A possible cause for the Lion freezes: Spotlight indexing

Does your Mac freeze mysteriously after upgrading to Lion?
Mine had that problem, but after troubleshooting, I seem to have identified the culprit (at least for my MacBook) and, after deleting the offending file, I have since experienced no problem. Here, I will share a case report with the hope that it will help others troubleshoot their computers experiencing the same problem.
The Problem: Mac (running Lion 10.7 or 10.7.1) freezes sometime after logging on. The freeze begins by an inability to get a response to clicks. The cursor is still active, but after a click or two the cursor turns into a spinning disc. After some time, the clock stops updating on the menu bar.
Mine froze consistently after about 15-20 min after logging on. It happened regardless of which application I was using, it froze even if I didn't do anything after logging on. It required a reboot (control-command-power button on a MacBook) everytime.
Was Spotlight indexing active right before the freeze happened? When Spotlight indexing is active, the magnifying glass icon on the upper right corner of your display will show a blinking dot. Mine was.
A Possible Culprit: Spotlight may have encountered a corrupt file on the hard disk during indexing.
What you can do:
Before you do anything, it is recommended that you have backed up all your files. Unfortunately, it is difficult to back up now because the Mac may freeze during the back up process.
1. Check the errors related to Spotlight by opening Console, which is an utility app that you can find in the Applications>Utilities folder. Do you see error messages for "mdworkers"? It does not always show up before the freeze, but this may indicate some problems during Spotlight indexing.
2. Confirm the problem by turning off Spotlight indexing. You can do this in a number of ways, but I will list two ways below:
a) Go to System Preferences and click on Spotlight icon. Under the Privacy tab, click on "+" icon and add the "Users" folder (or any particular folder that you may suspect). The indexing will not happen to files in that folder. Also, turn off Time Machine and disconnect back up disks, if you use any. Apparently Spotlight indexes within the Time Machine backups. OR
b) For experienced users: Open Terminal and type "sudo mdutil -i off" without the quotes. (To turn it back on, type "sudo mdutil -i on /" without the quotes)
3. Try using your computer with Spotlight turned off. Does it still freeze? If it does not, you have confirmed that the problem is with Spotlight indexing.
4. Find the offending file that causes problem by turning Spotlight indexing back on...
a) Remove the folder by highlighting and clicking on "-" button under the Privacy tab. OR
b) For experienced users: Type "sudo mdutil -i on /" without the quotes.
5. ...and then repeating steps 2a, 3, and 4a. Try isolating different folders until you can narrow down the problem. This process may take a while.
6. Once you narrowed down to a few folders, try QuickLook through the contents of the folder while the Console is open. To use QuickLook, highlight a file in the Finder and hit a space bar on your keyboard. It is helpful to set the Finder in a column view so you can use arrow keys to navigate through the folders. Does Console show you an error when you QuickLook a file? Can you double click and open that file? If not, the file may be corrupt. Trash that file and empty trash.
7. Now turn Spotlight indexing back on (step 4) and use your computer for a while. Does it still freeze? If so, repeat the process and find other corrupt files.
For me, it was a single corrupt image file in the Documents folder that caused the freezing problem. I deleted it and the problem went away. Since that file had been untouched for years, and I did not experience the same freezing problem in Snow Leopard, I suspect that Spotlight in Lion is somehow less permissive of corrupt files assuming that the file did not corrupt after the upgrade.
Steps 4-7 is cumbersome and it takes a long time to troubleshoot. If you know of a faster way to identify corrupt files, please share in this thread. Also, I think Spotlight should alert the users when it encounters a corrupt file and give us a choice to delete it on the spot. Please join me by sending a feedback to Apple about this.

My G5, PPC, came with Tiger installed and ran great. I decided to upgrade to Leopard (not snow leopard) and at first it seemed to work well.
Here is where you should backup, reinitialize, and make sure you use retail 10.4 rather than any OEM DVD?
After several days I noticed I have Permission errors that Disk Utility would not fix. (The only way to repair this was to insert the install disk and run Disk Utility from there: which means you have to reimport/install all the OS updates over again)
Some real confusion. Permissions can and should be done while booted from your hard drive; never run from older version of OS X.
Not all permission messages are errors.
Bootable backups (clones).
Invest in 3rd party repair programs.
Eventually the OS was crashing and freezing so I went to a local Apple repair store to ask why. Apparently Leopard is unstable on some G5 towers.
No, not really.
But you do have to insure your hardware, your software, is also current.
I decided to reinstall Tiger and still had problems. After about 5 attempts at reinstalling the OS I realized I was using a disk from a G4 tower that my kids use, so I found the disk that come with my G5 and the install worked perfectly.
So it appears that not all OS install disks are the same:
No secret there. NEVER use an OEM disc except your own; or, use retail full install versions is all. I guess you never came across that bit.
Sorry you had to take so much time, but sounds like came away with some misconceptions.

