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homgran · Sep 16, 2004, 09:28 AM

Yeah, it's definitely a disk fragmentation issue. I had this problem a little over two months ago (lasted about five days, requiring 4-5 reboots each day). Like many of the other posters, iTunes was playing in the background and BitTorrent was downloading large files at full-tilt when a crash would occur. Eventually, I decided that it was time to clean out my hard disk (I have two 200GB firewire drives, each with plenty of free space). After freeing up 20GB (most of which was junk, anyway) of space on my internal drive, I have yet to experience any more of these annoying freezes.

One possible explanation for the crashes could be Apples Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering which is new in Panther. What this does, each time a file less than 20MB in size is used/opened, is check if the file is fragmented (i.e. if it is split across multiple parts of the hard disk). Fragmented files tend to take longer to access and reduce performance, so what HFAC does, on-the-fly, is defragment (<20MB) files which are regularly in use. The idea is that this will increase performance and put less strain on the hard disk in the long-run.

What may be happening is that the HFAC is causing some sort of conflict with fragmented disks which are under heavy use (this would explain why the freezes occur when when copying files from one place to another - i.e. file-sharing). I think that iTunes is often claimed to be the culprit because it will regularly cause HFAC to either cluster or retrieve a hot-file.

A poster over at Slashdot claims that removing /.hotfiles.btree (use the Terminal) every couple of days will eliminate the problems. Since my system hasn't crashed in over two months (and it's been on 24/7), I haven't felt any need to try this out for myself. However, it may be worth your while trying it out.

-Matt

JCS · Sep 16, 2004, 10:21 AM

The bug has been identified (see earlier in this thread). It's a bug with the HFS filesystem and VM management. According to someone over at Macintouch who submitted the bug, Apple has acknowledged that it is a known bug. And it seems obvious that there are multiple triggers for the bug.

Do you have a URL for the MacIntouch story?

As far as I'm concerned, that's just speculation until there's a fix or workaround for that bug, and that fix or workaround eliminates the freezes we are seeing.

For me, moving my downloads folder to an external, non-boot hard drive eliminated it, unless my boot drive gets massively fragmented with freespace blocks under 30 MB in size. Defragging fixes that

Like I said, I've had the freeze after reformatting the disk, reinstalling the OS, safe-booting, logging into a brand new account, and just letting it sit there with no apps running for a few minutes. Now that doesn't mean that it isn't an HFS/VM interaction bug, but it does mean that there's little I can do to actively prevent it from happening. After all, I have to actually use the computer...

What may be happening is that the HFAC is causing some sort of conflict with fragmented disks which are under heavy use (this would explain why the freezes occur when when copying files from one place to another - i.e. file-sharing).

FWIW, nearly all of my "mouse moves, nothing else works" freezes have happened while not doing any explicit disk i/o (copying files, downloading, etc.)

Also, as I posted earlier, my other two Macs (rev 1 dual 2GHz G5 and a 1GHz 15" AlBook) don't suffer from this problem at all, and they're both running the same version of the OS and the same set of apps on a daily basis. The disks on those two Macs are also heavily abused (both very nearly full, with lots of changes on a daily basis), and the AlBook is (relatively) "RAM starved" (512MB, whereas the other two have 1GB+) and swaps a lot. Neither disk has ever been defragmented.

Again, that doesn't really prove anything either, but it does make me suspicious of any "sure cause" without an accompanying workaround or fix that confirms that it was the culprit.

Spliff · Sep 16, 2004, 02:44 PM

http://www.macintouch.com/itunes21.html#aug02

If you are having freezes right after a reformat and reinstall, then I doubt your problem is caused by the HFS/VM fragmentation issue. Have you ever had your computer's logic board tested? I had a client Mac that crashed frequently, but erractically under OS X (but rarely under OS 9). I tried everything including removing the RAM, reformatting, reinstalling, trying different versions of OS X. Nothing worked. Finally took it to a Mac repair shop. They found nothing at first, but the logic board test revealed a defective processor.

It might be worth checking out.

Originally posted by JCS:
Do you have a URL for the MacIntouch story?

As far as I'm concerned, that's just speculation until there's a fix or workaround for that bug, and that fix or workaround eliminates the freezes we are seeing.

