[Hornet]

OK so I finally got panther a few days ago. As I was about to install it, there was a tear in my eye - Jaguar had been amazing. In the 8 or so months I had it installed on my Ti (as in, it came with it), I had a total of 1 KP, 2 full lock ups (1 networking related 1 just random), and other than that nothing that brought down the whole system. Overall I found it really stable. Just... really stable

So the other day, I installed panther. Started reinstalling my apps, copying over data from dvd/hdd backups etc. Right there and then, it locks up, entirely. Less than an hour after booting into a perfectly fresh copy of panther on a zero'd HDD formated in HFS journaling, for seemingly no reason, the UI becomes totally unresponsive. Its 'just died'. No force quit, force log out or anything would solve it (pity there isnt a command that force-force-forces it do do something, like even if the window manager dies, like to log out and 'reboot' the window manager).

So that sucked. Oh well. Got everything else installed, and started getting used to Panther. Pretty cool. Expose seems ok, not something terribly useful for me, and fast user switching seems useful (will be great for our family desktop). So along I go on my merry way....

But, you guessed it. Disaster struck yet again! Tonight I was attempting to back up my brothers music file on our desktop (Jaguar) for the reformat and install of panther. So I changed location on my powerbook to home-ethernet (from home-airport). Plugged in an ethernet cable to the G4. Started copying... had to stop it early, so I hit stop, ok cool. Can't see a "connected device" to eject from - even tho I know I am connected to the G4's afp server. Hmmmm. Well I can't see anything, so yoink goes the ethernet cable. Off I go back to my room. I get there, change network back etc. The finder seems fine, nothing is up (Jaguar would have died here had this been SMB (my 1 KP), or just become unresponsive for forever had it been AFP, but eventually recovered). So I wanted to get another file from the G4. Network, yep there it is, go to it - doesnt want me to log in, still thinks I am logged on (over airport now, vs ethernet before). I click his home folder (logged in as my brother) - finder locks up. hmmm

Try relaunching the finder. No go. Go to the force quit menu there, hit relaunch, no go. Finder just goes away (dock indicates its still running), wont come back. Hmmm. Gradually I start opening more programs to work out what is going on (terminal, activity monitor). Gradually the system locks up more and more. Then, the entire damn thing locks up. All because it never told me or offered me to disconnect from a connected drive. Thats 2 lock ups in 3 days

Why oh why when we are in our 4th major version of OSX does its networking blow so much? When I get disconnected from a network (eg cable comes out) - why can't X realise those connected servers aren't available anymore and NOT die when I try to reconnect to them later? Its stupid that this late on in X's development, its so immature with handling dropped network connections with networked folders. Sigh.....

OK enough ranting for tonight. Panther is the Classic of OSX right now for me - its crashed on me at a faster rate than any classic version used to. 0.66 crashes per day, Panther has the record, w00t!

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Hornet:
OK so I finally got panther a few days ago. As I was about to install it, there was a tear in my eye - Jaguar had been amazing. In the 8 or so months I had it installed on my Ti (as in, it came with it), I had a total of 1 KP, 2 full lock ups (1 networking related 1 just random), and other than that nothing that brought down the whole system. Overall I found it really stable. Just... really stable

So the other day, I installed panther. Started reinstalling my apps, copying over data from dvd/hdd backups etc. Right there and then, it locks up, entirely. Less than an hour after booting into a perfectly fresh copy of panther on a zero'd HDD formated in HFS journaling, for seemingly no reason, the UI becomes totally unresponsive. Its 'just died'. No force quit, force log out or anything would solve it (pity there isnt a command that force-force-forces it do do something, like even if the window manager dies, like to log out and 'reboot' the window manager).

So that sucked. Oh well. Got everything else installed, and started getting used to Panther. Pretty cool. Expose seems ok, not something terribly useful for me, and fast user switching seems useful (will be great for our family desktop). So along I go on my merry way....

But, you guessed it. Disaster struck yet again! Tonight I was attempting to back up my brothers music file on our desktop (Jaguar) for the reformat and install of panther. So I changed location on my powerbook to home-ethernet (from home-airport). Plugged in an ethernet cable to the G4. Started copying... had to stop it early, so I hit stop, ok cool. Can't see a "connected device" to eject from - even tho I know I am connected to the G4's afp server. Hmmmm. Well I can't see anything, so yoink goes the ethernet cable. Off I go back to my room. I get there, change network back etc. The finder seems fine, nothing is up (Jaguar would have died here had this been SMB (my 1 KP), or just become unresponsive for forever had it been AFP, but eventually recovered). So I wanted to get another file from the G4. Network, yep there it is, go to it - doesnt want me to log in, still thinks I am logged on (over airport now, vs ethernet before). I click his home folder (logged in as my brother) - finder locks up. hmmm

Try relaunching the finder. No go. Go to the force quit menu there, hit relaunch, no go. Finder just goes away (dock indicates its still running), wont come back. Hmmm. Gradually I start opening more programs to work out what is going on (terminal, activity monitor). Gradually the system locks up more and more. Then, the entire damn thing locks up. All because it never told me or offered me to disconnect from a connected drive. Thats 2 lock ups in 3 days

Why oh why when we are in our 4th major version of OSX does its networking blow so much? When I get disconnected from a network (eg cable comes out) - why can't X realise those connected servers aren't available anymore and NOT die when I try to reconnect to them later? Its stupid that this late on in X's development, its so immature with handling dropped network connections with networked folders. Sigh.....

