[trusted_content]

I've had it up to here with the cascading lockups that have been the bane of several users here, but which Apple seems to categorically deny are happening.

We all know how they start. First a beachball, then there a beachball, then everywhere a beachball! They came back last night, (and appear to do so randomly), and are somehow connected to problems with Airport, as my sister's connection to my iMac (which is serving as an airport hub with internet sharing) kept fading in and out. Today it has cascading-locked-up once and hard-locked twice, both of them preceded by my sister's airport connection dying.

I already turned off crashreporterd to fix the whole lookupd/crashreporterd deadlock, per the advice in another thread here and one on Apple's support forums (which are absolutely unusable today for some reason). I though that fixed it, but now the problem's back so apparently it didn't.

Something

Is

Broken

[neoTony]

Sorry to be the devil's advocate (of sorts), but nothing's broken here... I'm running on fairly old hardware (DP533 G4), and I've yet to experience a lockup (or beachball) that didn't recover itself after the heavy processing was done.

Check your non-apple hardware, and make sure you've upgraded the firmware on all your hardware - OSX shouldn't be locking up, nor beachballing constantly (unless you're running really heavy loads on your machine).

[Back up 15 and punt]

Originally posted by trusted_content:
I've had it up to here with the cascading lockups that have been the bane of several users here, but which Apple seems to categorically deny are happening.

We all know how they start. First a beachball, then there a beachball, then everywhere a beachball! They came back last night, (and appear to do so randomly), and are somehow connected to problems with Airport, as my sister's connection to my iMac (which is serving as an airport hub with internet sharing) kept fading in and out. Today it has cascading-locked-up once and hard-locked twice, both of them preceded by my sister's airport connection dying.

I already turned off crashreporterd to fix the whole lookupd/crashreporterd deadlock, per the advice in another thread here and one on Apple's support forums (which are absolutely unusable today for some reason). I though that fixed it, but now the problem's back so apparently it didn't.

Something

Is

Broken

What machine are your running?

[::maroma::]

I'm running a G4/500 Sawtooth (upgraded to 1.3GHz) and an Clamshell iBook SE with Airport. I have had ZERO problems with either machine. I've never heard of this "cascading-lockup" before.

May I ask why are you using "Internet Sharing"? I have never used that.

[wataru]

I use Internet Sharing all the time to serve a wireless signal to my girlfriend's iBook.

I've never had any of the problems the original poster described.

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by wataru:
I use Internet Sharing all the time to serve a wireless signal to my girlfriend's iBook.

I've never had any of the problems the original poster described.

Is this necessary? I have my desktop Mac plugged directly into the Airport Base Station. I have the iBook wireless. I have a broadband cable internet connection. It just all works for me without using Internet Sharing. Am I doing something wrong, or stealing an IP or something?

Just askin.

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
Is this necessary? I have my desktop Mac plugged directly into the Airport Base Station. I have the iBook wireless. I have a broadband cable internet connection. It just all works for me without using Internet Sharing. Am I doing something wrong, or stealing an IP or something?

Internet sharing lets your desktop mac act as the base station. It serves the wireless signal using its internal airport card, eliminating the need for an external wireless access point such as an ABS.

[wataru]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
Is this necessary? I have my desktop Mac plugged directly into the Airport Base Station. I have the iBook wireless. I have a broadband cable internet connection. It just all works for me without using Internet Sharing. Am I doing something wrong, or stealing an IP or something?

Just askin.

It's not necessary if you have money for a basestation. My apartment can't get DSL and I don't want cable, so I'm stuck with dialup. I don't want to shell out for the fancy Basestation with the built-in modem (I already have a Netgear router, but it doesn't have a modem). So Internet Sharing is necessary for me.

You, on the other hand, don't need it.

[bergy]

Would anything here help? ...

Spinning Beach Ball of Death - X Lab
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

[Big Booger]

You're tearing me apaaaaart.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by trusted_content:
Today it has cascading-locked-up once and hard-locked twice, both of them preceded by my sister's airport connection dying.

