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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Panther Locks Up - Move Mouse But Nothing Else

Panther Locks Up - Move Mouse But Nothing Else (Page 10)
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EmmEff
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Aug 31, 2004, 06:20 PM
 
This is really starting to get to me... I am rebooting at least once per day now because of the lockup problem. I have two days to return this iBook and give up on the Mac. This is a HUGE disappointment.

I cannot believe enough people are affected to create a 9 page thread and Apple doesn't have a fix for this.

What can I/we do to make this problem known to Apple? This is totally unacceptable.
     
Azzgunther
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Aug 31, 2004, 06:30 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
I cannot believe enough people are affected to create a 9 page thread and Apple doesn't have a fix for this.

What can I/we do to make this problem known to Apple? This is totally unacceptable.
We had a 675-post thread at Apple's own forums until they locked the topic.

http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]

Instead of silencing us, they need to respond to - and acknowledge - the flaw.
     
Spliff
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Aug 31, 2004, 06:30 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
This is really starting to get to me... I am rebooting at least once per day now because of the lockup problem. I have two days to return this iBook and give up on the Mac. This is a HUGE disappointment.

I cannot believe enough people are affected to create a 9 page thread and Apple doesn't have a fix for this.

What can I/we do to make this problem known to Apple? This is totally unacceptable.
Send them feedback via the OS X feedback link at their website.

You have an iBook. Are you sure you don't have a defective logic board that all the iBooks seem to have?
     
torifile
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Aug 31, 2004, 09:03 PM
 
RAM issue maybe? This problem is more often intermittent than regular. That sounds like a hardware issue.
     
EmmEff
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Aug 31, 2004, 09:37 PM
 
Originally posted by Azzgunther:
We had a 675-post thread at Apple's own forums until they locked the topic.

http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]

Instead of silencing us, they need to respond to - and acknowledge - the flaw.
Hmmm... in the meantime, I am supposed to tolerate my brand new notebook crashing daily? This is better than a PC how?
     
EmmEff
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Aug 31, 2004, 09:38 PM
 
Originally posted by torifile:
RAM issue maybe? This problem is more often intermittent than regular. That sounds like a hardware issue.
Have you read any of this thread?
     
Spliff
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Aug 31, 2004, 09:55 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
I experienced my first lockup in the first hour or so of Mac ownership, so that was a bit of a disappointment. It seems if I stay away from Expose, the machine is okay. The only thing I can think is that the video card is being taxed when using Expose. Maybe a bug in the video subsystem?
Emm,

I don't think you have the same problem as other people here. New iBooks don't crash within a hour of ownership unless there is a hardware problem like bad factory RAM or a defective logic board.

The issue here is related to virtual memory, the file system, disk fragmentation, and in many cases, heavy network usage (bittorrent, downloading newsgroups binaries). Apple is aware of the problem and is working on a fix, according to a poster over at Macintouch.com.

This problem is not related to Expos� and it's not easily reproducible. It is a file system bug that is triggered only in certain circumstances. Expose has nothing to do with it.

I suggest you take your iBook into an Apple shop and have the technicians test the RAM and logic board.
     
EmmEff
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Sep 1, 2004, 04:45 PM
 
On that condescending note, I'll just watch the thread from the sidelines from now on...

My symptoms are identical to those of the original poster who started the thread. Whether I am a new Mac user or not, the fact of the matter remains that (a) my hardware checks out fine, and (b) my machine freezes sometimes once or twice per day.
     
Spliff
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Sep 1, 2004, 06:41 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
On that condescending note, I'll just watch the thread from the sidelines from now on...


How is my post condescending? I just made a suggestion and offered my opinion that your problem may be hardware related. There was no condescension in my words.
     
torifile
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Sep 1, 2004, 09:25 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
Have you read any of this thread?
What do you think?

I was merely throwing out a possibility. I'd take it in. Return it and get another. It's a regular problem. You should be able to get it replaced.
     