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Things You Can Do To Resolve Slow Downs
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Start with a visit to: OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney.
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3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
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Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
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What size is the Hard Drive, and how much space is available?
How much RAM is installed, and is it original or added?
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Have you made any additional changes, like upgrading the system, updated or installed any other applications or programs, etc?
Have there been any unusual occurences, like freezes, crashes, power outages, etc?
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Review the suggestions, in the documents that I have linked to below.
Authored by Dr Smoke:
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Mac OS X 10.3/10.4: System Maintenance, authored by Gulliver
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sudo periodic daily
Press Return.
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1.Open Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities, and select the startup disk in the left column.
2.Click First Aid.
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ali b

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iBook G4 1Gig, iMac G5 2.1 Gig, iMac 266 Mac OS X (10.4.3) iMac 266 running 10.3.6, been using Macs since the '80s

Right guy's i to have researched this problem
concerning my auto sleep problem.I started off by
following Joeaux's original post by safe
booting,noting what was running in the activity
monitor,booting normaly and again noting what was
running now.I eliminated the same processes that were
running from both boots, and then started quiting one
by one, the extra processes, from the normal boot, in
activity monitor.Once you quit a process, allow the
computer to try to go to sleep i.e set energy saver
to 1minute and wait to see what happens.I tried the "
mdimport"as of Joeaux but this was not my problem.In
my case the sleep problem was down to two
applications called N67U_ButtonManager and
N124U_ButtonManager.These are for use with my Canon
scanner.I also noted that if i left the scanner
connected to the computer this would also stop it
going to sleep,even after deleting the two
applications.Hope this helps!
Thank you now i know that those login items are for my scanner, and not logic audio i am a little less angry(Logic is now an apple application but the version I run was from the emagic days and i presumed that the button managers were from this app as it was the oldest bit of software running on my machine) By the way any apps that may cause a problem like this are more than likely simply residing in your user login items and can be disabled from there permanently as far as i can see.

A possible solution for the folder exclamation or folder! problem

This worked for Windows XP. Don't know if it will work for the Mac but it may.
Three days ago my wife’s iPod, 4th gen 40gb, stopped working. I got the folder exclamation icon (or folder! as some have described it). I hooked it to my laptop and had no joy with it. The system (XP) would see it sometimes as a removable and sometimes as a hard drive. Disk Manager saw it a couple of times but it always took about an hour for it to show up. I messed with it about 5 hours the first night and then decided to take it to the Apple Store the next day. The guys at the Genius Bar had the same problem, this time on a Mac. Told me it was out of warranty and that the best I could do was find someone who could repair it. I’m a tech and I don’t want to mess with it but I’m not going to pay someone $200+ to replace what is essentially a laptop hard drive. So I kept plugging away and researching on the net. I’ve seen a lot of posts concerning the icon as well as a few concerning the partitioning of the drive. I’ve even seen where some people are advocating opening the iPod and shaking the drive which is never a good idea. Nothing really seemed to help so I kept working on it myself.
I did find a solution and it takes a bit of time. It involves deleting the current partition and formatting it again. Since I’m using this on XP I had to format the partition as a Fat32. In order to do this I had to use the Knoppix operating system because Microsoft limited XP’s ability to format Fat32 partitions to 32GB. If you have an iPod that is less than 32gb you may be able to just format it using XP. I also couldn’t get XP to delete the partition so using Knoppix worked out very well since it has a program called QTParted on it that works like Partition Magic. Knoppix is free and does not have to be installed. It runs entirely off of your CDRom drive. If you have about an hour to try this I’d be interested in whether it works for anyone else.
I believe the problem that most people are having comes from the fact that the Fat32 file system is not good for keeping a “clean” hard drive. It tends to leave bits and pieces around and if you update a lot it can affect the hard drive’s performance. I know that Restoring using the updater is supposed to fix this but it appears that the updater software does a quick format. That won’t always fix the problem. By following what I did you will blow away the existing partition and create a new one and format it to the Fat32. This effectively makes it a “clean” hard drive.
Before I walk you through this I just wanted to say that I’ve purposely blown my wife’s iPod away 4 times to make sure that this works. Works like new now and did so after each time I blew it away. You should have seen her face when I did it.
The things you will need and need to do are:
CD Burner (you need to be able to create a disk from an ISO Image
Blank CD
Download a copy of Knoppix 4.0 from http://www.knoppix.com
Download the current version of iPod updater http://www.apple.com/iPod/download/
Make sure your system can boot from CD-Rom (Check your system docs)
About an hour of your time
1. Using your software of choice, burn the Knoppix image to your CD.
2. Place your iPod in Disk Mode. You do that by resetting the iPod and , on 4th gen at least, once it resets immediately hold down the Select+Play/Pause buttons. You should see it say Disk Mode at the top of your screen. Not sure how to do that on other iPods but I figure if you’ve gotten this far you will be able to figure it out.
2. Shut your system down and place the Knoppix cd in your cdrom. Make sure your system will boot from CD
Note: If you are using a laptop you may not be able to use the mouse by default with Knoppix. You can try to enable it when you first start Knoppix. You do this by typing the following at the Boot: prompt.
Knoppix pci=irqmask=0x0e98
If that doesn’t work for you then you may need to hook another mouse to your laptop.
3. Once Knoppix is up go to the K button (located like the start button on XP) and go to the system group. You will see a program called QTParted. Start that program.
4. On the left of the QTParted screen you will see the hard drives on your system. One of them should be your iPod. It should say something like /dev/sda1. Click on that device. In the bottom on the left side for Drive Info I was given the information that it was an Apple iPod and the capacity. Don’t know if everyone will get that but it stands to reason that you should.
5. You should now see the iPod’s partition information on the right side of the screen. I don’t know about anyone else’s but my wife’s had 37mb free and that turned out to be important. Make a note of any unallocated space you may have and keep it for the next step. Highlight the partition and then delete it. Once deleted you will need to go to the upper left corner of the screen. There is a button there to Commit changes that you have made. Click on this button and wait for the process to end.
6. Now to create a new partition. In the right panel right click again on the drive. Select create partition. It will ask you what type of partition you want to create. Select Fat32 and where it gives you the option for the partition size, use the slide bar to leave the amount of space free that was unallocated in step 5. The reason for this is that when I first partitioned my wife’s I used all of the available space and the iPod didn’t like it. Once you have the size set hit OK (or whatever it is to continue). Go again to the upper right and hit the Commit button. Wait for the changes to happen and then shutdown your system, remove the Knoppix cd and then boot again as normal.
7. Once your system has rebooted start the iPod updater. Once it asks you to plug in your iPod connect your iPod and you should be able to Restore it.
As I said I did this 4 times to make sure it worked and each time both the updater and iTunes saw the iPod with no problems.
At this point you should have your iPod back up and running. I apologize if I haven’t been very detailed here but I’m at work and typing this from memory. I wanted to get this out now while I’m thinking about it because I’m getting ready to go away for a couple of months and won’t have time to do this at home.
Let me know if this works for anyone.
Windows XP Pro
Windows XP Pro