By hard-lock, do you mean that the mouse stopped moving? This is an ill-defined phrase. If the mouse stopped moving, you have a serious hardware problem with your machine--probably processor or motherboard (but possibly as simple as mouse cord--not likely in your situation).

Also, if the Window Server crashes, the SystemUIServer is still running. If you have fast user switching turned on, you can still switch. With fast user switching, Apple added the feature everyone wanted where your machine doesn't die when the Window Server crashes.

[boredsomewhere]

I don't know that Panther is broken, but I have experienced major hardware problems when attempting to share my internet connection from my Dual 1.44 MDD to my 15" PB. At some points, my PB would completely freeze when waking from sleep; no mouse or keyboard acess. I also had problems maintaining a connection between the computers.

When it worked, though, it was pretty nice.

After a week or two of annoying lock-ups and connection drops, I just picked up an AirPort Extreme base-station, hung it on my wall and created a "real" wireless network at home. It was very easy and integrated into my wired network seemlessly.

All in all, I consider it a solid purchase that solved a real problem.

EDIT: for spelling

[Gul Banana]

I have never experienced a problem of this sort on any of the four computers on which I use Panther on a daily basis.

[crayz]

Two points here people:
1) The fact that it doesn't happen on your machine doesn't mean he has bad HW or he's lying
2) The fact that it happens on some installs from time to time doesn't mean OS X is bad. An OS getting f'ed up and crashing a lot is going to happen for some people, period. Doesn't matter what OS you're using, if some part of the huge byzantine structure of it gets screwed up seriously enough, it's just not going to work. The fact that some people get Toyotas that are lemons doesn't mean all Toyotas are lemons. If something like this is happening to you, I'd recommend a backup and then clean install. There's nothing wrong with Panther in general

[msuper69]

Originally posted by crayz:
Two points here people:
1) The fact that it doesn't happen on your machine doesn't mean he has bad HW or he's lying
2) The fact that it happens on some installs from time to time doesn't mean OS X is bad. An OS getting f'ed up and crashing a lot is going to happen for some people, period. Doesn't matter what OS you're using, if some part of the huge byzantine structure of it gets screwed up seriously enough, it's just not going to work. The fact that some people get Toyotas that are lemons doesn't mean all Toyotas are lemons. If something like this is happening to you, I'd recommend a backup and then clean install. There's nothing wrong with Panther in general

Amen!

[ryju]

Originally posted by crayz:
Two points here people:
1) The fact that it doesn't happen on your machine doesn't mean he has bad HW or he's lying
2) The fact that it happens on some installs from time to time doesn't mean OS X is bad. An OS getting f'ed up and crashing a lot is going to happen for some people, period. Doesn't matter what OS you're using, if some part of the huge byzantine structure of it gets screwed up seriously enough, it's just not going to work. The fact that some people get Toyotas that are lemons doesn't mean all Toyotas are lemons. If something like this is happening to you, I'd recommend a backup and then clean install. There's nothing wrong with Panther in general

Sing it brother!

[Millennium]

Originally posted by crayz:
Two points here people:
1) The fact that it doesn't happen on your machine doesn't mean he has bad HW or he's lying
2) The fact that it happens on some installs from time to time doesn't mean OS X is bad.

Keep in mind a third point: Apple cannot fix a bug that they cannot reproduce in the lab.

An OS getting f'ed up and crashing a lot is going to happen for some people, period. Doesn't matter what OS you're using, if some part of the huge byzantine structure of it gets screwed up seriously enough, it's just not going to work.

That's only half-right. It does happen to some and not to others, but either way there is always a reason for it. It may be hardware-related, or it may be software-related, but somewhere along the line, something happened to the machines that are experiencing these crashes, and whatever it was, it did not happen to everyone else.

The key is figuring out what happened, and how to rectify (or at least work around) that situation. This is why it is so important that Apple be able to reproduce the problem. If they can't, then there is nothing they can do.