Like I said, I've had the freeze after reformatting the disk, reinstalling the OS, safe-booting, logging into a brand new account, and just letting it sit there with no apps running for a few minutes. Now that doesn't mean that it isn't an HFS/VM interaction bug, but it does mean that there's little I can do to actively prevent it from happening. After all, I have to actually use the computer...

Kate · Sep 16, 2004, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by homgran:
[BA poster over at Slashdot claims that removing /.hotfiles.btree (use the Terminal) every couple of days will eliminate the problems. -Matt [/B]

Interesting....I'll dig into this, this is news to me!

JCS · Sep 16, 2004, 03:00 PM

Have you ever had your computer's logic board tested?

All the tests in the Apple Hardware Test CD pass every time I try them. And since I had a month of 24/7 uptime with lots of heavy use of all parts of the system, I have trouble believing that it's purely a hardware problem.

Spliff · Sep 16, 2004, 03:25 PM

Originally posted by JCS:
All the tests in the Apple Hardware Test CD pass every time I try them. And since I had a month of 24/7 uptime with lots of heavy use of all parts of the system, I have trouble believing that it's purely a hardware problem.

The Apple Hardware Test CD does squat. In my experience, it's missed bad logic boards and defective RAM.

But, if you had a month of uptime, then you're right that it's unlikely to be a hardware problem.

Kate · Sep 16, 2004, 04:05 PM

The Apple Hardware Test CD failed to detect my bad RAM twice. It's use is really limited and not a good basis for diagnosing good/bad hardware IMHO.

Big Mac · Sep 16, 2004, 07:09 PM

I don't buy that it has to do with fragmentation and heavy disk use, because my iBook does not have much free space nor much RAM and yet it is rock solid. If it were just about fragmentation and VM, then it would be happening to everyone who used fragmented, low-memory systems.

homgran · Sep 16, 2004, 08:23 PM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
I don't buy that it has to do with fragmentation and heavy disk use, because my iBook does not have much free space and yet it is rock solid.

But a disk can be close to full without being heavily fragmented, right?

-Matt

Kate · Sep 17, 2004, 05:02 AM

Originally posted by homgran:
But a disk can be close to full without being heavily fragmented, right?

-Matt

Right, but that's a rare case.

Big Mac · Sep 17, 2004, 06:23 AM

Originally posted by Kate:
Right, but that's a rare case.

My thoughts exactly, Kate. Especially when you factor in dynamic swap space allocation, I'm pretty sure it's impossible for my iBook not to be fragmented. Of course, I have not confirmed my disk is fragmented, but I'm pretty certain it is.

ajsedlak · Sep 17, 2004, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by homgran:
A poster over at Slashdot claims that removing /.hotfiles.btree (use the Terminal) every couple of days will eliminate the problems.

Tried this. Not long afterward, I got my first lock-up that occurred without having iTunes or another audio app open. I actually had a day of no lock-ups after I installed the Security Update 2004-09-07 v.1.1. The next day it was back.

I've installed unlockupd now and we'll see if that helps.

-AJ

homgran · 07:55 AM

Originally posted by ajsedlak:
Tried this. Not long afterward, I got my first lock-up that occurred without having iTunes or another audio app open. I actually had a day of no lock-ups after I installed the Security Update 2004-09-07 v.1.1. The next day it was back.

Well, I guess that suggestion didn't work. But I'm still convinced it's got something to do with the automatic defragmenting feature in Panther and heavily used, fragmented drives. One quick question for everyone having these problems: are your drives journaled? To be more precise, is anyone whose drive is not journaled experiencing freezes of this type?

I'm asking because this post explains how Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering is related to journaled volumes in Panther. What I [still] think may be happening is that between defragmenting files and shuffling around "hot" and "cold" files, if the system can't find an appropriate portion of free space on which to write (due to severe fragmentation), it may inadvertantly "pass out" (so to speak) and leave the user with one of those strange freezes. Does that make sense?

-Matt

badtz · Sep 17, 2004, 05:12 PM

.... for myself, I just finished reinstalling OS X, and I'm doing everything I was doing before the crash ... and it hasn't crashed for me this time around just yet [2 days up-time].