mythic: You do NOT have to use FAT32. You don't even have to delete and recreate the partition. All you have to do is format the hard drive of the iPod. That's it. Your procedure will work even if you format the new partition as NTFS.
But don't take my word for it. Try it yourself.
I've done this exact same thing a hundred times, and I never used Knoppix to do it. All you have to do is:
1. Force the iPod into Disk Mode as described here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93651 (note that there's a different procedure for 3G and older iPod's!)
2. Start the iPod Updater (on an XP box). Having the Updater open will prevent iTunes from auto-launching and trying to screw around with the iPod.
3. Connect the iPod. It'll show up as a normal drive letter on the PC (if the PC crashes at this point, that's a Windows specific problem, not an iPod one).
4. Use the Disk Management tool (located in Control Panel->Admin Tools->System Management) to format. Doing this as NTFS is perfectly fine. Do not do a quick format.
5. After the format, go back to the updater and hit Restore.
It works every time. I've posted this like a thousand times, but nobody ever seems to pay attention.
Why does it work? It's simple, really. The Updater's Restore process is broken if there are bad sectors in certain locations. Formatting the iPod's partition like that causes it to do a scan for bad sectors. That's why the format takes so long (quick format skips this scan). The reason NTFS works fine is because one of the things the restore process actually does is to rewrite the iPod's partition table, and in the process it converts that NTFS space back into a FAT32 space. So really it makes no difference what that partition is, Restore will overwrite it anyway.
For information's sake, what the Restore process actually does is to write a disk image onto the iPod's drive. This disk image itself is tricky, but the Restore procedure is not particularly complex. You can even extract that image and write it to the iPod yourself in Linux using dd. That works just as well.
Anyway, when the drive won't write to a specific sector, then the Restore program freaks out. Formatting will remap the unwritable sectors and fix the problem. It's the bad sector remapping that's important here, not the partition layout or the filesystem type. Fix the drive problem and the Restore will work.

HT4480 I put my itunes dollars into itunes and am trying to use it to buy lion on my PC and I cant get it to work. I guess I did it wrong, is there a way to get this money to use for the lion app?

Hi, I put my itunes dollars into itunes thinking I could use it to buy the Lion App and when I went to down load it asked for the money then. Is there a way to take the money from my itunes account?

Hi..
"put my itunes dollars" ... did you redeem an iTunes gift card? I see you used the link about redeming a code.
Three ways to purchase Lion
One if from redeeming an iTunes gift card. Two, setting up a credit or debit card account with iTunes associated with your Apple ID, or purchase the thumb drive > OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive - Apple Store (U.S.)
If you redeemed an iTunes gift card, make sure there is enough funds available. You need to take into account when you purchase apps including Lion, there may be applicable taxes or fees added the original purchase price.
Info regarding taxes and fees: iTUNES STORE - MAC APP STORE - TERMS AND CONDITIONS

A possible cause for the Lion freezes: Spotlight indexing

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