Hanging finder, software freezes, lack of console clues, Genius befuddled

Question

For several weeks I have been experiencing the following problem:
- A given program will freeze -- generally, this appears to be a browser or an SSB like Fluid or Prism.
- At first, I will continue to be able to navigate around to other programs, and usually can even save documents and shut programs down. At some point, however, the entire system will freeze up.
- This usually occurs when I try to close down the program that initially froze up. For instance: Let's say I have 2 Firefox windows open, each with 2 tabs, and one of those tabs freezes. After a period of still being able to navigate between tabs and windows, the whole program will freeze. I'll then try to do a force quit, either via the dock or the Apple menu icon. This invariably fails.
- It has also occurred several times when I've put the computer to sleep by closing the display -- upon re-opening, this entire process begins.
- Shortly after that the Finder freezes up and I need to manually force the computer to shut down. This is especially problematic when I have an external drive connected.
- When this occurs I'm unable to launch Terminal to kill any troublesome programs by the kill [PID #] command.
+(Similar problems have come up in a number of different Discussion forums -- a complete list is at the end of this post.)+
In at least one forum -- which I now am having trouble finding -- there was a reference to difficulties with USB connections. I have been experiencing intermittent problems with USB connections to external mice and keyboards. This is generally solved by disconnected and reconnected several times.
_I've taken a wide range of steps to try and solve this, including_:
Totally reinstalling Snow Leopard from disk.
Trashing all my Fluid apps (through AppDelete, so I know everything is gone from preference panes, etc)
Trashing Fluid
Trashing Chrome
Trashing Google Quick Search Box
Trashing and reinstalling Quicksilver
Turning off GeekTool
Removing the FireFound extension in FF and updated the Adobe plugin in FF.
Trashing the Launch Services preference file
Removing GrowlHelperApp, WeatherDock, MagiCal, and Precipitate from Login items.
Running Disk Utility (nothing showed up as being a problem).
Cleaning User Cache.
Cleaning System Cache.
Removing temporary files.
Flushing DNS cache.
I've also tried running Activity Monitor fulltime -- and didn't notice anything odd there.
_Other pertinent details_:
The following continues to run as Login Items:
ShoveBox
WashingMachineHelper
+Spanning Sync Notifier+
+Logitech Control Center Daemon+
Dropbox
GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent
IntegoStatusItemHelper
I've been running SN since August 09; this only began in the last several weeks.
I run 1Password 3.
I have plenty of memory and plenty of free space on the HD (90GB).
That's all I can think of at the moment -- but obviously am willing to consider anything and provide any relevant info.
+Obligatory Genius Bar rant+
After going through much of the above I made a Genius Bar appt. The Genius knew far, far less than I did about Macs, and I don't know much -- all I've done is poke around the Interweb. He didn't know what an SSB was, hadn't ever heard of Fluid or Quicksilver, didn't know it was possible to run scripts on the desktop via Geektool, etc. He essentially told me to run Disk Utility and if that didn't work to hope everything turned out alright. That was infuriating enough; what was even more frustrating was that he clearly hadn't spent any time whatsoever poking around Apple discussion forums so he could keep up on any ongoing issues. It was like when I brought in my iPhone because the update to iTunes 3 killed off its ability to pick up WiFi signals and drained its battery.
+(Obligatory rant over.)+
_Console details_
When this occurs, nothing shows up in the Console CrashReporter. In the regular log, one message usually displays over and over. A sampling:
1/5/10 1:10:04 PM [0x0-0x25025].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GMailish[268] Tue Jan 5 13:10:04 sethmnookins-macbook.local FluidInstance[268] <Error>: CGWindowContextCreate: failed to create context delegate.
1/5/10 1:10:04 PM [0x0-0x25025].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GMailish[268] Tue Jan 5 13:10:04 sethmnookins-macbook.local FluidInstance[268] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowBounds: NULL window
1/5/10 6:44:30 PM [0x0-0x24024].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GMailish[260] Debugger() was called!