*cross fingers*

willrob · Sep 18, 2004, 11:12 AM

While VM fragmentation might be part of the problem, I think it must be linked to some other factor as well.

After so many hard restarts in the past weeks, due to the freezes, my hard drive began to become "sick." The first hint occured when i tried to open applications and they kept asking me for my registration information. I looked into my preferences folder, where normally over 400 items live, and discovered only 38. I had backed them all up but when I attempted to replace the missing items, I couldn't copy anything into that folder.

I then resarted from the System install Cd and rand the disk utility which otld me I had disk errors it cold not correct. lacking any other 3rd party tool, I backed up what i cold and reinstalled (erase and install) 10.3, and then ran the combo updater to get to 10.3.5 again.

Then the lenghty process of reinstalling all the software I use....

But the disk fragmentation after this process shouldbe minimal. Each application optimized its footprint on the disk, and certainly the system itself was optimized after installation. So with 40G of free space one would think I had no VM fragmention problems.

And yet, the freezes occur�actually more frequently than before the reinstall. Typically they occur when I quit an application, either from the menu or keyboard. I use a Wacom tablet, which may be sending a power spike of somesort�it's surface is electrically sensative afterall. But since the reinstall I'm getting a new type of freeze�when mouting a disk image or trying to read a DVD.

So in my case I don't think the issue is VM or fragmentation. It might be a processor or motherboard problem, but don't know why it should have suddenly occured adter the original Panther install.

Toutgood · Sep 18, 2004, 01:49 PM

Second freeze today. Always happens when I'm using photoshop, illustrator, itunes, safari, etc. Basically when I'm working on something important. It's gotten to the point where everything I always loved about OS X - the stabilty, the reeliabilty is gone.

Unless it's addressed I basically have two choices: Reinstall Jaguar or say f*ck it and go back to using Windows. That this problem has been around for months I'm not seeing a consensus on what the source of the problem is, or whether it has been addressed by Apple is discouraging to say the least.

If Apple thinks I'm just going to wait a for Tiger for this to be solved they can think again. This could be it for me and Apple.

Krypton · Sep 18, 2004, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by Toutgood:
Second freeze today. Always happens when I'm using photoshop, illustrator, itunes, safari, etc. Basically when I'm working on something important. It's gotten to the point where everything I always loved about OS X - the stabilty, the reeliabilty is gone.

Unless it's addressed I basically have two choices: Reinstall Jaguar or say f*ck it and go back to using Windows. That this problem has been around for months I'm not seeing a consensus on what the source of the problem is, or whether it has been addressed by Apple is discouraging to say the least.

If Apple thinks I'm just going to wait a for Tiger for this to be solved they can think again. This could be it for me and Apple.

If you could get this problem highlighted by a few Mac centric websites, or even Wired or Ars Technica then Apple might sit up and pay attention

Azzgunther · Sep 19, 2004, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by Toutgood:
Second freeze today. Always happens when I'm using photoshop, illustrator, itunes, safari, etc. Basically when I'm working on something important. It's gotten to the point where everything I always loved about OS X - the stabilty, the reeliabilty is gone.

Unless it's addressed I basically have two choices: Reinstall Jaguar or say f*ck it and go back to using Windows. That this problem has been around for months I'm not seeing a consensus on what the source of the problem is, or whether it has been addressed by Apple is discouraging to say the least.

If Apple thinks I'm just going to wait a for Tiger for this to be solved they can think again. This could be it for me and Apple.

I'm about at that point myself.

One other option: go back to Jaguar.

Also, I read that Apple had acknowledged the problem and was working on it. See Roahn Loyd's post: http://www.macintouch.com/itunes21.html#aug02

Toutgood · Sep 19, 2004, 01:38 PM

Originally posted by Krypton:
If you could get this problem highlighted by a few Mac centric websites, or even Wired or Ars Technica then Apple might sit up and pay attention

Nah they know all about it. Either they've royally f*cked up and can't seem to fix it or they just don't care because it's not really that widespread.

The only negative publicity that could affect Apple would be via mainstream press.

As for going back to Jaguar- I bought and paid for Panther. I want a refund! Windows is looking pretty good to me right now.

