Error-free software: That’s a nice dream, but it is very unlikely that it will ever come true. Hardware can also fail, both due to design flaws and wear and tear or component failure. In the case of computers, bugs of both categories often lead to crashes. Individual apps can be affected by this, but of course the operating system itself as well. Such malfunctions manifest themselves in various ways on the Mac, the most well-known being the appearance of the beach ball. However, the colorful ball that the mouse pointer turns into is just one of four unexpected events that indicate a problem.
Colorful Ball: App has stopped responding, but is still active
The spinning wheel in the colors of the rainbow appears whenever an app stops responding. However, this does not necessarily mean that the application has crashed. The software is often so busy with background tasks that it simply has no time to accept user input or present results to them. This can happen, for example, when large amounts of data have to be processed or when demanding and lengthy calculations have to be carried out. The processing of information for display in the program window can also lead to the beach ball appearing. In many cases, this disappears again after a while and the app continues to work normally. Sometimes, however, the application does not recover, for example because an error has caused it to go into an endless loop. Then you can use the key combination end.
App crash: Sudden end of a program
An app suddenly crashes without any warning, such as the colorful ball. In most cases, this is triggered by a problem that the application cannot fix. This is often due to corrupt data or data that cannot be found, but it can also be due to an error in the code. The cause can sometimes be identified using a macOS crash report, but given the large number of possible reasons, very few Mac users will be able to do this. Sometimes it also happens that macOS itself causes an app to crash, for example when the operating system discovers a defective signature in it. In all these cases, it is advisable to inform the developer so that he can fix the bug.
Mac freezes: If nothing works, only a restart helps
It’s rare, but sometimes it is: macOS freezes completely and no longer responds. As with crashing apps, there can be many reasons for this. Howard Oakley names in a recent blog post about problems related to the operating system’s WindowServer and the GPU, which prevent the display content from being updated. Sometimes the Mac will catch itself after some time and then continue to work normally. However, if it doesn’t respond for a long time, the only thing that helps is a restart. Information about the reasons for the freeze may be found in the macOS log files, but this usually requires good system knowledge.
Kernel Panic: Indication of hardware or firmware errors
Bugs affecting the kernel of macOS cause the operating system to crash immediately. The phenomenon known as “kernel panic” is caused in most cases by a hardware defect, such as faulty RAM modules, or firmware bugs in devices such as Thunderbolt docks and graphics cards. Defective SSDs can also lead to this phenomenon. Occasionally, an error in one of the hundreds of kernel extensions supplied by Apple can cause the operating system core to crash. A “kernel panic” is always logged and stored in a special log file. However, their evaluation is anything but trivial and usually requires the involvement of a specialist.