1/5/10 6:45:05 PM com.apple.Dock.agent[171] Tue Jan 5 18:45:05 sethmnookins-macbook.local Dock[171] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSSetWindowTransformsAtPlacement: Failed
1/5/10 6:45:05 PM com.apple.Dock.agent[171] Tue Jan 5 18:45:05 sethmnookins-macbook.local Dock[171] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
1/5/10 6:45:05 PM com.apple.Dock.agent[171] Tue Jan 5 18:45:05 sethmnookins-macbook.local Dock[171] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSSetWindowTransformAtPlacement: Failed
1/5/10 6:43:38 PM BetterZip[230] * WARNING: Method selectRow:byExtendingSelection: in class ZipOutlineView is deprecated. It will be removed in a future release and should no longer be used.
1/5/10 6:43:38 PM BetterZip[230] * WARNING: Method selectedRowEnumerator in class ZipOutlineView is deprecated. It will be removed in a future release and should no longer be used.
1/7/10 4:05:32 PM FluidInstance[302] _initWithWindowNumber: error creating graphics ctxt object for ctxt:0xe313, window:0xffffffff
1/7/10 4:05:32 PM [0x0-0x2b02b].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GReader[302] Thu Jan 7 16:05:32 sethmnookins-macbook.local FluidInstance[302] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID -1
1/7/10 4:05:32 PM [0x0-0x2b02b].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GReader[302] Thu Jan 7 16:05:32 sethmnookins-macbook.local FluidInstance[302] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSDeviceCreate: Invalid window
1/7/10 4:05:32 PM [0x0-0x2b02b].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GReader[302] Thu Jan 7 16:05:32 sethmnookins-macbook.local FluidInstance[302] <Error>: Failed to create window context device
1/7/10 4:05:32 PM [0x0-0x2b02b].com.fluidapp.FluidInstance.GReader[302] Thu Jan 7 16:05:32 sethmnookins-macbook.local FluidInstance[302] <Error>: CGWindowContextCreate: failed to create context delegate.
1/13/10 9:22:55 PM Quicksilver[230] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/13/10 9:22:55 PM Quicksilver[230] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/13/10 9:22:55 PM Quicksilver[230] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/13/10 9:22:55 PM Quicksilver[230] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/13/10 9:22:55 PM Quicksilver[230] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/13/10 9:22:55 PM Quicksilver[230] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/13/10 9:23:01 PM System Events[244] ### Error:18446744073709551566 File:/SourceCache/AccountsPref/AccountsPref-150/LoginItem.m Line:280
1/13/10 9:23:01 PM [0x0-0x19019].org.tynsoe.geektool3[229] invalid option or syntax: -FR
1/14/10 2:46:00 PM Quicksilver[217] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/14/10 2:46:00 PM Quicksilver[217] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/14/10 2:46:00 PM Quicksilver[217] Prevented load of unidentified action from bundle Core Support.qsplugin because the action's featureLevel (set from its Info.plist) is higher than NSApp's current featureLevel. This is not neccessarily an error. Sometimes this mechanism is used to prevent unstable actions from loading.
1/14/10 2:48:16 PM firefox-bin[517] * __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x14a43f60 of class NSPathStore2 autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
1/14/10 2:48:16 PM [0x0-0x24024].org.mozilla.firefox 2010-01-14 14:48:16.552 firefox-bin[517:903] * __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x14a43f60 of class NSPathStore2 autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
1/14/10 2:48:16 PM firefox-bin[517] * __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x14a3d170 of class NSPathStore2 autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
1/14/10 2:48:16 PM [0x0-0x24024].org.mozilla.firefox 2010-01-14 14:48:16.553 firefox-bin[517:903] * __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x14a3d170 of class NSPathStore2 autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
*_List of forums with similar problems_*
- Pinwheels and spontaneous software shutdowns
- Apps crashing on wake from sleep
- Finder 10.6.2 hang
- Networks freezes, finder beachballs
- Finder hanging seems to crash entire system
- Hanging Snow Leopard with many console messages
- Multiple apps crashing on wake...
It's also come up in outside forums:
- Mozilla forum on Firefox crashes in SL
- iLounge forum on proposed solutions to SN crashes

Answer 1

Hi,
This solution worked for me: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2313245&tstart=0
after having absorbed about every single suggestion wrt this issue.
Hopes it helps for you!