OK enough ranting for tonight. Panther is the Classic of OSX right now for me - its crashed on me at a faster rate than any classic version used to. 0.66 crashes per day, Panther has the record, w00t!

I play a lot with networks and settings, I've got a NFS setup here and it works quite well.

If you try to access a ressource on the network that is not available, usually the Finder tells you that it got disconnected in less than 10 secs.

Otherwise, maybe you've got something wrong with your setup?

[Hornet]

I have been real happy with Jaguar... everything is pretty much set up the same here, and its a pretty virgin install anyhow, everything is brand new no probs.... and yet as brand new as a fresh copy of panther is, it still managed to crash while copying some files from dvd/disk images on the hdd (completed the network transfer before then)

ie simple tasks on a brand new install, straight away, and it crashed. sort of like getting a new mac, booting it, and it KP's

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Hornet:
I have been real happy with Jaguar... everything is pretty much set up the same here, and its a pretty virgin install anyhow, everything is brand new no probs.... and yet as brand new as a fresh copy of panther is, it still managed to crash while copying some files from dvd/disk images on the hdd (completed the network transfer before then)

ie simple tasks on a brand new install, straight away, and it crashed. sort of like getting a new mac, booting it, and it KP's

Well, I'm on a fresh install, I burn a lot of CDs and copy a lot of files over the network. I have yet to see Panther KP on me..

[cybergoober]

Wow. That sucks. Something's definitely not right there.

Been incredibly stable here. Working with AFP, NFS and SMB shares constantly. Not a single problem… yet.

/knocks on wood… err, particle board. Cheap-ass desk.
/knocks on head.

[Appleman]

Originally posted by cybergoober:
/knocks on wood… err, particle board. Cheap-ass desk.
/knocks on head.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Hornet:
I have been real happy with Jaguar... everything is pretty much set up the same here, and its a pretty virgin install anyhow, everything is brand new no probs.... and yet as brand new as a fresh copy of panther is, it still managed to crash while copying some files from dvd/disk images on the hdd (completed the network transfer before then)

ie simple tasks on a brand new install, straight away, and it crashed. sort of like getting a new mac, booting it, and it KP's

What *exactly* were you transferring back from DVD/disk images?

Any drivers or /Library items? Network preferences and stuff?

Overwriting a critical file while it's in use could cause oddities.

Plenty of free space on the HD, I assume?

-s*

[SMacTech]

Panther seems to be a little more picky about RAM. If you have 3rd party RAM, I would start there, by removing it and see if stability returns.
Something is not right in your hardware, as Panther is very stable on all of the machines I admin, and the two that I use very heavily.

[Hornet]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
What *exactly* were you transferring back from DVD/disk images?

Any drivers or /Library items? Network preferences and stuff?

Overwriting a critical file while it's in use could cause oddities.

Plenty of free space on the HD, I assume?

-s*

Plenty of space left

Installing apps, copying back my music folder, my movie folder, and other various folders in ~/ that have no relation to ~/Library or /Library. No Library stuff was touched

No 3rd party RAM. This machine is 100% stock apple, with very few problems in Jaguar... I dont see how bad RAM would magically become in issue in panther when it wasnt a problem in jag


I wonder if i should reformat AGAIN and set it all up again.... for what benefit, 4hrs down the drain? hmmm

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Hornet:
No 3rd party RAM. This machine is 100% stock apple, with very few problems in Jaguar... I dont see how bad RAM would magically become in issue in panther when it wasnt a problem in jag

Many of us have wondered the same thing, but it isn't magic, as they made it this way.
Even Apple's own memory has failed in Panther when it worked in Jag. I have seen it here myself, unfortunately. Memory can have performance issues that never come to light, except under the right circumstances. Too often one of the other IT gurus would spend hours on reinstalling, etc. and then I would give them a new chip and voila, problem gone.
I am not inferring this is your case, but it cannot be overlooked. I would think that after two fresh reinstallations and the problems continue, it is time to look somewhere else.
You may also try resetting Open Firmware and the Cuda switch on the motherboard while you are at it.

Also, have you tried creating a brand spanking new user account and tried from there?

