MacOS Big Sur Lagging

I have a MacBook Pro 2018 with 32 GB of memory and now it is slower than every other device in my house. This started right after I upgraded to Big Sur.

Safari runs super fast up to a point. Then it started having audio issues with my Google Meet sessions. Audio would start periodically dropping out.

I'm shocked at how poor this OS rollout is, especially after months and a patch release. I'm now investigating running Ubuntu on my laptop. The situation with MacOS has gotten to the point I can't depend on it for work. So ******* sad.

I installed Big Sur last night, and sure enough, my laptop slowed down. After reading this thread, I reset the SMC and I don't have any problems any more.

MacBook Air Late 2013 (2.2Ghz dual core i7, 8GB RAM)

I have exactly the same problem, since I installed MAC OS Big Sur, my computer ; MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015), 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5, 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, became very very slow, and this is just so inconvenient and annoying. I'm passing my exams remotely, and this situation is so stressful.

First I had no problems with Big Sur, then about 2-3 weeks after upgrading my MacBook Air (2020 13" 1.1 Ghz i5 8GB RAM), it also started to slow down to the point that nothing worked anymore and it just started rebooting again and again.
Resetting the SMC did help, but only for a couple of days.
I am very much disappointed - this was my first Mac and I bought in order to not having to deal with fixing stuff all the time.
And now this problem after also not being able to use a simple external keyboard last year due to problems with USB-2 devices that Apple only fixed after months of waiting.

Big Sur is a nightmare for me, too. I have a mac mini with i7 6Core and 64GB RAM. Every OS animation is laggy and slow (like 5 fps), expecially for quicklook in finder, unusable.
I tried to install catalina on an external disk and all works fast and smooth like butter. Then, tried to install Big Sur 11.2 Beta 2 on external disk, too, and problem persists.
There is nothing worse than a disappointed Apple user.

Steve Jobs, we miss you!

Hey people,

I have a 4,500 $ MacBook Pro 16 Inch with i9 and 64GB ram. After upgrade to macOS Big Sur it's just a terrible experience.
I mean, what the h*ll? My fan runs crazy with just a browser and vscode open. And that at a machine with i9 and 64 ram, which costs like a small car. I'm just tired. Some apps don't start after awake. Have to reboot this machine. Some of them open very very slow.

The design of this "worlds best os" is broken. There's no consistency. Many window titles require precise pointing to get it dragged. And, when you get it and drag, you're just thinking: "What do they do at Apple?".

Are they not ashamed at presentations of new operation system? It's just a joke.
At Steve Jobs times that was a design and ux for real. Now it's just a ... I don't know how to call all this useless, lagging stuff.

I want my money and Steve Jobs back..

I agree with all the other posts. I have 2017 15inch MacBook Pro 16Gb (cost new about $4500 AUD). Running Catalina all was good - everything worked and was fast (or fast enough). Biggest mistake upgrading to Big Sur (now 11.1). Apps super slow to load (like I have to check if they are loading at all). Spotlight has not worked more times than it has worked. I have followed all the advice to reset and reindex etc etc. I am left with a machine that is barely usable. Seriously I even booted up an old Windows 10 machine to get something done because of the issues I was having with Big Sur (WinZip broken ?). As I have stated in other posts, releasing a product / OS in this condition would never have been allowed in Steve Job's day. Apple now fully embrace the concept of MVP (minimal viable product) - yeah I know its broke but what the heck its good enough !!! Let the customers find the issues !

Same here, 2019 i9 16-inch is taking forever to wake up. SMC reset tried. Waited until 11.1 update before "upgrading", should've just left it alone.

MacBook Pro - Early 2015 Retina, Core i5 2.7 Ghz, 8 Gigs of RAM.

I usually do not complain about problems being a dedicated IT guy, I tend to solve my problems by myself, but Apple, please do not shit on our heads, due to the fact that we keep your workplaces running, and we, the true Apple fans, are making everything possible.
My frustration reached the end, I upgraded my OS to Big Sur in Oct. 2020, it should be called Big Crap(sorry), and since then if I recall correctly, I reseted the my Macbook every week since then.

The video streaming playback is just buggy, if I get a frame/sec. I can call myself lucky, Bluetooth causing issues now and then, and the Camera crashes during Zoom, Teams or TeamViewer calls.

I really, and yes you should be ashamed, thought about buying a ****** Win Laptop, because my corporate Dell(3 years old) runs and runs and runs just fine.

We have this topic with bugging Macs for months now, and Apple does ignoring it? Really now?

What should happen? I still have a Mojave installer, and I really consider returning to that OS, because Big Sur ist just a pile of trash.

late 2015 13” Retina MacBook Pro

computer was running great on Mojave and I decided after waiting so many months for big sur to patch out any issues I’d finally update. It has killed my computer.

I am begging someone to tell/teach me how I can rollback to Mojave or even Catalina. I can’t afford to buy a new laptop, Apple or Microsoft.

Had the same problem, very frustrating... But I did the SMC reset and all back to normal, thankfully!!! Pretty easy too! The link to the Apple Support page is below:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295 

My MBP late 2014 is useless when I upgraded to Big Sur 11.1. I tried to solve problems with lagging OS but nothing worked, now I waiting for 11.2, if these problems will still occur I downgrade os or install some Linux distro on mac.