EmmEff
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Sep 3, 2004, 02:25 PM
 
Originally posted by torifile:
I was merely throwing out a possibility. I'd take it in. Return it and get another. It's a regular problem. You should be able to get it replaced.
Is there any diagnostic tool I can run to prove this is a logic board problem? I mean, taking in what appears to be a fully functional notebook and claiming it's broken isn't going to get me anywhere. I've been down that road before...
     
Azzgunther
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Sep 3, 2004, 02:32 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
Is there any diagnostic tool I can run to prove this is a logic board problem? I mean, taking in what appears to be a fully functional notebook and claiming it's broken isn't going to get me anywhere. I've been down that road before...
None that I've heard of. Do you live near an Apple store? Call in and set up a time for them to look at it.
     
EmmEff
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Sep 3, 2004, 02:36 PM
 
Originally posted by Azzgunther:
None that I've heard of. Do you live near an Apple store? Call in and set up a time for them to look at it.
I live in Canada, we don't have Apple Stores here. I guess calling Apple is my next step.
     
Azzgunther
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Sep 3, 2004, 02:46 PM
 
Originally posted by EmmEff:
I live in Canada, we don't have Apple Stores here. I guess calling Apple is my next step.

It's free

Good luck.
     
Krypton
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Sep 3, 2004, 04:08 PM
 
More crashes! Apple is my friend....bah.

I hope they go bankrupt soon
     
Sealobo
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Sep 5, 2004, 06:05 AM
 
Does the "AirPort Card Update 2004-08-31" have the potential to fix this lock-up issue?
     
ambush
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Sep 5, 2004, 09:41 AM
 
my brand new pb12 is hard crashing with P2P apps for no apparent reason...
     
Krypton
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Sep 5, 2004, 09:57 AM
 
Originally posted by Sealobo:
Does the "AirPort Card Update 2004-08-31" have the potential to fix this lock-up issue?
Nope, had crashes since that update.

I'm just curious as to how we make a big stink about this, to get Apple's attention. Emailing Steve usually works, but him being out of action would make it a tad insensitive.
     
ambush
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Sep 5, 2004, 04:31 PM
 
WTF THIS NEW PB12 IS CRASHING RANDOMLY

OS 9 STYLE.

OMG...
     
Link
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Sep 5, 2004, 05:48 PM
 
Crashes still going strong here Unfortunately unlockupd isn't helping as I thought it would.

I have been on MUCH less lately though.. dsl's out and all.. so I haven't seen one in a few days *sigh*
Aloha
     
EmmEff
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Sep 5, 2004, 08:44 PM
 
Still crashing here... I was able to reproduce the problem by cycling through the Expose buttons about a dozen times. The crash before that was during heavy network traffic (copying files from a Windows machine).

My dealer is out of stock of 12" iBooks, but I am going to try and get this one exchanged. I am still not convinced it's a hardware problem given the fact that the symptoms of my freeze are very similar to reports on this forum as well as Apple's Discussion boards.
     
nforcer
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Sep 6, 2004, 03:52 AM
 
Originally posted by Azzgunther:
We had a 675-post thread at Apple's own forums until they locked the topic.

http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]

Instead of silencing us, they need to respond to - and acknowledge - the flaw.
That's really terrible.

Start a new thread, and keep posting to it until this gets fixed.
Genius. You know who.
     
Krypton
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Sep 8, 2004, 11:29 AM
 
If someone could confirm that they still get crashes after the latest security update, I'd be grateful.
     
Mr Scruff
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Sep 8, 2004, 07:27 PM
 
I know people reading this thread don't want to hear this - but it is the case that the majority of people aren't experiencing this problem. So if you've just bought a Mac and it's crashing all the time then there's something wrong with your setup. I'm not saying it's your fault, I'm just saying that there's no point assuming it will happen with a replacement machine.

For reference, I've owned this iBook for a year and it's crashed once in that time.
     
Hawkeye
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Sep 8, 2004, 10:34 PM
 
Can someone remind me how to loop the Apple diagnostic?
     
Link
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Sep 8, 2004, 11:42 PM
 
I believe it's either command L or Option L....

