I can't say for sure as I was at 2.8.10 when I started having issues with it hanging and "writing" for a long time. However, mine sounds slightly different in that if I wait long enough it all works. So for example, if I change anything in any scene it goes to the normal "system busy" while it shows the progress bar of the change. What used to happen in a few seconds now takes a couple minutes. When that progress finishes it seems to do another writing session for a similar amount of time. Then when that's done, it starts the writing that other user spoke of. While waiting for it to begin that writing, everything seems fine. There is a long lag time between finishing the "system busy" progress and then the "writing" that goes on the left side of many of the modules in the list. Eventually it finishes and things works but changing anything at all now takes me five to ten minutes. Pretty frustrating! Please help.
Running Mac snow leopard with version 2.8.14 right now (just upgraded it) with no change in behavior.