Mysterious Freeze?

My Machine:
PowerBook G4 12" 1.0Ghz
1.25Gb RAM
40GB HD
OS X 10.4.4
My Problem:
Every few days my machine will "freeze". The problem most often occurs when I invoke Dashboard or when I use Exposé, although it's happened in situations where I wasn't using either as well. It's not a complete freeze because I can still move the mouse (though clicking doesn't do anything). I can also log into the machine from another computer using ssh and use a command line to execute commands. Force-Quit keyboard shortcut does nothing, i tried killing various processes using the kill command with no effect (though I'm certainly not an expert at using this method to bring back a frozen machine). I'm no UNIX wizard, but I wasn't able to figure out what the problem was even when using the machine in the midst of such a freeze.
I ran the full Apple Hardware test, it reported no problems.
I ran an exhaustive, command-line based RAM test overnight, no problems
I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Tiger, problem continued.
What might be the problem? Any ideas about how to fix it?

Hi Pablo,
pressing the power button or pushing the Restart button (where is that?)
Most likely it's a glowing light on your Mac, the same one you'd use to start it up if it were off.
PS, after a forced shutdown, be sure to do this on all drives...
Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later to verify or repair disks...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672
Anybody have any insight about this?
I suspect the LaCie drive, specifically the Power Supply for it.
Once LaCie was tops for Macs, but now you couldn't give me one.

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OK, so I used Vista for awhile, then I tried out the Windows 7 RC for awhile, and I finally decided to go back to my good ol XP. So I reformatted yesterday (Win7 -> XP) and it mysteriously freezes, seemingly randomly. Now when I reformatted yesterday, after the first freeze, which happened when my computer was coming back from sleep, I restarted and it gave me an error saying a system32 file was missing (I forgot, but I think sysmKernel or something?). But I could still get on, etc. Yesterday it seemed to only freeze when it came back from sleep. Today however I decided to reformat again - perhaps the XP install didn't go smoothly the first time. I go through with no problems. I even wake it from sleep and it seemingly works... for a little bit. Then when I'm downloading some file it just randomly freezes.
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Yes, I use supplied drivers from MSI.
Have never tried Turbo mode - this only happened in "normal" mode.
Yes, after I did a clean OS installation I actually got up to do something. When I came back it was asleep (was on battery and I have it go to sleep after like 10 minutes or so) so I woke it up. And when I got on the internet to start downloading all the applications I wanted, that is when it just froze. Minutes after I woke it.
No add-on upgrades.
It is just odd. It works perfectly fine, no random freezing so far because I am too scared to put it to sleep again, haha. As far as I can tell that is when it decides to freeze.

Need help...Force Quit doesn't work & keep crashing HD b/c of it

For a week now, I have been trying to re-download my iTunes library from the iTunes store. Turns out, the problem has to do with the amount of downloads they put in my queue, which causes iTunes to crash. But, when it does crash, Force Quit doesn't work UNTIL I am forced to unplug the hard drive it was writing to. This is BAD and could kill my hard drive (I've had to do this AT LEAST 20 times this week and have repaired it 4 times with DiskWarrior and TechTool Pro during the past week).
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The previous reply was correct -- the freeze you are experiencing has nothing to do with the number of songs in the iTunes queue. The problem is with your hard drive. The newer Seagate FreeAgent drives (and all FreeAgent Pros) use a chipset that does not play well with recent versions of MacOS. I am not sure if Seagate uses two individual chipsets: one for USB and one for eSATA (assuming you are using a FreeAgent Pro), or simple one that supports both protocols, but that is the causing your mysterious freeze.
I have spent weeks troubleshooting this very same problem and have yet to find a solution. Right now, I am in standby mode until Apple releases 10.4.11 which is said to have fixed "issues with USB devices." I have tried many brands of external drives (Western Digital, Hitachi, roll-your-own, pre-FreeAgent Seagates) and they all work fine. I have even removed the drives from the FreeAgent Pro drives and put them into roll-your-own USB enclosures and they work fine. The problem is with the Seagate FreeAgent interface chip itself.
Hopefully you can still return your new FreeAgent drive to the store you bought it from. I am a strong believer in Seagate drives and use them extensively at home and work (over a dozen externals total) and the FreeAgents have caused more trouble than I've ever experienced with an external device. As of now, I am using a Western Digital 750GB MyBook drive until Seagate or Apple can find a permanent fix for the issue.
That being said, the FreeAgents have worked fine in the past and only recently have begun to have issues, so if you can, try rolling back to an earlier version of 10.4 and try again. Being a software developer, that option wasn't available to me.

