[Zim]

I will add that the "generalization" is that network activity often seems to be involved... for some people that is Airport, for others p2p apps, and for many people iTunes (tho I'm not as clear on what network activity it creates, so maybe my theory doesn't cover everything)... or possibly the network activity from these apps is causing disk caching/memory issues. I don't think any one of these Apps is the actual bug, it simply exposes the underlying system level bug.

This bug started with 10.3.0 (several of us filed bugs as far back as last Fall), and the same things that now cause the freeze, did not under 10.2.x.

This bug happens on fairly stock systems, with nothing exotic or complicated installed.

The "freeze" in question is typified by a system that is locked up except that the mouse moves around. The clock does not advance, nor does the system-task window pop up so you can kill any processes.

The system will respond to a ping (I believe) from a remote system, but will not answer an incoming ssh request.

Cron jobs do not execute during the freeze, and system logs contain no useful info (that I know of) to point to the source of the problem (which in my mind shows a fairly low level crash when these things do not work)

There are several attempts work-arounds, some of which seem to help some people and do nothing for others.

Mike

[Podolsky]

Thank you for these summaries. One quick question - do these events generate a Crash Report and if so, what has any post-mortem revealed in terms of where the problem might be living?

[aehaas]

I was good for two months until today. Back then I defragged, got rid of NAV and NUM. The only other add on that i keep is Clear Dock. No problems until I was running the Quark 6.5 upgrade. No other programs were on from a clear startup. After the install, the dreaded freeze with only the mouse cursor moving.

aehaas

[siMac]

Nope, no crash report.

I don't think this thread would have made it to fifteen pages if crash reports were being generated.

[Podolsky]

Originally posted by siMac:
Nope, no crash report.

I don't think this thread would have made it to fifteen pages if crash reports were being generated.

Yeah, you are probly right but I admitted I hadn't made the time to read the entire thread. It may be worth trying to force the system to generate a crash report after this occurs to at least see what the system is doing when all other services except mouse-ranging crash.

[Zim]

Nothing in /var/log/* except a gap during the frozen time.

And irony of ironies, CRASHREPORTER was (at one point) thought to be involved... (ie. it was locked up while trying to generate a crash report), so many people disabled it (I did). Though I must admit, if it were _just_ that, I think even Apple could have fixed it by now.

Mike

[Podolsky]

Originally posted by Zim:
Nothing in /var/log/* except a gap during the frozen time.

And irony of ironies, CRASHREPORTER was (at one point) thought to be involved... (ie. it was locked up while trying to generate a crash report), so many people disabled it (I did). Though I must admit, if it were _just_ that, I think even Apple could have fixed it by now.

Mike

Again - appologies for not having read the thread...but Mike, with now crash report has it even been firmly established that the OS has crashed rather than GUI? Has anyone tried to telnet into a hung machine to kill off the offending process or to peek around? Again, I am sure I am forcing you to go over things no doubt covered in this long thread. But, if it is the GUI that is actually crashing and someone has a trick to crash the OS during frozen time it may yield a report.....

[nforcer]

It has been proven that disabling CrashReporter does not fix anything. It's just a placebo effect. Some think it fixes things because no freezes occur a while after disabling it. But the error does not even occur regularly with CrashReporter turned on, and even after turning it off people have experienced the same freezes.

Supposedly defragmenting fixes things for a while, but I think this is more of the same effect described above.

[homgran]

Originally posted by Podolsky:
Has anyone tried to telnet into a hung machine to kill off the offending process or to peek around?

Not possible. In the rare event of a freeze, my first port of call has always been to ssh from one of the networked machines and, as you suggest, kill the offending process. However, in the case of this particular type of crash, it is not possible to log into the machine remotely - you can ping it, but you can't ssh/telnet.

Fortunately for me, I only suffered about two days of this frustrating behavior before it, for no apparent reason (other than a pretty rigorous disk clear-out), stopped happening. That was several months ago. My 1GHz Titanium is in use virtually 24/7 (apart from when I'm on the move, in which case it's in sleep mode) - when I'm not using it for my work or amusement, it remains either idle or downloading.

