Hi

Been having a few issues with my MacBook Pro at home – it's been getting a little slow of late, mainly start up, which I had put down't to the volume of fonts I have installed (as I've always been told this is a killer, but I'm a font junky unfortunately), and also some strange screen things happening (like desktop/dock appearing half size in corner of screen on start up and account switch) so I did a little house keeping. Somehow I had Genieo installed, which was some kind of adware thing, but thought I'd got rid of it a while back, but it wasn't gone, so ran an uninstaller to rid me of it.

I also did the usual permissions and cache clearances to try and get some speed back, but since then I've had a couple of Disk errors. I've fixed these using Disk Utility, but it's still being a bit odd on startup, like with desktop items appearing, disappearing for a while and reappearing again.

Also now, the Mail app won't open, and Spotlight has gone from my toolbar!

Can anyone suggest anything which might help please? I've tried cleaning/fixing using Onyx, but that's not helped. I've verified disk and permissions with Disk Utility, and that now seems fine? I'm thinking maybe a clean install might be worthwhile just to give it an overhaul, but if anyone can suggest anything a little less drastic/time consuming that would be great!

I've got a MacBook Pro 17” Quad-Core i7 2.4GHz/16GB/750GB running 10.9.5.

Thanks!

Ben

Have you tried something a bit deeper to maintain your disk? Drive Genius and Disc Warrior are generally the two that can solve problems that run deeper than Disc Utility can deal with.

Also, while you ran an uninstalled to remove the adware software, it may be worth going through a manual uninstall as well, just in case files are left behind.

This may help (though a I can't speak for it fully as I have never come across Genieo).
http://m.wikihow.com/Delete-Genieo

Have you ever installed any Haxies? Unsanity used to peddle them, and they can (and do) cause system instabilities. Just junk any - they do things that really should not be allowed to happen.

I did look for the Geneio files manually, yes, but couldn't find any of the ones listed, so *think* it has gone finally...

I've used Onyx to clean up, but that's not helped yet. I could give one of those two a spin though - thanks!

Haxies? Sorry - not familiar with that term!?

Haxies are (were) “activations” of things in the OS that Apple decided should not happen for various reasons. Generally, they appeared to offer cosmetic changes, but also brought additional functionality. Haxies often relied on re-writing bits of code, activating hidden preferences, or using other tricks to get these things to work. These were pumped out by an outfit calling themselves Unsanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haxie

Looks like Unsanity has gone, but there may still be people out there using their software. I feel I have to ask, just in case. I expect that more recent versions of Mac OSX have pretty much killed their software anyway.

Never installed any as far as I know!

Seems to be fixed now. Re-installed the 10.9.5 Combo Update, and everything so far back to normal.

Still think I'll give it an overhaul soon though!

Thanks!