The crashes can be a lot of things. Perhaps it's the system chipset, system firmware, or simply the programs we use and the uptime we try to get out of them.

One time I redid my system entirely, including format 3 times in a row because I had a few qualms with the installs.. after that I had a freaking NINE DAY uptime, which got killed with a typic lookupd crash. Damn.

The truth is it has nothing to do with the setup in these cases, and whatever it is that's causing the problem, maybe isn't affecting other people.. Are there anyone with imacs getting affected by this? I doubt it...
Aloha
     
ism
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Sep 9, 2004, 05:20 AM
 
I never realised how big an issue this was because I've had no problems until now. It could be coincidence, but it's just started happening to me after the latest security update on a 12" pbook Rev B. Had 3 freezes this morning doing nothing in particular. Haven't exactly had time to read the whole thread but gonna try some of the things on page 1 for now.
     
theaidan
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Sep 9, 2004, 05:04 PM
 
I have an 800 mhz iMac and I've been getting these crashes for months. They come in bunches, appear most often when I am doing web-intensive work and have lots of apps open, though this isn't always the case, and almost always are iTunes related. I can move the mouse, the music stops for about 30 seconds, then plays again and stops. Nothing is active. At times, merely having iTunes and Safari open at the same time (as I do now, fingers crossed) crashes the system. Keeping iTunes off eliminates the issue.
     
Azzgunther
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Sep 9, 2004, 05:50 PM
 
Every few pages I like to reiterate what works for me:

Tech Tool Pro 4 - Disc Maintenance Routine and then the Disc Optomization Routine on the main OSX hard drive.

This 20 min. procedure keeps things functional for 5 days.
     
mbi
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Sep 10, 2004, 02:49 AM
 
Originally posted by Azzgunther:
Every few pages I like to reiterate what works for me:

Tech Tool Pro 4 - Disc Maintenance Routine and then the Disc Optomization Routine on the main OSX hard drive.

This 20 min. procedure keeps things functional for 5 days.
Ditto here, same tool, same procedure, keeps the freezes away for some time.

(Takes more like 4 hours to run the optimization routine on my 80 Gig drive, though)
     
willrob
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Sep 10, 2004, 10:07 AM
 
While I'm happy to see there is a solution for you using Tech Tool Pro, I would like to remind evryone that such measures should not be necessary. When OSX was first released, Apple touted it as the "Crash Proof" operating system. Sure an application might crash, but the computer would not crash, or need to be restarted. You don't hear Apple making these claims much any more. And rightly so.
Repairing directories and reinstalling operating systems is not an acceptable solution for a problem that should not exist in the first place.
     
Kate
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Sep 10, 2004, 10:55 AM
 
Today I had it again. I restarted today after the security update. No initial probs, but after some hours, bingo.
This time I looked carefully at all running processes. What I remember to have stopped before I had this two weeks of remedy were two daemons of HP.

Anyone having the freeze and having installed HP drivers and software besides what the OS already provides? There are two daemons running in the background after a restart for me, hpcommunications and hp....something, I do not remember, I was too eager to stop it right away .

Anyone having this might check for what the HP installer has put into the system...
These things cannot be found in the usual places..I am looking for these HP items but have not found them yet....
( Last edited by Kate; Sep 10, 2004 at 11:05 AM. )
     
Krypton
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Sep 10, 2004, 12:31 PM
 
Originally posted by willrob:
Apple touted it as the "Crash Proof" operating system
Another popular myth bytes the dust...
     
Kate
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Sep 10, 2004, 03:43 PM
 
Agreed...it could be better if there were real beta testings on a broad base of hard and software. However Apple chose to keep it small and therefore bug preserving, maybe due to too many leaks. I've submitted countless crash and bug reports through Apples crash reporter. Some of which were so easy to stumble across, unbelievable nowbody saw this during alpha and beta stages....
     
Gunner1954
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Sep 10, 2004, 03:53 PM
 
Originally posted by MadBrowser:
Interesting. I'll try the sleep thing next time.