Apart from those two nightmarish days, my TiBook's been working like a dream for almost the last two years. During that time, my usage patterns haven't really changed much (if at all). However, this issue still troubles me - and I'm hoping it gets resolved sooner rather than later... for all our sakes.

For what it's worth, I still believe that it's some kind of conflict between the hot-file adaptive clustering and virtual memory swaps (and, possibly, disk fragmentation).


-Matt

[Zim]

I haven't had a freeze in many months now and can hold up 4 things:

- I added 256M of RAM (which might decrease VM use)
- I swapped my 40G drive for 120G, effectively defragging my system as it was copied over
- I disabled CrashReporter
- I have been using p2p stuff a lot less

I can't point to any one of these as definitive... and from what I've read, many of these have failed to work for other people... all I can say is I've been very stable for quite a while (knock wood). From the continuing reports tho, and a lack of any published bug fix in the OS updates, I believe the problem still exists. I'm simply managing to avoid it somehow.

Originally posted by homgran:
For what it's worth, I still believe that it's some kind of conflict between the hot-file adaptive clustering and virtual memory swaps (and, possibly, disk fragmentation).

-Matt

My suspicion as well.

Mike

[filzer]

Originally posted by Since EBCDIC:
Welcome filzer! I'm sorry our meeting couldn't be under happier circumstances, but we can always hope.

A question: You say you started iTunes and freeze! Were you running BT at that time, or anything else?

i am sure there will be some happy meetings here...

Yes, i ran BT, mlMac. everything fine. Then i start iTunes, and it freezes.

it never freezes with only BT and mlMac on or only iTunes on.

[Kate]

I have an iBook here that currently has the freeze nearly on a daily basis.

This gives me a chance to test some countermeasures.

First for all who are new to this:

-there are no logs related to said freeze
-no, no ssh from a remote machine into the victim


Today I will start with an archive and install operation on the iBook. And while I'm at it, I'll see if I can defrag it as well.

I'll keep you posted.

[Since EBCDIC]

Kate,

Is there some commonality in which apps you have running when things lock up?

Can you *cause* your system to freeze up?

[osxrules]

There doesn't appear to be a way to make the system freeze. It just happens - that's why it's so infuriating. If we knew how to avoid it, we would avoid using things that do it. I just had another this week after going about a week without one. I thought it had fixed by doing a permissions fix and cleaning out system and user caches. No such luck.

I had thought that the issue was to do with the windowserver because I've had similar problems when the system is under heavy load and it unfreezes after about 5-20 seconds. But then, I usually hear the system churning away. That's not the case with the crash.

Another reason I thought it might be the windowserver was because it has a log file in /private/var/log. You have to change its permissions to read it. It has a few entries where applications are able to disable UI updates and it says that the server enables them again. I thought maybe an application could disable the UI updates and if the windowserver fails then it can't enable it again.

Nov 03 03:08:30 [182] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Finder" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 03:08:39 [182] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXPostEventByConnection: invalid connection
Nov 03 03:09:28 [182] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.Main" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 08:51:06 [182] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "QuickTime Player" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 08:54:40 [182] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Finder" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 08:54:49 [182] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Finder" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 08:57:54 [175] CGXPerformInitialDisplayConfiguration
Nov 03 08:57:54 [175] Display 0x42707c0: MappedDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x610 Model 0x9c1f S/N 0; online enabled built-in (0,0)[1024 x 768], base addr 0x0xb0018000
Nov 03 08:57:54 [175] Display 0x3f003d: MappedDisplay Unit 1; Vendor 0xffffffff Model 0xffffffff S/N -1; offline enabled (2048,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x0xb1019000
Nov 03 08:57:54 [175] Display 0x41dc9d00: VirtualDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x756e6b6e Model 0x76697274 S/N 0; offline enabled built-in (2049,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x0xb0015000
Nov 03 08:58:12 [175] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "SystemUIServer" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 08:58:53 [175] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Finder" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
Nov 03 09:04:31 [175] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Finder" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.

^^crash happened between 08:54 and 08:57.