Buying New Macbook

I would like to Buy a New Macbook, is anyone help me to choose which one is good to buy, white one or the new that recently came to market

Unless you really have to have the shiny Black glass model (which does look pretty awesome and has the light-up keys in the dark!), I see no reason to spend more on it instead of getting the classic White MacBook. There just doesn't seem to be that big of a difference to me in functionality for most users, except for looks and a big bad difference in price!
I do wonder if anyone has an opinion on whether the glass screen of the new model is easier to clean than the White MacBooks? I would be a little nervous touting glass around with me in my bag, but that may be false alarm.
Here is my experience with the early 2009 White MacBook and a refurbished early 2008 White MacBook:
I just picked out a new early 2009 White MacBook for my sister, and we are very happy with its performance. My sis runs Photoshop Elements on it to do graphics, loads graphic heavy websites and flash sites, watches and downloads tons of video and images, and she hasn't had any issues yet. The computer is fast and hasn't had any bugs or errors. Just the other day she was editing a movie she and classmates made in iMovie. The white MacBook has plenty of room and capability for everything she needs (and she is a downloader!), and the decision should be about what you need.
I use a refurbished early 2008 White MacBook, and it is great! I use it for all the same things as my sis on her newer model, with no complaints except that the fan annoys me a bit on some game websites (but I installed a fan controller that helps). It is indistinguishable from the 2009 White MacBook, except for these three details:
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• Soon after I got my refurbished MacBook, I did have to send it to Apple once for repair (on AppleCare's dime) when the display went haywire, I think likely a result of the computer being refurbished. They returned it quickly and it's been perfect ever since.
• My computer, like many others, did get the mysterious "freeze-on-sleep" bug after upgrading to 10.5.7 -- easily fixed by adding the Ethernet option in Networks -- while the 2009 White MacBook did not.
I hope this is helpful!
Message was edited by: Jae B

HT3275 Time Machine backup does nothing

Question: Is there a magic fix I can apply? or do I need to format the backup disk and make a new backup from scratch? or do I need to replace the backup disk with a new one? Or am I asking the wrong questions?
After a mysterious freeze yesterday, followed by a shutdown and restart, Time Machine claims it is "Preparing backup ... Finishing backup" and is done very quickly. It does not spend its usual long time looking through a couple of hundred megabytes of files, nor does it do the subsequent stage of actually transferring data to the backup disk. "Entering" Time Machine seems to show it's at least a little confused: a test file created on the desktop fails to show in backups, while old files that have been moved appear on some backups, vanish on others.
I'm not much good with log files, but they show something like this:
12-02-29 10:54:49.260 AM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
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12-02-29 10:54:50.247 AM com.apple.backupd: 3.11 GB required (including padding), 334.62 GB available
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The "29 files(153 bytes)" part is always the same, except for once when it said "21 KB" instead of 153 bytes.
I'll be very grateful for guidance. There's lots of advice on Time Machine out there, but I can't find anything relevant to this situation.
Jim Clarke

Time Machine uses the modification times of folders to determine whether their contents need to be scanned for changes made since the time of the last snapshot. For some reason, that criterion occasionally fails, and TM doesn’t scan folders with contents that have changed. You may be able to get backups to resume by updating the modification times of all your folders.
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Before proceeding, you must have a current backup of all data. Since your existing Time Machine backups may not be current, you’ll have to back up in some other way; for example, by starting a new TM backup set on another external drive. It’s a good idea to do this anyway, as you need more than one backup.
Launch the Terminal application by entering the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. If that doesn’t work, then in the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens. Another way to launch Terminal (if you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later) is from LaunchPad: click the Utilities icon, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy – do not type – the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo find / -xdev -type d -exec touch {} \;
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The command may take several minutes to run. When a line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, quit Terminal.
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How to log crashes

