Issue
Performance and syncing issues on 2019 iMac. It was slow to start up and login, its calendars were not syncing properly, applications were not loading.
Environment
Managed macOS desktop with the operating system and applications fully up to date.
Description
The customer messaged the technician over Teams about their desktop since it has not been behaving normally (parentheses added for clarification or emphasis):
From the customer:
- I came to work at 8:30 a.m. today. I still haven't been able to use my desktop. All manner of not-fun-things: applications not loading and needing to be force quit, calendars not syncing — reboot #3 fixed that — all things just moving sooooo slow. At one point, the wireless mouse wouldn't work.
- I think I've rebooted the machine four to five times already.
- It looks like the device has a Fusion drive (combination of a traditional disk drive and solid-state hard drive), but I plan on taking a closer look this afternoon and will potentially find a temporary replacement while we work on this.
Resolution
- The iMac was backed up via Time Machine.
- It was then removed from the UO-managed environment and all software was deleted in order to commence reinstalling all software using the Time Machine backup.
- Upon re-imaging and restoring the iMac back into the UO managed environment, the computer the performance issues improved.
- It also appeared to fix the calendar sync issues after the device had enough time to repopulate Apple Mail.
- Afterward, although the performance was not perfect, the re-imaging approach improved it greatly.