I'm not sure if the windowserver controls the mouse though or if it would generate a log file. I would like to be able to know what the windowserver was doing before the crash. Is there a way to see CPU usage history? Someone said it freed up after about 20 minutes.

The crashes aren't happening all that often but everytime they happen for me, Azureus has been open. The actual crashes happen when I do certain things that require a screen redraw like moving/deleting files or scrolling a window.

Again, that made me think about the windowserver and if it had links to the hardware accelerated graphics. All my kernel panics have been caused by my graphics card. Have people had the crash with an nVidia card?

[Kate]

Originally posted by Since EBCDIC:
Kate,

Is there some commonality in which apps you have running when things lock up?

Can you *cause* your system to freeze up?

Sorry, the answers to this are no and no. Just as a fact the iBook freezes much more often than my PowerMac and my PowerBook never has it. So the iBook seems the best testing ground.

I'll first copy the entire disk to a FW drive, delete the main internal disk and copy things back. So the entire drive is defragmented. I'll see if that changes things before I try an archive and install of the OS.

Maybe this will be resolved by the pending release of 10.3.6, but anyway, it may well fail on this freeze . I have seen the freeze on the iBook since 10.3.5 only, like on my PowerMac that also didn't see the freeze before 10.3.5 .

[theolein]

BTW people, for those who suspect the Finder, Dock, iTunes or Window Server, there is a way to start up ONLY the Window Server and a terminal window. it involves making a text file as root, giving it rwx------ priviliges and naming it something you can remember, such as "window_and_term" and then placing the folling into it:

Code:
 /System/Library/CoreServices/WindowServer& exec /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal

Note that this MUST all be in one line. Save the file to a place you'll easily find it from the command line and log out to the login window. Enter ">Console" (or ">console", I can't remember) and you'll land up in the text console window without any windows. Log in as root and go to the place you saved that file of yours. Type "./window_and_term" and you'll land up in the OSX GUI, but without any Finder, Dock and only a terminal window. You can run OSX applications by typing "open /path/to/app/and/full/appname.app" in the terminal window. It will start up the application, and you'll be able to see if that app is the culprit. The only way to get out of this environment is by typing "reboot" on the commandline.

WARNING: You'll be running as root with all the attendant dangers that that entails. I'm only suggesting this as the bug seems so elusive that it's almost impossible to nail down the culprit that is causing it. Be careful when and if you use this.

[badtz]

Originally posted by badtz:
just to chime back in.....


i was getting freezes every day, about 2-3 times a day for awhile.... until my powerbook's HD got scrambled! Luckily I backup!!!


WHAT I DID WAS ... zero the drive out, and re-installed Panther over it.


Initially (after the install) i was still getting freezes, about 3 in the first week.


Since then (it's been over a month) I haven't had a freeze!!!!!!!!!

Nevermind about my above post a week ago.

For the past couple days, I've been averaging two freezes per day

[moofman]

How's everybody doing with 10.3.6? Any fixes? Get worse?

[Big Mac]

I really hate to say it, but for those of you who have the option, have you considered downgrading to 10.2?

[Kate]

Originally posted by moofman:
How's everybody doing with 10.3.6? Any fixes? Get worse?

For me this is too early. I'll report a freeze under 10.3.6 if it occures, but right now I see none, which is no sign at all, neither for the good nor for the worse. The occurence pattern I am seeing allows for hours to days to weeks of pauses between freezes.

After three weeks of continous uptime under 10.3.6 and no freeze, I'd be tempted to say it might be gone during the transition to 3.6 .

[Azzgunther]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
I really hate to say it, but for those of you who have the option, have you considered downgrading to 10.2?

It was the only solution for me. Kind of sucks, too, since Panther is so great otherwise. I've been using Panther this weekend while at home and it's so nice. Not worth a freeze every 5 hours nice, but very nice.

I've upgraded my machine to 10.3.6 as well. If it still freezes I'll post here.

[Krypton]

According to the official 'Apple board G5 panther freezing thread', 10.3.6 is the cure everyone's been waiting for.