I am getting mysterious freezes while working in Logic or ProTools. Sometimes the clock is still ticking in my menu bar, but cursor and QWERTY are useless. I suspect a USB problem. But how do I make it so the crashes are logged somewhere, so I can share the error code with experts like you guys and find the problem?
Thanks

Something like this, for example? This was about the time the freeze happened.
9/7/09 4:50:19 PM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] fsck_hfs: Use the -f option to force checking.
9/7/09 4:50:22 PM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] launchctl: Dubious permissions on file (skipping): /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.kdcmond.plist
9/7/09 4:50:22 PM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] launchctl: Please convert the following to launchd: /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist
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9/7/09 4:50:22 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight
9/7/09 4:50:22 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight
9/7/09 4:50:22 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.x.privileged_startx) Unknown key for boolean: EnableTransactions
9/7/09 4:50:34 PM com.paceap.pacesupport[51] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/PACESupportFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/PACESupportL eopard.kext is already loaded
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] /Library/StartupItems/Digidesign Mbox 2/Digidesign Mbox 2:start
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] Starting Digidesign Mbox 2 Configuration Service
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] PACESupport - launchd already started us
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext appears to be loadable
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] kextload: loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext is already loaded
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext appears to be loadable
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] kextload: loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext
9/7/09 4:50:41 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[30] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext is already loaded
9/7/09 4:50:51 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[92]) Exited: Terminated
9/7/09 4:50:51 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.ScreenSharing.server[91]) Exited: Terminated
9/7/09 4:50:51 PM com.apple.launchctl.Aqua[113] launchctl: Dubious permissions on file (skipping): /Users/temp/Library/LaunchAgents
9/7/09 4:50:51 PM com.apple.launchd[110] (com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent) Unknown key for boolean: EnableTransactions
9/7/09 4:50:51 PM com.apple.launchd[110] (org.x.startx) Unknown key for boolean: EnableTransactions
<<<

How can I make Tiger more reliable on my iMac G3?

I just installed an 80GB HD in my iMac and installing Tiger on the new HD is just as treacherous as the HD it replaces. I was led to believe that a HD with a lot more free space would make Tiger run more reliably. What tricks can I employ to make Tiger fully install with minimal jibba-jabba from my iMac? Sometimes it will even go so far as to fail at 99.9 % of completion, other times it will install and mysteriously freeze up and then fail to start up again upon reset.

Hello MrSteve1337!
"2: Where can I buy a decent copy of Panther?"
If Tiger decides that it doesn't really like your Mac, or if you decide that you don't like it on your Mac, if you know what to look for, a Full Retail Version, of the Panther Install CDs, or a Full Retail Version, of the Tiger Install DVD, can also be purchased rather inexpensively, at some online Apple retailers, Amazon, eBay, AppleRescue, FastMac, etc.
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The discs should look like the images in the above links.
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ali b

IMac (late 2009) - Graphic Card Failing?

Hi everybody:
For about a week now, my iMac has been mysteriously freezing —
everything locks up except for sound & mouse cursor —
forcing me to do a hard restart.
This happens at least 7 or 8 times a day.
Doesn’t seem linked to any specific program or action.
Today the freezes are accompanied with heavy screen glitches.
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Any last minute ideas / wisdom before I do the Genius Bar thing?
Thanks in advance for any advice…
iMac
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OSX 10.9.3
Memory: 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB

I also have the 21.5-inch, manufactured during October Late 2009 and assembled in (guess) China , iMac 10.1, Graphics Model: ATI RADEON HD 4670 2256 MB, Processor Speed 3.06 GHz, with latest version of OS X 10.9.2 (Mavericks).
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I am reading here at discussions.apple.com this worrisome problem is affecting many of us having this line of iMacs.
Like so many here I can't afford to have my iMac go down and I can't afford to step out and buy another.
I am trying the suggested solutions whereby it's solved only to come back the same day or the next day.
I'm confident the folks here will find the culprit and then the solution should follow.
Please please please guys this problem and uncertainty is too hard on this here old guys nerves.

Mysterious PPC freezes

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I have the exact same problem with over 50GB of free space on my boot drive. All diagnostics done except checking RAM and hardware diagnostics. Will report back after that.

