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Mac Buggy after Mac OS Sierra Update? 4 Fixes Here!

Michelle Smith

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Mac Buggy after Mac OS Sierra Update? 4 Fixes Here!

The much awaited Mac OS Sierra update was officially made available on the 20th of September, 2016. The brand new Mac OS boast of an advanced and more helpful Siri, optimized storage management options, full compatibility with the Apple watch and highly improved Messaging features.

But then, what good is all that if your Mac started to act buggy right after the update to Mac OS Sierra. If you are one among those small groups of unfortunate users who are having troubles with Mac OS Sierra, here are fixes that will help restore your Mac back to normal!

First, please backup your Mac!

It is highly recommended that you first back up your Mac before you carry out any of the fixes below. Please note that the fixes below have been tested and tried by many who vouch for its safety. Nonetheless, it doesn’t hurt to take the extra precaution that will allow you to simply roll back to a restore point on your Mac, created through Time Machine. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to carry out Time Machine backups on Mac OS Sierra.

Fixing Wi-Fi issues in Mac OS Sierra

1. Deleting and force re-writing system files to fix Wi-Fi problems

A Mac without Wi-Fi is no fun. In fact, it could even almost be useless. If your Wi-Fi was working fine until before the update to Mac OS Sierra, apply the following fixes to revive your wireless connection.

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First, please quit all apps that are using or trying to use the internet connection (e.g. Chrome, Safari, iTunes, etc.)
Turn off the problematic Wi-Fi connection
Go to Finder
Enter “/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/”
Locate the following 5 files
1. com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
2. com.apple.network.eapolclient.configuration.plist
3. com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist
4. NetworkInterfaces.plist
5. preferences.plist
Copy these files onto a flash drive (Precautionary step)
Delete the files on your Mac OS Sierra partition, once you have a copy of them
Restart your Mac
Also, restart your Wi-Fi router when you restart your Mac
See if your Mac OS Sierra Wi-Fi connection is back to normal!

Don’t worry about deleting the files mentioned above. Mac OS Sierra is designed to rewrite these files after a successful restart. There is a very high chance that your Wi-Fi problems will go away after you apply this simple fix.

If it still persists, try the slightly more complicated fix detailed below.

2. Fixing Mac OS Sierra problems by entering custom DNS

First, please quit all apps that are using or trying to use the internet connection (e.g. Chrome, Safari, iTunes etc)
Open System Preferences
Go to your Wi-Fi connection and select the “Edit Locations” option
Create a new Wi-Fi connection, giving it any name you choose
Join this new Wi-Fi connection that you have created, by entering your Wi-Fi password if prompted
After you have connected, go to advanced settings of this Wi-Fi connection
1. Edit TCP/IP > Renew DHCP lease > Apply > DNS >
  1. Enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (DNS of Google)
Click OK
Go to Hardware > Configure > Custom > Edit MTU number to 1453
Click OK and Save

Once all the above edits are saved, your Wi-Fi connection should hopefully be working well. If not, restart your Mac and your Wi-Fi router just to be safe and see if your Wi-Fi works normally.

The above two fixes should give you about a 95% chance of restoring your Mac OS Sierra related Wi-Fi problems, especially if your Wi-Fi started acting up just after the update to Mac OS Sierra.

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Performance issues after upgrade to Mac OS Sierra

After Wi-Fi issues, the second most common gripe for users who just updated to Mac OS Sierra is their Mac has become sluggish. Multi-tasking takes too long or the Mac just wakes up from sleep too slowly, etc.

There are fixes for speed issues as well. Some of the easy ones are detailed out below. For a comprehensive list of fixes, please visit this Mac OS Sierra performance troubleshooting guide.

1. Carry out an SMC Reset

An SMC reset is a soft hardware reset that will fix potential issues with thermal monitoring, the response of the power button, spin cycles of your hard drives, etc. Resetting this to factory defaults can potentially spring Mac OS Sierra back to life.

Don’t worry about deleting important user data when carrying out these resets. They are safe resets that might in the worst case scenario only require that you change your system time and so on.

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To carry out an SMC reset,

Shut down your Mac
Unplug your Mac from the wall charger or outlet
Press and hold the power button, for 15 seconds (use a timer!)
Release the power button
Reconnect Mac to the wall charger
Wait for about 10 seconds
Turn on your Mac like normal

Though very simple, this can be a miracle fix sometimes!

2. Carry out a PRAM reset

Quite similar to an SMC reset, you can also carry out a PRAM reset. Again, resetting PRAM will not result in any loss of personal user data or important system data.

Power off your Mac
Power on your Mac
As soon as your Mac starts up, press the combination of the following keys; Option + Command + R + P (all together)
Press and hold until your Mac restarts
Once your Mac restarts the second time, release all keys and allow for a normal restart

Besides these fixes, it is also very important that you make sure your Mac is first compatible with Mac OS Sierra. As Mac OS Sierra is the latest OS out from Apple, it is more demanding on your Mac’s processor and memory than its predecessors like El Capitan, Yosemite or Mavericks.