Link · Sep 19, 2004, 07:06 PM

Originally posted by Spliff:
http://www.macintouch.com/itunes21.html#aug02

If you are having freezes right after a reformat and reinstall, then I doubt your problem is caused by the HFS/VM fragmentation issue. Have you ever had your computer's logic board tested? I had a client Mac that crashed frequently, but erractically under OS X (but rarely under OS 9). I tried everything including removing the RAM, reformatting, reinstalling, trying different versions of OS X. Nothing worked. Finally took it to a Mac repair shop. They found nothing at first, but the logic board test revealed a defective processor.

It might be worth checking out.

I know your point sounds like a good one, but if this is the case, then how can SO MANY PEOPLE be affected by it, and why wasn't it a problem in jaguar?

I've been having problems with things that just never happened in jaguar, and while I thought it might have been the machine screwing up, I went, formatted, and installed jaguar from scratch -- the machine ran just as it used to in jaguar.

Someone pointed out unlockupd and I thought it was worth a try so I formatted, installed a fresh, scratch install, and proceeded to use that for a while.. the VERY FIRST THING that happened when the machine rebooted into panther was it stopped dead at the blue screen before the loading screen because my pro speakers were plugged in -- something that my bro's imac does as well >_<

So I unplugged them and it continued booting, and a few hours later the damn thing froze up. I'd believe the 'program or network cause' but howabout having this to chew on:

For a total of about 6 weeks now (2 periods of 3 weeks), I had no DSL so I was using dialup.. for the next few weeks I had a different modem to begin with so the network can NOT be the problem.

Ok, where does that take me? Browser? I use firefox and have switched from camino and safari too often to track down the cause -- it happens with all three to be honest.

iTunes? Maybe.. but I've had many freezes without itunes running at all.

It's a 10.3 problem, and it's a shoddy piece of code Apple made that is causing the problem. We can try pointing it down to hardware issues all we want but so far I've been comparing specs with other people and some machines have NOTHING AT ALL related.

Oh yeah, FYI my brother's imac doesn't do this either *sigh* and yeah we've traded speakers before and etc and still have the same issues with all that crap. *shrug* back to the topic..

I should note that my freezes are a solid OS freeze-up. I can still hit say, caps lock or unplug/plug back in the mouse and it'll take note of that (something that doesn't happen if your machine actually *crashes*) -- however 2 main signs for me that it's totally frozen are 1. It doesn't continue to be usable AT ALL, no music or anything, and 2. The machine doesn't respond to ssh requests sometimes even pings.

Spliff · Sep 19, 2004, 10:00 PM

Originally posted by Link:
I know your point sounds like a good one, but if this is the case, then how can SO MANY PEOPLE be affected by it, and why wasn't it a problem in jaguar?

Sorry, I was referring to those with newer computer that have only ever run Panther, not Jaguar.

Jaguar ran perfectly on my system and Panther doesn't. So there are definitely problems with the code in Panther.

ajsedlak · Sep 20, 2004, 02:48 PM

So unlockupd didn't stop the problem for me. This time, when it started going funky, I went to another computer and successfully pinged the one on the fritz. Still searching for the answer... Maybe I'll stop running my RSS reader...

-AJ

siMac · Sep 20, 2004, 03:07 PM

I've been having this problem for some time and just came across this thread - I had figured it was some kinda glitch peculiar to my system and figured a fresh install would fix it, but hadn't got round to that yet.

After reading this thread I thought that perhaps my reasonably full, fairly fragmented (lots of big downloads recently) hard disk might have something to do with it. I defragged it with TechTool the other day - no luck.

So I installed nolockupd today - had a crash half an hour ago. From what other users have said a fresh install won't kill the problem either, and I'm loathe to put myself through that if it won't even help.

So it seems we have another 'non-existent' Apple problem on our hands, or at least that's what 11 forum pages suggests to me. I tried to check the discussion on Apple's boards that someone posted a link to, but, Shock-Horror�, it's mysteriously vanished - just like the thread I started there some time ago about my (and many other people's) terminal iBook battery.