I too have an upgraded drive. It is a 7200 RPM IBM with the large cache... 60GB.

My permissions have been fixed several times.

It's probably Entourage doing something funky in Carbon that is exposing a bug... Some weird non-reentrant CFM call that Apple was sure no one was using... Ha!


Have OS X 10.3.5 and have added the newest security patch. Am usually rinning Safari, Mail, Address Book and iCal. I've seen this happen before in earlier OSs. My best guess is 1) hit a RAM wall where I either ran out of RAM or hit a bad bit inside of RAM, or 2) a heat problem (where the HD, Video RAM or RAM has become hot enough for the system to say "wait! Cool down!" but not enough to activate the cooling fan (which needs to start sooner on my iBook G3 700mhz.

I also experience this when using an external FW drive that doesn't receive sufficient cooling; usually during very long writes to my Wiebe 2.5" drive. The drive stops working, I can move the cursor, but the machine does not respond to clicks. Sometimes i close the lid to put the machine to sleep which allows internals to cool, or I will apply air from a portable fan blowing across the iBook keyboard and the attached HD. This usually works to prevent the drives from stopping.
     
Kate
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Sep 10, 2004, 03:53 PM
 
I am following a new trace right now. Anybody knows much about the "piped" process? This is no system process it seems, I cannot determine where this comes from. I suspect it was one of the causes for that last freeze. Currently I compared to Macs with the same system and only the affected one runs this process.

Anybody?
     
Sealobo
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Sep 10, 2004, 03:59 PM
 
Originally posted by Sealobo:
Does the "AirPort Card Update 2004-08-31" have the potential to fix this lock-up issue?
Not a single lockup since i installed this update 5 days ago! Before it was like a daily routine!

I am saved.
     
ajsedlak
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Sep 10, 2004, 04:30 PM
 
I've personally had no real problems like what is described here... until recently. From the day I installed 10.3.5 update, I've gotten several lock-ups per day. Each time, it required a hard restart. Each time I got a "login window starting" hang on reboot which required resetting the password via Install CD 1.

Today I've not had a single problem. The difference between today and every other day is that I haven't run iTunes or any other audio player (except for a few minutes using QT player). Every other day, I play several hours of audio files.

Any ideas? Any others with this issue?

(And before you ask, I repaired permissions before and after the update, reset the PRAM, fsck'd through single-user mode, and reset nvram via Open Firmware, as well as clearing caches out.)

Thanks,
AJ
     
lrvk
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Sep 11, 2004, 03:03 AM
 
I had a lot of these lockups, a few months ago. And it started to occur more frequently by the week.

In the end, I had lockups 4 or 5 times a day, and it became worse when I had more (heavy) apps open, like iPhoto with a big library. When copying a lot of files, the system crawled from time to time.

This made me replace the stock 80gb hd in my g4 with a 160gb one (I wanted more storage anyway) and reinstalling Panther.

I've never had a single lockup again, since last june.

My guess is that this whole problem could very well be a hardware problem. I guess that my 80gb disk had physical problems and panther couldn't handle them correctly when swapping memory. But I'm not that technically savvy so I don't know for sure.

My advice: install a copy of Panther on a second drive in your computer, boot it and stress-test it to see whether I'm correct or not.
     
nerd
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Sep 11, 2004, 10:06 PM
 
I had a lockup like this last night with my G5. It happened when I was going to IM a MP3 to my friend. Right in the middle of the drag and drop into iChat the system locked. I had that same MP3 playing in iTunes, after the lock I let the system stay up to see if it would recover. iTunes would start to play the song for about 5 seconds then pause for about 30 seconds then play the song for 5. My disk activity in MenuMeters showed the drive was stuck reading. I went over to the G4 and tried to ssh in to do a clean restart but couldn't ssh into the G5. No mouse clicks would work and couldn't force quit. After about 5 minutes I cold booted the system.

I think I remember this happening once or twice before but I never had music playing to hear that the system was still doing something.