It would be quite cruel if this turns out to be false

[Zim]

Originally posted by Krypton:
According to the official 'Apple board G5 panther freezing thread', 10.3.6 is the cure everyone's been waiting for.

It would be quite cruel if this turns out to be false

Can you post a link to this?

(of course this affects G4s as well... and odd that Apple didn't call out the fix in the update info).

... still, it would be nice.

Mike

[Krypton]

Here

(You need to read the last 20 posts, of 800+)

[Powaqqatsi]

Sounds good for people still having it. I reinstalled 10.3.5 2 weeks ago and installed .6 today. I've been freeze free ever since.

PS: I thought they had locked that thread ?

[Krypton]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Sounds good for people still having it. I reinstalled 10.3.5 2 weeks ago and installed .6 today. I've been freeze free ever since.

PS: I thought they had locked that thread ?

They locked the one in Panther-> Usage, but not the G5 one. (It seems such fundamental problems only matter when they concern your flagship product )

[Zim]

I am a little skeptical b/c people there refer to a spinning beach ball during the freeze.. I do not recall the BB (on my g4), only a movable mouse, with no other system response.....

Mike

[Raining Down in Texas]

My 1 GHz TiBook just froze like this for the first time ever this evening. I had updated to 10.3.6 on Saturday.

I had just awakened it from sleep, and activated LaunchBar to change my network location. The interface froze - the cursor would move, but I could not click on anything and there was no response to keystrokes. I let it sit for ~5 minutes, and could not get any response other than the cursor. There was no disk activity during this period.

[osxrules]

I don't think there's a need to go to 10.2. I can't understand people who even suggest stuff like that. The problem only started in one of the updates to 10.3 (I reckon 10.3.4). What I find odd is that my brother's imac has never done this and he's used 10.3.5 since it came out.

The only differences between my machine and his are that I use bittorrent and I have a graphics card that supports hardware accelerated quartz. The crashes only started when I started using bittorrent too.

BTW, does anyone know why we're getting so many ATI/nVidia updates lately? There are new ones in 10.3.6 again.

10.3.6 seems to fix what some people were describing here:

Resolves an issue in which the display could sometimes remain dark when waking from display sleep (the mouse pointer might appear, but normal function could not be restored) if using Screen Saver password on a portable computer.

No mention of this problem though.

Does anyone know of software that tracks/logs every single event the computer does? Maybe one of the regular freezers could use it and see what happens just before the crash.

[Zim]

Originally posted by osxrules:
I don't think there's a need to go to 10.2. I can't understand people who even suggest stuff like that. The problem only started in one of the updates to 10.3 (I reckon 10.3.4).

Incorrect. This problem has existed since 10.3.0. I filed a bug with Apple almost a year ago. So going back to 10.2 would be the only known sure way to avoid this bug.

Mike

[dulrich]

Ooooh, I'm quite happy to discover that I'm not alone with freeeeeze.

I have a G4 dual 1,25GHz FW800 1MB L2:
Ati 9700 Pro
Adaptec 39160
AlchemyTV +
2GB Ram
3 ATA Drives

I have freeze from the 10.3.0 but it's worst with 10.3.5 and 10.3.6 . I have one freeze every 5 minutes... After 2 or 3 reboots it's okay for some hours.(without adaptec)

With adaptec 39160 I have a lot of freeze everytime, so I take it away... But it's not better now.

I have done every tips (authorisation repair, hardware test, periodic, onyx, tech tool, disk warrior, rember, new user, virtual memory adjustement...) but nothing works.

I have throw every litlle software (like ceepeeyou) with no change...

I just want to throw my computer now... no log.... no kernel panic... just hard freeze......

It's not heat problem, It could happens just after login (when cpu are cold)...

I just add that I have no problem with a G3 300 B&B and a Powerbook 1,25...
I think about an OpenFirmware bug..?

[osxrules]

Originally posted by Zim:
Incorrect. This problem has existed since 10.3.0. I filed a bug with Apple almost a year ago. So going back to 10.2 would be the only known sure way to avoid this bug.