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[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc
exec nohup startx > .log/xlog &
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You can use Activity Monitor to stop that process. You need to change the "My Processes" pull-down to "All Processes." Otherwise some nasty culprits stay hidden.
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Please download and install this free utility:
http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck
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MSI Neo2 K8N Platinum - Freezing Issue during games

First off greetings to everyone on these forums...
I purchased the MSI Neo2 K8N Platinum motherboard from NewEgg back at the end of March to compliment the AMD 64 "Winchester" processor that I also purchased at that time to replace a slightly older AMD XP "Barton" system that was using the Abit NF7-S motherboard. For the past month I have been fighting an unusual and highly irritating issue that I have noticed during game play and have tried everything that I know of and more in an attempt to remedy this issue, but to no avail. This is the general background of the situation and now I will descibe in greater detail as to what this issue I am referring to is and the symptoms of this issue and some of the various methods used to remedy this issue.
The issue is that while play a game the system experiences a short 5-10 second freeze during the game randomly, but usually several times an hour. During this freezing the sound would loop and as suddenly as the freeze occurs it would cease and the game would continue on as if nothing happened. However, sometimes this would result in the system freezing outright after this short 5-10 second freeze... but it does not feel like a total system freeze, but rather a video freeze as the sound continues and I still have keyboard control... but this does require me to force a manual reboot of the machine itself. I have scowered the internet and various forums in an attempt to find what the issue was and use various methods to remedy this issue, but so far nothing has worked in my favor... but it does seem like this issue has been plaguing other users with the MSI Neo2 Platinum motherboard. Below are some of the methods that I have used in an attempt to solve this issue:
*Default Clock for CPU/Memory/GPU; Over/Under Clock for CPU/Memory/GPU
*Increased voltages to CPU VID, AGP, and Memory
*Disabled/Enabled AGP Fast Writes
*Increased AGP Aperture from 64MB to 512MB
*Enabled/Disabled ATI/nVidia Speedup option in BIOS
*Forced AGP clock lock to 66-67mhz
*Relaxed/Aggressive memory timings
*APIC enabled/disabled
*Gate A20 turbo/normal
*Disabled all unneeded onboard components (Realtek NIC, Sound, SATA)
*Disabled nVidia MAC and attempted to use 3Com Gigabit PCI card instead
*Swapped HDD Cables
*Tried PCI Sound Card (SB Audigy2 ZS Gamer) in PCI Slots 3/4
*Tried video drivers from 71.89 Official to 76.45 beta modified drivers
*Tried 5.10 official nForce drivers to remixed 7.02 nForce drivers (5.10 drivers uses 4.36 GART, higher drivers uses the 4.40 GART)
*Applied all the latest updates from Windows Update Website
*Reinstalled Operating System (Windows XP SP2) 5 different times clean with various settings (APIC on/off, etc...) and different drivers.
*Installed Audio Card (SB Audigy2 ZS Gamer) with older and the latest drivers available from Creative's website
*Replaced PSU (Previously was a Thermaltake 420watt PSU, 18A +12v) with a OCZ Modstream 520watt PSU (28A +12v)
*Video card is KNOWN working from previous build (AMD XP 3000, Abit NF7-S)
*Hard Drive is KNOWN working from previous build
*CD/DVD-ROM drive is kNOWN working from previous build
*Heat is not an issue... all components temperature is well below rated level, the only unknown is the chipset temperature (it has a active heatsink and seems to not be hot to the touch, applied AS5 to it anyway)
*Used latency tweak to the video card
*Used Rivatuner to force constant performance level
*Tweaked BIOS to force even clock rates and forced 1.4v to the GPU Core
*Used original GPU BIOS
*Used MSI Neo2 K8N Bios 1.4 - 1.8 and modified BIOS 1.8
*No background applications are running (not even antivirus)
*Used application to force maximum refresh rates for my monitor
*Memory passed MemTest86+ for over 24 hours
*System passed Prime95 and SuperPi for over 24 hours
*System seems stable in all non gaming related applications
*Checked through various troubleshooting procedures
*Disabled SBDRVDET.EXE using MSCONFIG
*There are no IRQ conflicts outside of PCI system management sharing IRQ11 with the NIC and USB... in APIC there are no IRQ conflicts what so ever. Regardless neither method worked
*Installed AMD 64 drivers from AMD
*Disabled DEP in boot.ini
*...and many other various tweaks and modifications.
System Specifications
CPU - AMD 64 3200+ "Winchester", using Thermaltake Silentboost K8 and AS5
Motherboard - MSI Neo2 K8N Platinum (nForce3 250GB Ultra) - Using Bios version 1.8
Memory - 2X 512MB Corsair XMS TwinX1024-3200C2PT (2 Modules, Memory Slots 1 and 2 used)
Audio - Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS (PCI Slot 3 used)
NIC - Onboard nVidia MAC, Disabled Realtek NIC
Video - XFX Geforce 6800NU 128MB AGP (BIOS Rev 1) - NV Silencer 5 and AS5
Case - Thermaltake Damier Series 5000
PSU - OCZ Modstream 520watt (28A +12v rail)
HDD - Western Digital 1200JB 7200rpm IDE
DVD-ROM - Lite-On 16X DVD-ROM
Floppy - Mitsumi 1.44MB 3.25"
OS - Windows XP SP2/DirectX 9c
I have been fighting this issue for well over a month now and I am frankly nearly out of ideas, this does not necessarly prevent me from playing games, but this does interfere with the games I do play (especially online games). I do demand absolute stability from the games that I play and this issue only began AFTER I upgraded to the new motherboard, processor, and memory. The only thing I have not tried is something that I do not have access in attempting on this motherboard, and that is increasing the voltage to the chipset.
Here is my theory on what is going on is that I believe is there is a fault with the chipset on this motherboard and this is manifesting itself while I am playing various games on this system. Of course I would like to try increasing the voltage to the chipset as that would increase stability, but there is no option in BIOS to increase the chipset voltage like the previous motherboard I had (Abit NF7-S). It is possible that either a) the chipset is at fault and is causing me this issue or b) the chipset is not recieving enough voltage.
My question to the rest of you is this, what do you think the problem is and what ideas do you have that I may try that I have not tried yet. Additionally if there is nothing else that I may try should I attempt to RMA this motherboard and will that help, and is there any other versions of this motherboard that I should be aware of. I would appreciate any response from a MSI representative and any comments from those that may have positive suggestions for my issue. Thank you in advance for your time and any help that you may be able to render.
The GameMaster...
*EDIT* Added additional methods attempted... (there was a lot... so I did not remember everything that I have tried)

