe mode”  is going to let you delete the problematic application and start-up normally.

3. Boot Menu

You should use this method if you can’t start up the computer with an optical drive or external media.

You need to restart the device while you hold the option key down. The startup process is going to stop and bring the menu selection up that lists all of the devices that are connected to the computer that are bootable.

You want to select the desired device and click the enter key.

4. Recovery Partition

If your computer isn’t consistently starting up, then we have the solution for you. You want to turn on your device while holding down the R and Command keys. This command is going to direct the startup process to target the recovery partition.

5. Target Disk Mode

If you need to transfer data from an old Mac computer to a new one, you might run into some issues. You can use a Thunderbolt or FireWire cable to connect one to the Mac that needs to be recovered with the new Mac.

Turn on your old Mac while you hold down the T key. The startup process will open Target Disk Mode and will load the data of the hard drive as an external drive on your old Mac.

From that point, you just need to copy the files that need to be recovered on the new Mac.

6. Blue Screen at Startup

If you notice that the startup screen is blue, or you see the spinning beachball icon, that that could mean that there’s an issue with a startup item or your Mac software.

You will have to start your computer in “safe mode.” You’ll then have to add your user name and password. If that doesn’t work, you might want to check your login items.

If your computer won’t start up in “safe mode” then you might have to repair your disk permissions or your startup disk using Disk Utility.

7. Mac Won’t Shut Down

One of the most common macOS Catalina problems is that the computer won’t shut down. If your computer won’t shut down because it is still closing apps, then you should be patient and wait a reasonable amount of time.

However, there might be a problem with an application and that’s preventing your computer from closing down. Check out the Dock and see if there’s an app bouncing around. That would indicate that this application needs your attention.

You might want to force quit if something is causing the problem. Make sure that you save anything that you can before you force quit an app. Otherwise, you’ll likely lose whatever data you did not manually save.

It’s important to point out that when you restart your device, it might ask you if you want to reopen all of the applications that you had open before the shutdown. It’s a good idea to decline the offer. This is because something that you had open might cause the same problems if you just open it again.

The Importance of Knowing These Mac Troubleshooting Tips

Hopefully, after reading the above article you now have a better idea of what the top Mac troubleshooting tips are. As we can see, Macs might experience some problems from time to time. But that doesn’t mean that if your computer starts to act strange, that there is nothing you can do about it.

By knowing these Mac troubleshooting tips, you’ll be able to stop problems before they become serious.

Are you looking for other helpful articles like this one? If so, then make sure to check out the rest of our site today for more!