Tip: Before forcing a restart, try logging out

You may encounter a situation where applications -- one by one -- begin to refuse response to force quitting. Generally this starts with a spinning beach ball in one application, followed by indefinite unresponsiveness. Switching to other applications allows normal operation temporarily, but they too succumb to the spinning beach ball and unresponsiveness.

In these cases, the Finder may exhibit similar behavior, likewise becoming unresponsive except for a few functions.

If you're lucky, one of the functions that remains is the ability to select menu items, which will allow you to force a logout (from the Apple menu). You can also invoke a logout by using the keyboard combination: Shift-Command-Q.

In many instances, this will allow you to resume normal operation without forcing a full restart, both saving time and avoiding potential cache corruption and other issues.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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