I sure hope this doesn't happen 5 times a day like some of you guys are reporting.

Brad

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1.5GB Ram
2 160GB Seagate SATA drives. (stock one, 2nd is the same model as stock)
( Last edited by nerd; Sep 12, 2004 at 11:27 AM. )
     
Miniryu
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Sep 12, 2004, 03:43 PM
 
Originally posted by alphasubzero949:
I have before and the freezes stopped. For me it's only happening whenever there is heavy network usage.
I have found this too. Unlike most people, I get the freezes and I am NOT using Airport.
One of my commonly used apps (while freezing) is Acquisition. iTunes is always on, and sharing over the network, and Adium and Safari are pretty constant as well.

"Sing it again, rookie beyach."
My website
     
tonyibook
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Sep 12, 2004, 03:57 PM
 
My iMac G4 700MHz used to freeze once or twice a week. It only happened when there was a CD in the internal drive. It didn't matter whether the drive was being used or not, only if there was a CD in the drive. I had to put the iMac to sleep and wake it up again to continue.

I went over to using an external drive and I never saw the problem again. It appears that my problem was definitely hardware related, I assume the CD-ROM drive or IDE interface was locking up.
     
Link
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Sep 12, 2004, 09:20 PM
 
Originally posted by tonyibook:
My iMac G4 700MHz used to freeze once or twice a week. It only happened when there was a CD in the internal drive. It didn't matter whether the drive was being used or not, only if there was a CD in the drive. I had to put the iMac to sleep and wake it up again to continue.

I went over to using an external drive and I never saw the problem again. It appears that my problem was definitely hardware related, I assume the CD-ROM drive or IDE interface was locking up.
That's actually pretty normal. See every time you open a finder window, or do something related to saving/opening, it's not unusual for it to check your other drives as well -- probably the CD drive didn't wake up properly and froze the machine.

With this kinda freeze, I don't think you can sleep the machine
Aloha
     
tonyibook
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Sep 13, 2004, 02:59 AM
 
When my iMac froze I just tapped the power button and waited 30 seconds to a minute for it to go to sleep. Then I could wake it up and carry on. This worked even whilst playing a game like Wipeout.

A G4 PowerMac I owned had a similar problem of freezing. This I worked out to be another hardware fault, the main Maxtor hard drive. When the drive went to sleep it had problems starting back up again. The SMART status for the drive inidicated the drive had a spin-up problem.
     
ajsedlak
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Sep 13, 2004, 09:30 AM
 
Originally posted by nerd:
...after the lock I let the system stay up to see if it would recover. iTunes would start to play the song for about 5 seconds then pause for about 30 seconds then play the song for 5.
nerd, this describes exactly what I've been experiencing.

-AJ
     
Toutgood
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Sep 13, 2004, 04:08 PM
 
Well, I just got my first freeze. This is on a 1 ghz tibook that I've had for a year and a half. Installed Panther a few months ago.

First time this has happened to me EVER with this machine. I doubt it's a hardware issue. But nevertheless. Anyone got a list of possible causes and solutions? Something that could sum of 10 pages of this thread.

This is kind of upsetting, to say the least

oh and I had a bunch of apps open, photoshop, dreamweaver, illustrator, mail, safari, and itunes. It froze when I clicked the forward button of itunes. Everything's been real sluggish recently.
     
sparker
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Sep 13, 2004, 07:16 PM
 
I ran into something similar after applying the September security upgrade (on top of a perfectly running version of 10.3.5 that been running "non-stop" since since I installed it)

It seems to be working MUCH better after I did the following (this suggestion came from the discussion board at Apple)

- Power down the machine by holding the power button for about 5-10 seconds.