[cybergoober]

Originally posted by Appleman:

Glad I could brighten someone's day.

[msuper69]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:

Overwriting a critical file while it's in use could cause oddities.
*

Fyi: The OS will not let you overwrite a file that is in use. That's why restarts are sometimes required for certain software installs. The new version of the file can't be loaded unless the old one is unloaded which it will be by a restart.

[barbarian]

Here are the most likely culprits/how to troubleshoot

1. 3rd party fonts/ remove all but essential fonts

2. 3rd party utils (driverers, windowshade etc)/ start with a stock install

3. bad startup item/ check startup items

4. bad network setup (for example we had an issue here where we were connecting to another machine that kept dropping off the network which caused our machine to hang) / run without network connections

5. old software / make sure everything is current... for example Office needs to be updated.

6. funky PRAM/ more of an urban myth, but it can get screwed up. Resetting it (and starting with all ethernet/usb/firewire external devices except for the keyboard unattached) can sometimes do the trick.

7. Bad RAM. Why it happens in Panther I don't know (my theory is that Panther just uses more RAM than Jag)/test by removing all but essential RAM

8. Bad Motherboard/ If you have a stock install, no extra ram & no external devices you are down to the ugliest option of all

[chris v]

Originally posted by Hornet:


(pity there isnt a command that force-force-forces it do do something, like even if the window manager dies, like to log out and 'reboot' the window manager).

Oh, but there is. It's a freeware app called Escapepod. It's saved me from the Spinning Orb of Despair on many, many occasions.

CV

[darrick]

i run disc warrior once a week on my tiBook and i always begin by looking at the graph. under jaguar, i'd see 3 or 4% out of whack; after my first week with panther (last night), i saw 17%.

[stevesnj]

I did an archive and install from Jag to Panther and had nothing but problems so I backed everything up and zero'd the drive which took less than an hour compaired to the Jag zero utility of 5 hours. I would def zero the drive and fresh install.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by barbarian:


7. Bad RAM. Why it happens in Panther I don't know (my theory is that Panther just uses more RAM than Jag)/test by removing all but essential RAM

The reason that bad RAM appears to cause problems in Panther when it didn't in Jaguar is that the RAM went bad AFTER Jaguar was installed. Therefore, you have a good install of the OS on the hard drive. When you reinstall the operating system, everything that goes to your hard drive goes through that bad RAM. Inevitably, some of it gets corrupted. You wind up not only having bad RAM but a corrupt OS install on top of it.

It's the act of installing that makes a difference. Jaguar is crashing on you. You format and reinstall Jaguar. The crashes get worse.

Your machine probably came with an Apple Hardware Test CD. Run that on the extended test. It finds most bad RAM. Not always, though. Sometimes you have to use a program that is much harsher on the RAM for the test.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Detrius:
The reason that bad RAM appears to cause problems in Panther when it didn't in Jaguar is that the RAM went bad AFTER Jaguar was installed. Therefore, you have a good install of the OS on the hard drive.

So you are saying that Jag can continue to operate flawlessly with the bad RAM and Panther allowed it to install the OS with bad RAM, but can't run it with said RAM?
Then how come when you don't reinstall the OS, but replace the RAM after installing, it all works?
Something in the kernel of Panther is more sensitive to RAM that doesn't quite meet with the specs of RAM installed, is my theory, just as we saw with Jag.

[kupan787]

Originally posted by stevesnj:
I did an archive and install from Jag to Panther and had nothing but problems so I backed everything up and zero'd the drive which took less than an hour compaired to the Jag zero utility of 5 hours. I would def zero the drive and fresh install.

Funny. I just did a staight upgrade on four of the machines here. No problems at all. Infact, I can't recall the last time I had to do a clean install on a hard drive on any of these machines (maybe for MacOS 8...). It seems like people do that a lot on these boards.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
So you are saying that Jag can continue to operate flawlessly with the bad RAM and Panther allowed it to install the OS with bad RAM, but can't run it with said RAM?
Then how come when you don't reinstall the OS, but replace the RAM after installing, it all works?

perhaps in that specific instance, there was enough RAM in that specific machine such that the data being installed never hit the bad RAM while it was being installed.

bad RAM is bad RAM. 42 goes in. 13 comes out. That's what makes it bad RAM. It has nothing to do with the software that is run on it (i.e. the kernel). Sometimes the stability of the RAM varies depending on how fast it is run (like a processor). Sometimes it gives bad data intermittently. Bad RAM under Panther will still be bad RAM under Jaguar. It will also be bad RAM under OS 9 and Linux. Some operating systems use more RAM than others and therefore may be more likely to crash with the bad RAM. If the OS knew it was bad, it wouldn't crash--it would ignore the RAM or give an error message.

Firmware updates can and have change standards for RAM.