Quote from: dacull on 25-May-05, 16:06:33
Does it only happen in online games, or can it happen in all games? One thing to make sure of is to turn off CRC checksum offload in your NVidia MAC properties (everyone do this, it is incorrectly calculating checksums which leads to servers ignoring your packets). However as you have tried a different network card you can discount this theory.
For me it looks like the biggest culrpit is your 6800NU, i have read alot of bad things about the NU and you have a low bios revision there, just because it worked well against your old chipset doesnt mean it will work well against your current chipset. Sounds like a BIOS fix is needed as some timing is out somewhere.
Ensure Spread Spectrum is off (and as you have already pointed out Fast writes, ATI NV Speedup) and your card is running at default clock.
As a test beg/borrow/steal another graphics card (preferably nvidia) and see how it goes so you can narrow in on your video card.
It is not just one game, but it is more prodominate in certain games than others... the game in question here is Planetside... though I stuck a demo of Unreal Tournament 2004 on a loop bot match and it seemed to have locked up after 4 hours (not sure how many times it experienced that 5-10 freeze as I went to bed). As for the video card it was KNOWN working from a previous build in those same games (Previous build was a AMDXP3000 and a Abit NF7-S nForce2 motherboard). The only components different in this build is the AMD64, the MSI Neo2 K8N, 2 new sticks of Corsair XMS to replace the Corsair ValueSelects, and the SB Audigy2 as I would never use a software codec audio solution. Spread Spectrum is LOCKED in BIOS and disabled... ATI/nVidia speed up was disabled from the start... and I tried the Video Card at default clock, over clocked, as well as under clocked and the same issue resulted... as I said before it is NOT the video card.
There are two other things I could try is use my old Geforce4ti 4200 and see what happens... or even try out WindowsXP 64-bit edition as someone earlier suggested. I wish I could find a new BIOS for my XFX 6800NU, but there there is only the revision 1 BIOS that I was able to find. The mystery continues...
The GameMaster...