- Press the HARDWARE reset button (various places on various machines)

- Start the machine, when you hear the chime, hold down CMD-OPT, O, F (all four at once)

- Type "reset-nvram"

- type "reset-all" (your machine will reboot)

- At the next chime, hold down CMD OPT P R until your machine reboots, and let this occur 4 times (about 10 seconds for each reboot)

Just thought I'd throw my solution out there and see if it helps anybody....
Steve
     
JCS
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Sep 15, 2004, 12:04 PM
 
Here's my story so far. I got a new dual 1.8 G5 a few months ago. It started doing the "mouse moves, nothing else" freeze after a week or two of use. I did the usual stuff: Apple Hardware Test CD, disk reformat, reinstall, test and remove RAM chips, etc. All hardware passed all tests every time. I was still freezing about once per day. All the while, I'd been installing all Apple software updates that were released. They didn't seem to change anything.

Every time I had a "mouse moves, nothing else" freeze, I'd ssh into my Mac from another machine and poke around. I'd never find any obvious problems: no hung processes hogging CPU or anything. I'd kill -HUP lookupd with no effect. It'd happily restart and sit there waiting to be used. Ditto for any other service. Usually, "sudo shutdown -r now" wouldn't even work. It'd say "shutting down now", yada yada, but the Mac would never actually restart until I held down the power button. Nothing useful in any logs: no common "last thing logged", no error messages, etc.

I am very suspicious of blaming certain apps. Everyone is quick to say "Ah ha! I had iTunes running!" "I was using BitTorrent!" "Maybe it's because of lots of network connections!" But as others have pointed out, mostly what people are doing is noting the programs that they run frequently. I know I almost always have iTunes running, and when I'm trying to get a big BitTorrent download, I always start it back up after a restart so it can continue to download.

To test my theory that running programs don't matter, I intentionally didn't run any apps at all. I even did this after a "safe boot" (hold down shift key). I also created a new, fresh account and logged into that. The freezes came regardless, even with no apps running, and even after a safe boot and after logging into a freshly created account. I'm pretty well convinced that it is not app-related and that it has nothing to do with "heavy network access."

Then I installed unlockupd with little hope that it would do anything. For whatever reason, I then had about a month of continuous uptime. I ran tons of programs, did lots and lots of network and disk i/o, you name it. Basically, I treated it like my (rev 1) dual 2GHz G5 which has none of these problems despite running the same apps and OS.

Well, my month of uptime just ended a few minutes ago when I got the same old "mouse moves, nothing else" freeze. Unlockupd was running, and the freeze looked exactly the same when I ssh-ed in from another machine. Lookupd wasn't frozen, and happily restarted when I killed it. I could sudo as well, and AFAIK sudo uses lookupd, so obviously it was working. Still no hung/busy processes, and I still had to hold down the power button after trying and failing to run "shutdown -r now"

So basically, I'm still stumped. Why did I have a good month of no freezes? Who knows? But I doubt it's due to unlockupd. BTW, after the freeze and hard reboot, I installed the latest security update. Not that I think that'll make any difference, but here's hoping I get another good month of uptime.

The fact that my rev 1 dual 2Ghz G5 doesn't have this problem leads me to believe that it's some sort of hardware/software interaction at the OS level. After all, the OS software is the same, and no apps at all have to be running for it to happen. The hardware is similar, but not exactly the same. In particular, the 2GHz G5 has a Radeon 9800 Pro and the 1.8 has a 9600XT. I suspected the 9600XT for a long time, but it always passes all VRAM tests with flying colors. I've also never seen any screen artifacts or anything. Plus, according to this thread, this is happening on iBooks and stuff, so I'm really stumped.

Sorry not to have a solution, but I just thought I'd share. This sure is a tough bug to isolate...
     
Big Mac
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status: Offline
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Sep 15, 2004, 07:59 PM
 
Boy, if any PC users stumbled over here they would have a field day. Apple seems to be asleep at the switch. If I were experiencing this bug, I would probably end up selling my Mac, buying a cheap PC and using Linux with a sullen expression on my face. I cannot even imagine how all of you have put up with this for so long.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Spliff
Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Canaduh
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Sep 15, 2004, 08:26 PM
 
Originally posted by JCS:
Sorry not to have a solution, but I just thought I'd share. This sure is a tough bug to isolate...
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.

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.
     
 
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