Spinning beach ball appears in Obsidian on my Mac when navigating files despite all troubleshooting steps

Bug reports
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1

Steps to reproduce

Problem
When I move from one file to another, change tabs, or click to focus on a particular document in Obsidian, the app shows the spinning beach ball. This occurs even with a minimal vault (just 2–3 files) while using iCloud sync with “Keep downloaded files” enabled. Notably, the issue does not occur when I use the Obsidian Sandbox vault.

Steps to Reproduce the Issue

  1. Sync Settings:
  • Use iCloud for vault syncing with the “Keep downloaded files” option enabled.
  1. Vault Setup:
  • Create or open a vault that contains only 2–3 files (minimal vault).
  1. Environment:
  • Use Obsidian on an M3 Pro MacBook Pro with 18 GB RAM.
  • Ensure the latest version of Obsidian is installed (downloaded from the official website).
  1. User Actions:
  • Move from one file to another (change tabs or click on a different document to focus).
  • The spinning beach ball appears during these navigation/focus actions.
  1. Theme Change (Additional Step):
  • Change the theme in Obsidian (try both a different theme and the default theme).
  • The issue persists regardless of the theme used.
  1. Plugin Status:
  • All installed plugins are updated.
  • Launch Obsidian in Safe Mode (with all community plugins disabled), yet the issue remains.

What I Have Tried to Fix It

  • Safe Mode:
    • Ran Obsidian in Safe Mode with all community plugins disabled.
  • Clearing Cache:
    • Deleted cache files located at:
      ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/Cache/Cache_Data
  • Resetting Vault Configuration:
    • Deleted (or renamed) the hidden .obsidian folder in the vault.
  • Reinstalling Obsidian:
    • Overwrote the existing app by installing the latest version from the official website.
    • Also tried uninstalling and reinstalling without deleting configuration files.
  • Minimal Vault Test:
    • Created a new vault with just 2–3 files to rule out a vault-specific issue.
  • Theme Change:
    • Changed themes (including reverting to the default theme) with no effect.
  • Plugin Updates:
    • Confirmed that all installed plugins are updated.

Despite all these steps, the beach ball still appears when navigating between files or when focusing on a document.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Y

Expected result

No beach ball

Actual result

Beach ball loading indicator on MacOS

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.9
Installer version: v1.8.9
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.1.0: Thu Oct 10 21:00:32 PDT 2024; root:xnu-11215.41.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6030 24.1.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: Minimal v7.7.19
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 31
Plugins enabled: 9
1: Smart Composer v1.1.13
2: Settings Search v1.3.10
3: Rollover Daily Todos v1.1.8
4: Recent Files v1.7.4
5: Image Context Menus v1.9.1
6: Outliner v4.9.0
7: Commander v0.5.2
8: Writing Goals v0.10.11
9: Zoom v1.1.2

RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.

Additional information

2

A reason why this could happen, as it doesn’t happen in the Sandbox Vault and you didn’t mention anything about this in your post, would be a “bad mix” of plugins… or a “faulty” one …

Meaning you would need to find the culprit(s) (the plugin Divide & Conquer can help you with that).

You could also check the console of the Dev Tools to see if there aren’t any errors in there :blush: .

I have a MBP M2 (16 GB RAM + MacOS up-to-date), sync and store my vaults using iCloud and never encountered anything like this :thinking: … but I also don’t use any of the plugins you mentioned.

I’ll also admit I don’t use the keep downloaded feature on my Mac …

3

I even tried turning off all the plugins at once (safe mode) and even that didn’t work.

Maybe I’ll use the Divide and Conquer tool to figure out if there are any plugin combinations that are causing it.

4

This may be due to a permission problem to access your files. We have had users having something similar who installed the app with one user and are running with another user.