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by wataru:
It's not necessary if you have money for a basestation. My apartment can't get DSL and I don't want cable, so I'm stuck with dialup. I don't want to shell out for the fancy Basestation with the built-in modem (I already have a Netgear router, but it doesn't have a modem). So Internet Sharing is necessary for me.

You, on the other hand, don't need it.

I see now. Thanks for clearing that up. But dang, if I knew I could share my connection with the iBook from an Airport card, I woulda saved a little bit on the Bast Station! Ah well, at least the Bast Station looks cool on my wall.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by trusted_content:
We all know how they start. First a beachball, then there a beachball, then everywhere a beachball!

I wouldn't say it's a problem with Panther or Airport related. This has been happening to me since the day I got my G5 and it had 10.2 installed and I didn't have an Airport. It's continued to do it thru several reinstalls and installing 10.3. Never had it happen on my G4 or my Powerbook.

[Boondoggle]

This sounds a lot like my Problem with the HP Communicator Driver. If you're using an HP printer/scanner that could be it.

It is a known problem. HP Communicator starts to hog resources and the beachball is your constant companion. Do a top in the terminal to see it.

bd

[mitchell_pgh]

What is Internet Sharing used for?

Sounds like it's for people that are too cheap to buy a $49 router

or

people on dial up.

[besson3c]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
I see now. Thanks for clearing that up. But dang, if I knew I could share my connection with the iBook from an Airport card, I woulda saved a little bit on the Bast Station! Ah well, at least the Bast Station looks cool on my wall.

You could have also bought a wireless router which is much cheaper than the Airport Base Station (and just as effective). The only features that the more expensive ABS has are USB printing and a modem. I'd never recommend the lower end model ABS.

[Ken Masters]

happens to me all the time.


LIVE WITH IT!!!

[Detrius]

Originally posted by crayz:
1) The fact that it doesn't happen on your machine doesn't mean he has bad HW or he's lying

I have yet to see a machine that hard locked (mouse doesn't move) in OS X that did NOT have a hardware problem.

Spinning beach ball would likely be software, but so many people are saying that their machines are freezing in Panther without giving more details that as a Tech, I MUST put in the comment. It's an incredibly important detail that tells you a lot.

[Jaey]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
What is Internet Sharing used for?

Sounds like it's for people that are too cheap to buy a $49 router

or

people on dial up.

Yeah... pretty much.

[kman42]

When you get the interminable beachball, is there a way to force a log out? Sometimes the beachball gets so bad that you can't even get a Force Quite window to come up. I can move windows sometimes, but they are often delayed by 10-20 secs and move in a jerky fashion.

kman

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by kman42:
When you get the interminable beachball, is there a way to force a log out?

Ambrosia made a little freeware app called EscapePod that let you force a logout. Don't know if it still works on Panther, but you might give that a try.

[Kees]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
What is Internet Sharing used for?

Sounds like it's for people that are too cheap to buy a $49 router

or

people on dial up.

well, since my desktop runs 24/7 anyway, it might as well put out an airport signal for my iBook to use. Why spend $49,- on something that works perfectly without it?

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Kees:
well, since my desktop runs 24/7 anyway, it might as well put out an airport signal for my iBook to use. Why spend $49,- on something that works perfectly without it?

Mostly because it sucks up resources on your desktop that could be put to better use .

[lenox]

You could also spend $20 on a POS pentium 2 box and make it the router.

It all depends on what you consider worth the cost. I, for one, wouldn't want to make my expensive mac handle such little background stuff.

[kcmac]

Originally posted by Kees:
well, since my desktop runs 24/7 anyway, it might as well put out an airport signal for my iBook to use. Why spend $49,- on something that works perfectly without it?

Posted by Millennium
Mostly because it sucks up resources on your desktop that could be put to better use

Like what resources for instance? I have a cable modem connection, use my iMac for the base station and my PB connects wirelessly from that.

[mrmister]

is the original poster planning to return, or is this all pointless?