As much as I love Macs and Apple products in general, being treated this way over and over again is really starting to get to me. But what can we do? Switch to Windoze? Ha! Nope we're pretty much ShitOuttaLuck, I suppose that we should just make the most of it when we have systems that work, and vent our anger in various (non-Apple) forums when they don't.

Toutgood · Sep 20, 2004, 08:53 PM

Comment from my Dad, big Linux guy:

"If they'd just go go open source with the OS this would've been solved already."

Me: "Hmm, Linux have any decent vector art apps...?"

Seriously, I'm tired of this crap. If Linux had the apps I need, I'd be there in a heartbeat. I've worked a bit on my dad's computer running Redhat, and I really liked it. Mozilla's a decent browser, Open Office not too shabby, the Gimp - ditto. GUI was even kinda snazzy compared to Windows.

Hmm....

JCS · Sep 21, 2004, 01:54 PM

Uh, the part of the OS that's most likely responsible for the freeze is open source...

(Have your dad get cracking on it ;-)

Miniryu · Sep 21, 2004, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by Toutgood:
Comment from my Dad, big Linux guy:

"If they'd just go go open source with the OS this would've been solved already."

Me: "Hmm, Linux have any decent vector art apps...?"

Seriously, I'm tired of this crap. If Linux had the apps I need, I'd be there in a heartbeat. I've worked a bit on my dad's computer running Redhat, and I really liked it. Mozilla's a decent browser, Open Office not too shabby, the Gimp - ditto. GUI was even kinda snazzy compared to Windows.

Hmm....

My experience of Open Office is that it is a piece of crap. Of course I was running it (for a long time too) in X11, and next to all my other gorgeous OS X apps there was no comparision (does anyone even call the GUI "Aqua" anymore?).

Big Mac · Sep 22, 2004, 12:51 AM

Originally posted by JCS:
Uh, the part of the OS that's most likely responsible for the freeze is open source...

(Have your dad get cracking on it ;-)

Good point, JCS! But you know, I'm beginning to believe that Apple has obfuscated and stonewalled because of a low cost/benefit calculation. I imagine there is something wrong with a subset of Macs, and that it would be more costly for Apple to recall them than to simply deny all knowledge of the problem. It sounds like the simplest explanation to me.

Miniryu · Sep 22, 2004, 01:10 AM

Originally posted by Sealobo:
Not a single lockup since i installed this update 5 days ago! Before it was like a daily routine!

I am saved.

Single Processor G5- I haven't had a problem since the most recent update.

Powaqqatsi · Sep 22, 2004, 03:16 PM

I'm at a 5 days uptime right now after installing the previous security update (the one before 2004-9-16) no lockups. I'm afraid to install the next update

himself · Sep 23, 2004, 03:02 AM

This is a wild shot in the dark, but I wonder...

How many folks affected by this problem have bluetooth enabled (or bluetooth and/or wireless networking)?

mbi · Sep 23, 2004, 03:55 AM

How many folks affected by this problem have bluetooth enabled (or bluetooth and/or wireless networking)?

Bluetooth: yes, Wifi: nope.

siMac · Sep 23, 2004, 06:16 AM

Bluetooth: Check.
WiFi: Check.

I'm on an old machine though (see below), no G5s here.

ism · Sep 23, 2004, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by himself:
This is a wild shot in the dark, but I wonder...

How many folks affected by this problem have bluetooth enabled (or bluetooth and/or wireless networking)?

Yep. Both. On imac G3 and pbook.

homgran · Sep 23, 2004, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by himself:
How many folks affected by this problem have bluetooth enabled (or bluetooth and/or wireless networking)?

Bluetooth: Nope.
Airport: Yes.

-Matt

willrob · Sep 23, 2004, 09:08 AM

Bluetooth: Nope
WiFi: Nope

siMac · Sep 23, 2004, 09:23 AM

That's another theory blown out the water then.

What about P2P programs - they seem to be a common factor? I don't know much about this adaptive hotfile clustering or whatever but is it possible that a large download that is active for a couple of days and therefore constantly in use might be treated as a hotfile and the system would attempt to move it while it's still being written to, causing all kinds of freezy badness?