Mysterious Teardown Problem with NIO

I have an NIO proxy server which relays state information from a number of servers to a number of clients. A requirement for this system is that we can restart the proxy server (together with a couple of other components) from a web app.
I tear down the proxy server by
- interrupting out of the read loop
- cancelling all keys associated with the channel
- closing the socket on the channel
- closing the channel.
I do this for for both the input (server side) channel and the output (client side) channel.
I then discard the proxy server, create a new one and start it up.
Now here's the mysterious bit. The new server operates just fine for a minute or two. And then it stops seeing any input.
The thread responsible for input reading freezes on the call to -
myKeysAdded = myAcceptKey.selector().select();and the stack looks something like this:
WindowsSelectorImpl$SubSelector.poll0(long, int, int[], int[], int[], long)
WindowsSelectorImpl$SubSelector.poll() line: 270
WindowsSelectorImpl$SubSelector.access$400(WindowsSelectorImpl$SubSelector) line: 252
WindowsSelectorImpl.doSelect(long) line: 133
WindowsSelectorImpl(SelectorImpl).lockAndDoSelect(long) line: 69
WindowsSelectorImpl(SelectorImpl).select(long) line: 80
WindowsSelectorImpl(SelectorImpl).select() line: 84
ProxyServer$BrowserSelector.run() line: 123If I completely destroy the process (and the jvm) and start a new one everything goes back to working normally.
Has anyone got any suggestions? I'm in hair-tearing mode on this one.
Thx TOTW.

I tear down the proxy server by
- interrupting out of the read loopDon't you mean the select() loop?
- cancelling all keys associated with the channelUnnecessary.
- closing the socket on the channel
- closing the channel.Only one of these is necessary. Closing the socket closes the channel and vice versa.
When you have closed all the channels, you then need to call selector.selectNow() (search this forum for why), and then close the selector.

Freezing when trying to print out PDF?

Trying to print out PDF of Aperture 'book'. Each time it freezes on the same page ... this particular page is where I have one image stretched across two pages. Is this possibly a glitch with Aperture?
Ben
I've trashed my preferences several times; doesn't seem to help. I've also tried to use two copies of the same picture (right half on right page, left half on left page); but that doesn't work too well, as Aperture seems to want to favor one side or the other – and thus I can't adjust the two sides to match up properly.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated, thank you,
Ben

Hi Allen,
I'm all topped up, big graphics card, latest ver. of Tiger, permissions repaired every day or so. The mystery continues.
I love the IDEA of the two page spread. Have longed for it in Pages, where I'm producing a whole series of books ... a lot of two page spreads (but done by using two versions of the same still).
Thanks,
Ben

Intermittent random freezing (mid 2012 MBP)

For the past year or so my Macbook Pro (mid 2012) has suffered from random freezes which require a hard reset.
Often these will occur only roughly once a week, but in the last couple of days (incidently since updating to 10.9.3, although such bursts have occured in the past and then settled down) it has been happening 4 to 5 times a day, getting to the point of being seriously disruptive.
I have, over the past few months, made several attempts to find the cause in vain. I am an experienced Mac user with a good understanding of computers, and I've never found a problem so mysterious to me. I'll break down first the symptoms and then what I have done to tye and find the cause.
Symptoms: Normally I will first notice that web pages aren't loading, but I can switch apps without problem. However, if I try and close an app or open another, that app then starts to hang. Progressively, everything starts to hang and I can no longer even switch apps, and everything gives me a spinning beachball. Eventually, even sound/music cuts out. Only a hard reset (holding down the power key) saves it.
Diagnosis: I have run all types of hardware checks, from apple's built in tests (fsck), RAM tests such as memtest, and third party testing suites which have checked the HD, RAM, CPU, GPU etc. All of them have come back 100% clean. I have repaired permissions, which also has no effect.
This made me think it could be a software issue. However, the crashes display no discernable pattern, and are completely (as far as I can see) un-reproducible. They have occured while I have been using a wide range of apps, and don't seem to be triggered by any particular action; e.g. they can occur while I am blankly reading a webpage or a pdf document. Further, the console shows absolutely nothing. The log messages appear completely normal, sometimes there are even no messages corresponding to within several minutes of the crash.
I haven't been able to verify if it is restricted to my user name, since generally the crashes are so intermittent I would have to use another username for several days, if not weeks, to really check this - something than is not practical given that I need the laptop to work on.
Does anyone have any idea what could be causing the issue, or anything further I could try to diagnose it? I am reluctant to take it to an applestore, as it is out of warranty and I can't think of any tests they could try that I have not.