Mike

Hmmm, I think you might be right. I just ran azureus overnight on my brother's imac, which has never experienced the crash. Then I opened a disk image this morning and it happened while azureus was open. So azureus or the bittorrent network is causing it for me.

I assumed it was 10.3.4 or so because that's when I started using bittorrent.

What happened this time was that the hard drive was still spinning, the GUI froze but the mouse could move albeit jittery sometimes. None of the keys worked except the power button to go to sleep. I heard the hard drive spin down but screen stayed on.

I tried to wake it with the space bar and the light on my optical mouse flashed when I pressed keys but no wake up.

So, for the people looking for a fairly sure way to get the freeze, try getting azureus from http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ and downloading a large torrent from http://www.legaltorrents.com/

Try leaving it overnight on a big file and then do normal activity while it's running.

I just discovered a log file made by azureus exactly at the time of the crash:

[9:21:56] DEBUG::Fri Nov 12 09:21:56 GMT 2004
[9:21:56] java.lang.SecurityException: VM exit operation prohibited
at org.gudy.azureus2.core3.security.impl.SESecurityMa nagerImpl$1.checkExit(SESecurityManagerImpl.java:1 37)
at java.lang.Runtime.exit(Runtime.java:88)
at java.lang.System.exit(System.java:715)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.appleEventProc(Dis play.java:337)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.carbon.OS.SendEventToEven tTarget(Native Method)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Di splay.java:2530)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.SWTThread.<ini t>(SWTThread.java:70)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.SWTThread.crea teInstance(SWTThread.java:45)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.Initializer.<i nit>(Initializer.java:181)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.Main.<init>(Main.java:71)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.Main.main(Main.java:115)

[9:21:56] DEBUG::Fri Nov 12 09:21:56 GMT 2004
[9:21:57] com.aelitis.azureus.core.AzureusCoreException: core not running
at com.aelitis.azureus.core.impl.AzureusCoreImpl.stop (AzureusCoreImpl.java:202)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.Initializer.st opIt(Initializer.java:366)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.SWTThread.<ini t>(SWTThread.java:81)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.SWTThread.crea teInstance(SWTThread.java:45)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.Initializer.<i nit>(Initializer.java:181)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.Main.<init>(Main.java:71)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.Main.main(Main.java:115)

[9:21:57] DEBUG::Fri Nov 12 09:21:57 GMT 2004
[9:21:57] org.eclipse.swt.SWTError: No more handles
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2717)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2616)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2587)
at org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Image.init(Image.java:732 )
at org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Image.<init>(Image.java:4 41)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.ImageRepository.loadImage (ImageRepository.java:124)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.ImageRepository.loadImage (ImageRepository.java:115)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.ImageRepository.loadImage s(ImageRepository.java:34)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.Initializer.ru n(Initializer.java:219)
at org.gudy.azureus2.ui.swt.mainwindow.SWTThread$1.ru nSupport(SWTThread.java:65)
at org.gudy.azureus2.core3.util.AERunnable.run(AERunn able.java:38)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:552)

Maybe it's got something to do with Java. Does the itunes music store use Java?

[HorseyBoy]

For those using Bittorrent, try setting your download folder to a disk other than your startup drive - any partition or external will do. That might put an end to Bittorrent-related freezes.
I can't actually remember where I read this tip (this thread is ridiculously long, and I've tried to follow similar discussions on other boards, including Apple's), but it seems to have worked for me.

[theolein]

Originally posted by dulrich:
Ooooh, I'm quite happy to discover that I'm not alone with freeeeeze.

I have a G4 dual 1,25GHz FW800 1MB L2:
Ati 9700 Pro
Adaptec 39160
AlchemyTV +
2GB Ram
3 ATA Drives

I have freeze from the 10.3.0 but it's worst with 10.3.5 and 10.3.6 . I have one freeze every 5 minutes... After 2 or 3 reboots it's okay for some hours.(without adaptec)

With adaptec 39160 I have a lot of freeze everytime, so I take it away... But it's not better now.

I have done every tips (authorisation repair, hardware test, periodic, onyx, tech tool, disk warrior, rember, new user, virtual memory adjustement...) but nothing works.

