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compsolver · Dec 2, 2003, 01:24 AM

i've been reading about kernel panic problems in panther. are these common? are these related to hardware or software causing them and does apple service/support stand behind their warranty to solve these?

Orion27 · Dec 2, 2003, 01:50 AM

I've been running Panther since day one including 10.3.1 Not one kernel panic, though being on dial up, sticky modem compels me to restart now and again. I run Photshop, Flash 2004, Dreamweaver MX 2004, digital camera stuff, Final Cut Pro, Office X, InDesign and Mozilla and Safari. I burn CD's in Toast while listening to iTunes or rendering in PhotoShop.
Not a hiccup. Oh, and a proprietary design program in Classic. True!

MDA · Dec 2, 2003, 02:17 AM

I haven't had a single kernel panic since I installed Panther. It does have a few bugs but it is the most stable version of OS X so far.

MDA

geekwagon · Dec 2, 2003, 02:23 AM

Originally posted by compsolver:
i've been reading about kernel panic problems in panther. are these common? are these related to hardware or software causing them and does apple service/support stand behind their warranty to solve these?

I've had 3-4 machines running Panther since release and have yet to experience a kernel panic on any of them yet. There are some networking bugs in there still, but kernel panics definately don't seem like a widespread problem.

Ilja · Dec 2, 2003, 04:49 AM

ditto here!

ASIMO · Dec 2, 2003, 05:11 AM

All of my panics on my PB12 have been RAM-related. Yes, even RAM from Crucial.

Panther: RAM snob.

asidrane · Dec 2, 2003, 05:44 AM

Panther actually fixed a very serious kernel pani issue related to after market pioneer dvr drives. Ehrn onr of these drives was left with a cd in it, the machine would eventually KP. Notthe fancy way Jaguar catche teh KP eithe, it wuld print all the text onto the screen like 10.0 and 10.1 did.

JKT · Dec 2, 2003, 07:10 AM

Originally posted by compsolver:
i've been reading about kernel panic problems in panther. are these common? are these related to hardware or software causing them and does apple service/support stand behind their warranty to solve these?

Generally speaking, with OS X the great majority of Kernel panics are caused by hardware such as bad RAM, dodgy USB connections, or by networking issues. There are other incidences caused by third party software or bugs in the OS itself, but they are not a common problem.

Apple can only solve Kernel Panic issues if:

1) people send them the crash reports together with info about their hardware and software and what they were doing at the time of the panic, and

2) they occur reproducibly and/or for the same reason for different people.

FWIW, ever since installing MacOS X 10.0 way back when it was first released, I have had somewhere between 5 and 10 KPs (so infrequently that I can no longer remember the exact figure and I don't recall having a single one under 10.2.x and I haven't had a single one under 10.3.x as of yet).

samslaves · Dec 2, 2003, 08:55 AM

I had frequent kernel panics and total system lockups. The problem was solved as explained in "G5 crashes, a solution" under the Powermac forum. Some times resetting the PRAM with the well known keys combination does not solve the problem and simply reinstalling the OS does not helps.

Sam

SMacTech · Dec 2, 2003, 09:17 AM

I haven't had a single kernel panic and no one has reported any either out of 10 or so Macs now running Panther.

Diggory Laycock · Dec 2, 2003, 09:33 AM

I've had one since I installed Panther (I think it was due to an old version of Apple's USB Prober Kernel Extension I had installed.)

I have been running Panther since it was released - and my powerbook is never turned off.

jasong · Dec 2, 2003, 09:36 AM

No panics here. I can't even remember the last time my TiBook crashed.

-- Jason

alien · Dec 2, 2003, 12:46 PM

Never had a KP since installing Panther. There are some annoying bugs, but stability seems fine. Few apps crashing too.

madmacgames · Dec 2, 2003, 01:02 PM

I've had a few on my PB12" revB that I got Oct 1st 2003.

Once when I was installing Panther, after installation finished and it restarted into panther to run the 2nd disk, I got a kernel panic. Actually 1st I got what looked like command line code on the desktop and could not do anything at all, so I had to hard restart. Upon restarting I got the nice kernel panic then 3 times and upon the 4th restart all was ok.

Then just this weekend almost the same thing, I took my PB out and opened it up and turned it on. Upon entering the desktop, the system halted and I got all that command line code on the desktop and again had to hard restart. Again the 1st 3 restarts I got the nice kernel panic message and the 4th restart the system loaded ok.

I'm not sure what that is when the command line code comes up overtop of the desktop like that or what I should do, but AFAIK, hard restarting was my only option. The system would not let me do anything at all.

then occasionally I have gotten a kernel panic in the middle of doing something. Probably I would estimate since Oct 1st, I've had 5 kernel panics. 2 of those doosies explained above and 3 that just happened randomly in the middle of me surfing the web or something.

diamondsw · Dec 2, 2003, 02:39 PM

No panics since 10.1! And even those were caused by accidentally disconnecting a firewire drive in use.

Love Calm Quiet · Dec 2, 2003, 03:03 PM

Never seen a KP in continual running of 1) Pismo; 2) TiBook 3) Icebook in 3 weeks of Panther.

For that matter, I haven't EVER had the experience in 18mos of OS X on those machines.