OGELTHORPE wrote:
Alastair Abbott wrote:
I am reluctant to take it to an applestore, as it is out of warranty and I can't think of any tests they could try that I have not.
An Apple store genius bar appointment and evaluation is for FREE! You have no idea what type of tests they may have, so make an appointment.
Thanks for pointing that out. Until very recently I lived in a country where there are no Apple stores nor Genius bars, so I wasn't aware of that.
I've tried safe boot, but as I said the problem is intermittent enough that it's not clear if it helps, and working continuously in safe boot to see isn't really an option.
No - there are no kernel panics, just the unexplained freezes.
Here is my etrecheck report:
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,2
          1 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2 cores
          6 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: (null)
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) - Uptime: 0 days 0:26:37
Disk Information:
          TOSHIBA MK5065GSXF disk0 : (500.11 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499.25 GB (38.52 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS31N
USB Information:
          Logitech USB Receiver
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
          Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper:
          Anywhere
Kernel Extensions:
          [not loaded] at.obdev.nke.LittleSnitch (3876 - SDK 10.8) Support
          [kext loaded] com.sophos.kext.sav (9.0.3 - SDK 10.7) Support
          [kext loaded] com.sophos.nke.swi (9.0.3 - SDK 10.8) Support
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
          [running] com.cleverfiles.cfbackd.plist Support
          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist Support
          [loaded] com.paragon.ntfs11.refresh.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.autoupdate.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.configuration.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.intercheck.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.notification.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.scan.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.sxld.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.webd.plist Support
          [not loaded] org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist Support
          [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist Support
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support
          [loaded] com.paragon.updater.plist Support
          [running] com.sophos.uiserver.plist Support
          [not loaded] org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist Support
          [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist Support
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[...]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist
          [failed] com.google.Chrome.framework.plist Support
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
          [running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist Support
          [loaded] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist Support
          [running] ws.agile.1PasswordAgent.plist Support
User Login Items:
          iTunesHelper
          TotalTerminal
          Dropbox
          SpiderOak
          AdobeResourceSynchronizer
          Google Chrome
          EvernoteHelper
Internet Plug-ins:
          SpeedDownload Browser Plugin: Version: 2.1.5 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Unity Web Player: Version: UnityPlayer version 4.2.1f4 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 3.2.0.16   - SDK 10.8 Support
          AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 1.0.0.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Silverlight: Version: 5.1.20913.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          Mathematica: Version: 9.0.1.4055068 Support
          SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.1 - SDK 10.6 Support
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 55 Check version
Safari Extensions:
          Omnikey: Version: 1.0.9
          Searchme: Version: 1.3
          1Password: Version: 4.1.0
          AdBlock: Version: 2.6.18
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          RealPlayer Plugin: Version: Unknown
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Flash Player Support
          Flip4Mac WMV Support
          FUSE for OS X (OSXFUSE) Support
          Java Support
          Perian Support
          TeXDistPrefPane Support
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 464.96 GB Disk used: 429.09 GB
          Destinations:
                    Macbook Backup [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 465.14 GB
                    Total number of backups: 23
                    Oldest backup: 2013-05-12 21:27:14 +0000
                    Last backup: 2014-05-17 11:23:10 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 465.14 GB < (Disk used 429.09 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
               3%          WindowServer
               1%          mds_stores
               0%          Google Chrome
               0%          fontd
               0%          mds
Top Processes by Memory:
          184 MB          mds_stores
          166 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          154 MB          InterCheck
          147 MB          SophosScanD
          135 MB          Google Chrome
Virtual Memory Information:
          308 MB          Free RAM
          2.66 GB          Active RAM
          2.36 GB          Inactive RAM
          686 MB          Wired RAM
          574 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs

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