Possibly unfreeze a process with Activity Monitor

Feb 19, '08 07:30:02AM

Contributed by: pub3abn

I don't know why this works, but it does seem to work like magic: When you have an application hang, try launching Activity Monitor. When I do this, especially with hangs in Photoshop, within seconds, the application resumes. Sometimes I've waited and waited, as long as maybe 10 minutes or more, for an application to come out of the "beach ball" mode on its own. Then, after launching Activity Monitor, I would hear the hard drive churn, and the application would become responsive again.

This works on both my Mac Pro (Intel) and my PowerBook G4 at home. I have no clue why it works. I know it doesn't seem to make sense, why an application that monitors processes would have any effect on them. But it works like a charm many times. Of course, there are times when it doesn't work either, but it's worth a shot.

[robg adds: This is the first I've heard of Activity Monitor releasing an app from beach ball land through the simple act of running it. If anyone else has had similar experiences, please share.]

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