::knock wood::

cpac · Dec 2, 2003, 03:13 PM

no kernel panics here since 10.1.

soul searching · Dec 2, 2003, 03:19 PM

All the panics my machine has experienced with Jaguar and Panther are related to my M-Audio Revolution audio card.

MindFad · Dec 2, 2003, 03:24 PM

None in Panther yet. I've had 3�well, two, really, I guess. The first day I got my machine (dual 800), I boot into OS X (10.0) and it crashed on startup, old-fashioned kernel panic. I've had two panics since, though I've only been fully OS X for a little over a year. Don't know what they were related to. They both happened in Jaguar, I believe.

aenemated · Dec 2, 2003, 04:41 PM

the only kernel panics i've had in X were a result of a dying hard drive.

panther was crashing on me for a bit, but i, again, discovered it's a hardware problem with my firewire interface. ever since i had that taken care of, i've had zero problems.

cambro · Dec 2, 2003, 05:25 PM

Yawn....this is a boring post after everything else but, here are the macs in my family and their experience. All are running 10.3.1 now.

1) G3 PB 400 -- has run most current OS X since 10.0. Only ONE kernel panic EVER (sleep and classic related in 10.0).
2) G4 PB 400 -- has run most current X since at least 10.1. NO kernel panics.
3) G4 PB 1000-- has run most current X since 10.2. NO kernel panics.
4) eMac 800 -- has run most current X since 10.2.0. NO kernel panics.
5) iBook 600 -- has run most current X since at least 10.1. As far as I know, NO kernel panics (it has been with my sister in Japan).

So, as others have pointed out, frequent kernel panics in X are no more than a symptom of bad hardware (usually RAM) or nasty third party system hacks. Occassionally USB maddness will do it too. 10.3 is, in my experience, no more stable in terms of kernel panics than anything since 10.1. Speed on the other hand is night and day since the dark early days

compsolver · Dec 8, 2003, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by compsolver:
i've been reading about kernel panic problems in panther. are these common? are these related to hardware or software causing them and does apple service/support stand behind their warranty to solve these?

even with kernel panics would you all still get a mac with osx over a pc with windows xp?

Detrius · Dec 8, 2003, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by compsolver:
even with kernel panics would you all still get a mac with osx over a pc with windows xp?

Any OS will crash given unexpected hardware results. If your hard drive just flat out dies on you while you are surfing the web, your computer will crash with it. If you have bad memory, your computer will crash as soon as the OS realizes it is not getting back what it put into the memory.

I am not going to stop using my Mac just because a forum exists where experienced Mac users help out unexperienced Mac users that don't know enough about their computers to know that frequent kernel panics generally mean you have bad hardware... Will you not drive a Ford because you went to a Ford dealership and saw a bunch of Fords in the shop? Do you wish you weren't human when you go to the hospital and see a bunch of sick people?

I don't use Windows because I like my slick machine running a slick operating system that is invulnerable to the hordes of worms and viruses that plague said Windows boxes. Now that is something that really SHOULD make you think about switching platforms.

willab · Dec 8, 2003, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by compsolver:
even with kernel panics would you all still get a mac with osx over a pc with windows xp?

Yes, definitely. I haven't had a single KP on my eMac 800 in a year of heavy use and rarely turning it off. Only a few freezes, nothing like my XP machine which is almost never used.

shortcipher · Dec 9, 2003, 05:55 AM

I've had several KPs under Panther, under 10.2 I never had any. I dont know whether its RAM or not, but I am doubtful as I have seen the same thing on 3 machines, and I doubt that they all have bad RAM, that would be just too much of a coincidence!

waffffffle · Dec 9, 2003, 06:14 AM

I used to have frequent panics in 10.0 and 10.1 using my soundsticks on any OS X machine that I tried. Simple reproduction is to upload something (airport, ethernet) or write to an external FW disk at a fast speed and try and play music. After a few seconds sound dies, then unplugging the soundsticks would cause a panic (or sometimes plugging them back in). This was a real pain and has only been partially solved to my knowledge (but Panther may actually fix this). Other than that I have had 2 repeated kernel panics when trying to run software that I shouldn't have been running. In fact no one should have been running this software. Serves me right for trying...

Spheric Harlot · Dec 9, 2003, 07:02 AM

Never had a panic on Panther since Tascam came out with new drivers for my audio interface.

Zim · Dec 9, 2003, 10:35 AM

No KPs for me since 10.1 (I think), and a majority of those for me were caused by a defective RAM, and an IDE cable that was loose to the HD.

I have had 2 "freezes" of everything but the mouse, written up and submitted to Apple. Not KPs, but then again a KP might have contained more useful post-mortem info than these crashes did.

Cheers,
Mike

tomdavidson69 · Dec 9, 2003, 06:16 PM

I haven't had any KP's but I've had 3-4 total system lockups which were pretty annoying.

Talking of KP's somebody on a different thread mentioned they got a KP message with white on black, my housemate got the exact same thing on his ibook today - like the text from single-user mode but on top of osx..wierd...but his logic board is fubar'd so it's going off to apple anyway!

osxisfun · Dec 9, 2003, 06:18 PM

i've had a few Kps but they only occured on wake up from sleep and ONLY if i had netnewwire open. i think it starts to check before my DSL has "connected" so i got KPs.

i switched to shrook. no problems in 5 days so far.

knock wood.