Big Sur is disorientingly slow. For example, as I type this message, there is a 1/2 second delay between hitting each key and seeing the letter on the screen. When notifications or windows pop up, they shift size and shape, with the text moving around for 1/2 to 1 second before it settles on a format. I upgraded to solve a compatibility problem with my printer that was introduced in OS 10.15 and it did not fix it. Really sorry I upgraded as it fixed nothing and only brought new problems.

I will never buy an Apple product again after this sht show. It takes 30 seconds to load a page on safari with nothing else running! Live streaming, forget it, I’m screwed for working at home now. Late 2015 was running great before this garbage.

Clean installed Catalina from USB, reformatted twice, back to Catalina, my lagg problems on 2015 MBP gone. FAST AND FURIOUS.

USB CLEAN INSTALL BIG SUR MBP 12.1. Minutes waiting for account switch, web pages etc. Tried updates etc. downloaded Catalina from Mac Store, USB, triple reformat, Catalina up and running, docs reinstalled, problem gone. Fast and productive..

MBP 15 - 2018 i7 2,2GHz 16GB RAM

My problem was : open video in "preview" mode was lagging has hell, the video wasn't fluid and during this time the Touch Bar was just UNUSUABLE. In general all app that need "graphic" like PowerPoint, open a PDF in preview... was lagging...a lot.

I fixed it, how I did ?

I reset my Mac last night (factory settings), then reinstall the os, clear the SMC, the NVRAM, the problem was still here (bad news).

The first "solution" is to force the graphic card to work all the time, "Settings" -> "Battery" -> "automatic switching of graphics" But the Mac is getting hot because of the graphic card, and consume the battery life, it works but it's not ideal. 

The second solution (the one works for me) is to go to "setting" -> "monitor" and change the scale, try to see if it's better, if yes, then restart your Mac, and normally you should be fine !

Hope it works for you ! ⚙️

I have had the high AppleUserHIDDrivers CPU usage issue with 11.1 for a while on my MacBook Pro 15-inch 2019. I have an external HDMI monitor plugged in to an USB-C adapter.

Installing the 11.2 Beta 2 (20D5042d) has fixed the issue and I have not had any problems for 2 full days.

I have same issue. I bought a new IMAC in December. When the computer goes to sleep or I walk away for a short period of time it takes 30-60- seconds for the internet to kick in. I have Big Sur. It doesn't matter whether I use Safari/Chrome or try to open app and application I cannot access it. I have called tech support every week. We have done every test known, and video taped the problem using quick time, and have done a data capture which was forwarded to apple twice. It has been escalated a number of times, but same issue. If this is a BIG SUR issue can we go back to Catalina until it is resolved!

Can someone explain why I have to repeat my issue every time I call tech support. Do they not keep notations of what was done the last time I called. I have wasted hours and hours trying to resolve this. Losing my patience with apple. Love apple but common lets address this......

FWIW
My Mac 27" 2019 was running fine till I installed Big Sur, then it ran like a dog.
I followed one of the posts here relating to SMC (I neither know nor care what that is!) and shut down, unplugged, waited 15 seconds, re-started.
Problem fixed.
Ugh! but thanks

15 inch, 2018 MBP, i9 with 32GB RAM:

• bootup takes twice as long

• after each reboot the search has to reindex (i use it to open my apps which now is useless)

• starting apps in generall is super slow. once that app is not in focus for 5min and i want to get focus on it by using the doc, there is a delay between 1 to 5min?!

• opening links in other apps can take up to 5min as well?!

• bluetooth connection is very poor

really hope apple will fix all this issues and TEST their updates in the future. very disappointing what they do lately and always tell us that they have the best user satisfaction... please focus on the basics again and not just about the money. thanks

MBA 2017

Mojave was a meh
Catalina grew up really good and now is a great OS
Big Sur is a *Big* meh -> rolled back

I think that Big Sur is the worst release since Lion
I think that the team was so focused on Apple silicon that probabily nothing will be ever optimized back for x86 cpus. I hope to be wrong but i remember back the days of PPC -> x86: Tiger GREAT, Leopard GOOD but really really better on x86, Snow Leo on Intel was a lighting and Lion was a buggy release initially, from Mavericks to El Capitan all great releases.

I hope to be wrong but i think that x86 mac should continue to run on Catalina.

So far in the last few month Apple has stolen many days of work from me not to mention the amount of stress they have cause me.

Apple stop releasing software that you have not tested!

3 in a row, that’s should be embarrassing!

1. Sep 20 - iPhone iOS 14 - Total disaster complete ruin my phone for almost two months....Severe overheating, maps constantly crashing, extreme data use!

2. Sep 20 - watchOS 7 - Total disaster watch battery reduced from 1.5 days to if I’m lucky lasting until lunchtime, many weeks until a software update fixed the watch problem.

3. Jan 20 - BigSur Total disaster (why don’t I learn not to trust Apple’s software updates)

• minimum 60 second to start up

• constant pinwheel

• safari fails to open various website or takes for ever

• laptop indicates battery flat and needs charging on restart battery is 60% [battery condition - normal]

• constant crashing

• need for constant restarts

And finally yet again my MacBook keyboard is falling apart, again it’s was replaced one year ago!

So Yesterday I bought a late 15 MacBookPro and I was really happy for that. But all my expectations are turn into shit-show after using the Mac with BigSur. The battery draining too much fast, the launchpad scrolling horizontally hangs, Safari takes too much time to open, and finally boot up time is 1 minute.

I had to say this I'll not buy the Mac again in life.

Regards,
Ahsen Saeed