I have throw every litlle software (like ceepeeyou) with no change...

I just want to throw my computer now... no log.... no kernel panic... just hard freeze......

It's not heat problem, It could happens just after login (when cpu are cold)...

I just add that I have no problem with a G3 300 B&B and a Powerbook 1,25...
I think about an OpenFirmware bug..?

I suppose you've probably tried this already, but just in case, have you tried removing the RAM modules and using one and then the other? Have you reinstalled the software on your Mac after having reformatted the drive?

[Kate]

It is now official: 10.3.6 does not prevent the freeze for my iBook. Today the "freeze but mouse moves" happened again. This time it came with an unusual noise from the drive.

This is sick. I have not yet seen this on the PowerMac.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Kate:


It is now official: 10.3.6 does not prevent the freeze for my iBook. Today the "freeze but mouse moves" happened again. This time it came with an unusual noise from the drive.

This is sick. I have not yet seen this on the PowerMac.

Sorry to hear your problem continues.

Do you have an external FW drive you can operate the iBook from to eliminate the internal drive as a problem? Unusual noises from today's hard drives is never a good sign.

I would attribute this 'noise' to hardware problem with the drive.

[Kate]

I don't think it is a hardware issue. This noise may well have occured from VM accessing paged data while the system froze and the transaction never terminated correctly. I checked the drive and there were no hardware issues detected, neither there have been any filestructure defects nor file system issues to be repaired .

I had hoped the issue had been addressed in 10.3.6, which certainly has not.

So for now I will try to do what I had previously planned, a complete defragmentation. I have still 15GB of free space on the drive so I doubt there is much fragmentation, but anyhow, I'll test this step by step.

[Link]

This is what's odd. For the longest time, my g4 was crash free (about a month) -- at first I was having crashes but I found changing the slot the ram stick was in eliminated those (they were in the form of kernel panics)..

but that's where it ended. Because the shiny new 512 I bought didn't work in my g4 I had it for a few weeks in there (shown up as a 256) and well, not a single crash in that whole period -- it was pure bliss!

After which, I rebooted back while the part's out being exchanged, happened to hack up my system a little too much and had to reinstall everything. Wouldn't you guess it, lockupd is back!

*sigh*

[Kate]

Just as a FYI for all concerned:

I wiped the internal disk of the iBook and copied everything back from my external drive in order to get a fully defragmented set up. This has run now 72 h error free. This is not yet long enough to draw any conclusions from. After the 10.3.6 update the freeze did occur again so now I'm testing the defrag-option as a possible cure.

Since 10.3.6 my Dual G5 Power Mac has not yet frozen again and to add to the big picture it hasn't done so a reasonable amount of time before that. It had the freeze with the moving mouse six times after applying the 10.3.5 update however. It seems this has "cured" itself somehow. I did reinstall 10.3.5 due to other issues I had however.

My PowerBook never had a suchlike freeze, neither running 10.3.5 nor 10.3.6.

[Zim]

Exactly 1 year + 1 week from the day I filed my initial bug report (Nov 11, 2003), I got "followup question #2" from Apple

I guess I'm glad they are still (or have at least begun) looking into it again, but dismayed it has taken this long.

NDA language in their reply, not sure it applies to me or not (might have agreed to that when signing up for free ADC membership).. suffice it to say I find it an odd tree they are barking up with their question, but will try to reply. Completely unrelated to ANY topic that has been posted here (of which I am aware).

Alas I have been crash free for so long that I'm not sure I'll be much help to them.

Mike

[Kate]

Originally posted by Zim:
..... suffice it to say I find it an odd tree they are barking up with their question, but will try to reply. Completely unrelated to ANY topic that has been posted here (of which I am aware).

Alas I have been crash free for so long that I'm not sure I'll be much help to them.

Mike

You could just copy'n paste from these postings.

[Kate]

FYI, the experiment with the iBook just this moment came to a grinding halt. The freeze occured again.