Or iPods? Mine's always plugged in if i'm at the computer. I might try unplugging it to see if the freezes still happen. That would explain the lack of any info/statement from Apple - they would hardly be falling over themselves to admit a problem related to the beloved iPod! Anybody else got an iPod plugged in when freezes occur? I think remember reading a theory that iTunes had something to do with the problem, should we be pulling at that thread?

</shotsinthedark>

On a side note, I can always tell when it's a freeze and not just the system pausing for breath because in my iBook I can hear the click of the hard drive shutting down a few seconds after things stop responding.

ajsedlak · 03:57 PM

Originally posted by himself:
How many folks affected by this problem have bluetooth enabled (or bluetooth and/or wireless networking)?

No on both.

Oddly enough, my start-and-stop freezes haven't come back since I stopped using NetNewsWire Lite for RSS. I previously used SlashDock, and was getting the freezes just after the installation of the 10.3.5 update. Since then I've switched to NNW and was still getting them. Could these be causing a problem? I have run iTunes for hours with no problems since I stopped running the RSS apps completely. Anyone else see a similar correlation? Perhaps something about apps that are frequently updating from the net?

Link · Sep 23, 2004, 03:24 PM

Bluetooth: nope
Wifi: yep
iTunes constantly running: yep
Bittorrent installed: yep
Bittorrent constantly running: NO. (I use it like once a month

)
ichat constantly runs
mail constantly runs

I can't think of anything else, really. Lately my machine's been freezing hard instead of the usual lookupd crash

siMac · Sep 23, 2004, 03:45 PM

Mine often freezes hard when I'm running Reason, but it's been doing that since jaguar and it's not the same kind of freeze as what I'm getting lately. I think it's a Reason glitch, it shouldn't kill the whole system but it does.

Kate · Sep 23, 2004, 04:11 PM

....no Bluetooth on affected systems here. My PB has BT and has yet to see the freeze...

Toutgood · Sep 23, 2004, 04:21 PM

Only time it has frozen is when I was using Illustrator, Photoshop, Safari and sometime Dreamweaver AND iTunes. Without iTunes running I have yet to experience a crash. I know lots of people have had freezes without ITunes running, but hey.

I have heard of people say it was caused by some USB move driver. I'm sceptical, but I'm looking into it.

And no bluetooth here, wifi yes.

Toutgood · Sep 23, 2004, 05:23 PM

My GF's ibook just froze ofr the first time. Froze while using iPhoto, iTunes wasn't running. She had all the most recent updates, and no bluetooth or USB device plugged in.

She's a very recent switcher, who hated using windows, and was loving - LOVING - the stability of OS X. She was stunned.

Apple, you're f*cking up big time here! The switchers aren't going to like this "It just works-until it doesn't business"!

ls2ba · Sep 26, 2004, 08:13 PM

To everyone who's been following this thread, I recently purchased a G4 iBook, 14", 256RAM 1.07GHz. I've just started heavy network use and the freeze/mouse-still-moves-but-does-nothing started (prompting me to find such a forum as this).

This looks suspiciously like a problem I had with my B&W G3. I tried EVERYTHING! As a last resort, wondering if my RAM was overheating, I opened the cover and trained a fan directly on the RAM slots. IT WORKED!! It kept working. Mac repairmen I contacted confirmed the RAM (an 'upgrade') tended to run hot. This would explain the mid-task stoppage.

I wonder, here, if this the same problem. I have a desktop machine running the identical software as the new iBook, with no problems whatsoever. If the problem were software, it would happen all the time, for everyone, under the same conditions. I think it's hardware! I'll be calling a couple of local dealers to ask about such problems. My iBook is only 3 weeks old and I was away for the middle week.

I don't know where to look for the type of RAM used (though I haven't yet surfed). Would like more feedback concerning hardware defect possibility. Thanks.

ls

ajsedlak · Sep 27, 2004, 12:38 PM

After several days of no more instances of the "start and stop" lock-up, I fired up NetNewsWire Lite again. Within 45 minutes it came back.

Since it happened with SlashDock as well, I'm inclined to think that the app itself is not the problem, but something the app has to do, perhaps to update... Although, for the past several days I've been using Thunderbird to read RSS with no issues.