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Unless you bought your Mac in late 2009 or after, it probably isn’t good enough to run Mac OS Sierra. If this is the case, you have only the option of rolling back to your older version of Mac OS X, like OS X Mavericks, OS Yosemite or OS X El Capitan. Here’s a good resource on how to rollback from Mac OS Sierra to one of the older OS X versions.

Featured photo credit: digitaltrends.com via icdn3.digitaltrends.com

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Last Updated on February 15, 2019

7 Tools to Help Keep Track of Goals and Habits Effectively

CM Smith

A technologist and writer who shares advice on personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Read full profile

7 Tools to Help Keep Track of Goals and Habits Effectively

Now that 2011 is well underway and most people have fallen off the bandwagon when it comes to their New Year’s resolutions (myself included), it’s a good time to step back and take an honest look at our habits and the goals that we want to achieve.

Something that I have learned over the past few years is that if you track something, be it your eating habits, exercise, writing time, work time, etc. you become aware of the reality of the situation. This is why most diet gurus tell you to track what you eat for a week so you have an awareness of the of how you really eat before you start your diet and exercise regimen.

Tracking daily habits and progress towards goals is another way to see reality and create a way for you clearly review what you have accomplished over a set period of time. Tracking helps motivate you too; if I can make a change in my life and do it once a day for a period of time it makes me more apt to keep doing it.

So, if you have some goals and habits in mind that need tracked, all you need is a tracking tool. Today we’ll look at 7 different tools to help you keep track of your habits and goals.

Joe’s Goals

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Joe’s Goals is a web-based tool that allows users to track their habits and goals in an easy to use interface. Users can add as many goals/habits as they want and also check multiple times per day for those “extra productive days”. Something that is unique about Joe’s Goals is the way that you can keep track of negative habits such as eating out, smoking, etc. This can help you visualize the good things that you are doing as well as the negative things that you are doing in your life.

Joe’s Goals is free with a subscription version giving you no ads and the “latest version” for $12 a year.

Daytum

is an in depth way of counting things that you do during the day and then presenting them to you in many different reports and groups. With Daytum you can add several different items to different custom categories such as work, school, home, etc. to keep track of your habits in each focus area of your life.

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Daytum is extremely in depth and there are a ton of settings for users to tweak. There is a free version that is pretty standard, but if you want more features and unlimited items and categories you’ll need Daytum Plus which is $4 a month.

Excel or Numbers

If you are the spreadsheet number cruncher type and the thought of using someone else’s idea of how you should track your habits turns you off, then creating your own Excel/Numbers/Google spreadsheet is the way to go. Not only do you have pretty much limitless ways to view, enter, and manipulate your goal and habit data, but you have complete control over your stuff and can make it private.

What’s nice about spreadsheets is you can create reports and can customize your views in any way you see fit. Also, by using Dropbox, you can keep your tracker sheets anywhere you have a connection.

Evernote

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I must admit, I am an Evernote junky, mostly because this tool is so ubiquitous. There are several ways you can implement habit/goal tracking with Evernote. You won’t be able to get nifty reports and graphs and such, but you will be able to access your goal tracking anywhere your are, be it iPhone, Android, Mac, PC, or web. With Evernote you pretty much have no excuse for not entering your daily habit and goal information as it is available anywhere.

Evernote is free with a premium version available.

Access or Bento

If you like the idea of creating your own tracker via Excel or Numbers, you may be compelled to get even more creative with database tools like Access for Windows or Bento for Mac. These tools allow you to set up relational databases and even give you the option of setting up custom interfaces to interact with your data. Access is pretty powerful for personal database applications, and using it with other MS products, you can come up with some pretty awesome, in depth analysis and tracking of your habits and goals.

Bento is extremely powerful and user friendly. Also with Bento you can get the iPhone and iPad app to keep your data anywhere you go.

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You can check out Access and the Office Suite here and Bento here.

Analog Bonus: Pen and Paper

All these digital tools are pretty nifty and have all sorts of bells and whistles, but there are some people out there that still swear by a notebook and pen. Just like using spreadsheets or personal databases, pen and paper gives you ultimate freedom and control when it comes to your set up. It also doesn’t lock you into anyone else’s idea of just how you should track your habits.

Conclusion

I can’t necessarily recommend which tool is the best for tracking your personal habits and goals, as all of them have their quirks. What I can do however (yes, it’s a bit of a cop-out) is tell you that the tool to use is whatever works best for you. I personally keep track of my daily habits and personal goals with a combo Evernote for input and then a Google spreadsheet for long-term tracking.

What this all comes down to is not how or what tool you use, but finding what you are comfortable with and then getting busy with creating lasting habits and accomplishing short- and long-term goals.

Mac Buggy after Mac OS Sierra Update? 4 Fixes Here!

First, please backup your Mac!

Fixing Wi-Fi issues in Mac OS Sierra

1. Deleting and force re-writing system files to fix Wi-Fi problems

2. Fixing Mac OS Sierra problems by entering custom DNS

Read Next

Performance issues after upgrade to Mac OS Sierra

1. Carry out an SMC Reset

2. Carry out a PRAM reset

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