To sum it up:

A fresh install of 10.3 did not help
Upgrading to 10.3.6 did not help
Complete defragmentation as suggested by some posters did not help
Using good backup of /user did not help
Using a backup of the netinfo database did not help
Using backups of essential system files did not help
Purging the bootdrive to get more and bigger contiguous free space did not help
Using patches or altering system behaviour by some posted means did not help
Changing RAM did not help
Exchanging the boot drive did not help

And changing the mother board did also help nothing.

The symptoms are still the same: the mouse moves but the GUI is not responding, neither by the keyboard nor by the mouse and only a cold boot restores functionality. There are no log files written that show a date related to that freeze, nor are there log files at all before or after the freezw occurs in most cases. If there are logs they indicate only the fact a cold boot occured.

Since my PowerMac seems to remain free of this since weeks now, after having issues a few times, and since my PowerBook never saw this, and since my other Powermacs never had this type of a freeze, it must be some odd and maybe complex interdependency of hard and software beyond a normal mortals skill to detect. It may be a VM issue as stated further above, but according to my experience it could even be a side effect of gravitational lensing, I cannot rule out anything but the obvious.

I'm severely lacking new ideas for testing. Anyone in with a fresh dash of experimental juices ? Mine are worn thin and off.

[osxrules]

Originally posted by Kate:
FYI, the experiment with the iBook just this moment came to a grinding halt. The freeze occured again.

It may be a VM issue as stated further above, but according to my experience it could even be a side effect of gravitational lensing, I cannot rule out anything but the obvious.

I'm severely lacking new ideas for testing. Anyone in with a fresh dash of experimental juices ? Mine are worn thin and off.

Gravitational lensing. Of course, why didn't I think of that *smacks forehead*. It's so obvious now. LOL.

I was beginning to think it was my lil ibook too because my brother's imac has never crashed that way. Then I used his machine for one day with Azureus and it crashed the following morning.

Since then I've been using Tomato Torrent (python based instead of Java) and I haven't had a crash so far. I'm convinced it's either a memory issue or a Java issue. I'm thinking less along the lines of memory because surely if I transfer large amounts of data using Tomato Torrent it should crash just like Azureus.

I haven't been crash free long enough to make a proper decision on this though but it's looking good so far. Tomato uses much less Ram too (3x less) and is less CPU intensive. Only time will tell.

[Kate]

Even Steves RDF� could be a cause.

BTW The iBook is again in for repairs due to failure of the screen/screenlight/reed-switch/mobo/graphics card or whatever prevents the display from displaying.

[Big Mac]

It sounds like your iBook has a myriad of problems, Kate. Perhaps you should demand a new one, if not an upgrade.

[Kate]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
It sounds like your iBook has a myriad of problems, Kate. Perhaps you should demand a new one, if not an upgrade.

Apple is investigating my hardware issues, they already had replaced the mobo and screen light inverter and reed switch.

While this is carried out I am glad to report, that my PowerMac and PowerBook both are freeze free since months now.

[Azzgunther]

What a nice surprise. I only booted into 10.3.5 because of a need to use a certain piece of software and when the 10.3.6 update popped up I had almost zero expectations for it to fix things.

10.3.6 fixed the glitch. I haven't had one freeze, kernel panic, or other manifestation of an OS crash since I updated.

It seems that it's helped quite a few people across the internet.



Kate-

I think your iBook problems are beyond this particular software glitch. Maybe it's time to start demanding a replacement.

[callefoss]

Well I have had two kernel panics in one week and both times while running azureus. It seems like a well know problem, especially on dual processors see this thread http://sourceforge.net/forum/ . I also found this article about it which makes me a bit concerned. I though this could not happen in OS X.

[Podolsky]

I never had this problem before today.

Than, 2 freezes.

I went and checked the files that had just been modified pre-freeze.

This was the file that was modified just before the freeze:

com.apple.dock.iconcache.501

I deleted this file and now.....

No more freeze.

Enjoy your turkeys.

[Podolsky]

This thread needs to be more proactive in deconstructing the root-cause of these freezers. Now, if you freeze, note the exact time and than search for any and all files that were modified just prior to the freeze. Than, delete all the deletable files and see if the freezes stop. I did this and the freeze is over.