Or, maybe it has to do with using the contextual menu that pops out of the dock icon...

Anyone else here do a lot of dock icon ctrl+clicking and getting these problems?

mbi · Sep 27, 2004, 01:28 PM

Well, it looks like I finally fixed this issue.

Turns out the problem was my main harddisk suffering from the dreaded "click of death".

Here is how I put a finger on the problem: I used the Media Scanner coming with Speedtools Utilities to detect broken sectors on my main partition. Whenever the scan would hit a given sector near the beginning of the disk the system would freeze (and the the harddisk would click).

Turns out one of those broken sectors was occupied by the vital /.hotfiles.btree file, and I think that was what caused the frequent crashes: whenever Panther would try to optimize the filesystem by updating that file the drive would hit that sector and freeze the system. A deadlock, actually: system waiting indefinitely on a required resource.

(This also seems consequent with the fact that frequent defrags decreases the freeze rate: less fragmented disk space implies Panther itself has to optimize the volume more seldom, ergo less hits on the broken sector)

As a solution I cloned my whole system (well, the readable bits) onto a new harddrive with Carbon Copy Cloner and rebooted into the cloned system.

So far the system has been running smoothly for over 48 hours (and it was freezing over twice per hour before). *fingers crossed*

I'm not arguing a "click of death" being the cause of all the crashes reported here, but if you have access to Speedtools Utilities I suggest you run the Media Scanner test and see if your system repeatedly freezes on the same sectors.

Link · Sep 27, 2004, 02:27 PM

Funny that you guys point it out, I've had this machine up 2 and a half days now.. and ironically one of the apps I've gotten a bit of use out of lately is BitTorrent (actually, a lot of use).

That aside, I don't think it's a "clicking of death" thing as this machine's drive isn't quite that old, and even so it hasn't made any clicking during a crash (Actually, that'd be nice.. sure I'd have to go through the trouble of paying for a new drive or maybe getting lucky and RMAing this one, but then my problems would be taken care of for good!)

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

ajsedlak · Sep 27, 2004, 02:44 PM

Originally posted by ajsedlak:
After several days of no more instances of the "start and stop" lock-up, I fired up NetNewsWire Lite again. Within 45 minutes it came back.

Since it happened with SlashDock as well, I'm inclined to think that the app itself is not the problem, but something the app has to do, perhaps to update... Although, for the past several days I've been using Thunderbird to read RSS with no issues.

Or, maybe it has to do with using the contextual menu that pops out of the dock icon...

Anyone else here do a lot of dock icon ctrl+clicking and getting these problems?

As an experiment, since this post earlier I have been running NNW but NOT ctrl+clicking the dock icon to read the headlines. Sadly, the hang came back.

Big Mac · Sep 28, 2004, 06:01 AM

Originally posted by ajsedlak:
As an experiment, since this post earlier I have been running NNW but NOT ctrl+clicking the dock icon to read the headlines. Sadly, the hang came back.

So it seems like you've found a definitive link between this NNW and the source of your crashes, right?

willrob · Sep 28, 2004, 10:35 AM

Is Nap involved?

While I only started having these freezes since Panther, I have been using the CHUD tools Processor Nap tool to lower the fan noise in my MDD G4 since way back in 10.2.5.

Today I was reading the Apple Discussion boards and discovered that many users with Dual processor G4s who use Nap have experinced freezes similar to those described in this thread. Apparently the most recent (beta) version of the CHUD tools has removed Nap entirely.

From the thread I gathered that one should disable one of the processors when selecting nap (which I have not done), and that one should turn off nap when doing any processor intensive activity.

The phrase that leapt out at me was one poster mentioning that if you didn't turn off the nap you would get freezes as you closed applications. This has precisely been the most frequent way my system has crashed�as I quit an application.

So now I will try running with nap turned off to see if the freezes go away. Are any of you also running the nap feature?

willrob · Sep 28, 2004, 01:37 PM

A brief follow up to my previous post about processor Nap.

If you select single processor and nap and then put the computer to sleep (either manually or via the Energy Saver control panel), when the machine wakes up dual processors are active again, but still in nap mode. I've started keeping the control in the menu bar (an option in the Harware preference), so I can switch to single mode again.