Why did I have a kernel panic?

Question

I was in the process of disconnecting my Nikon D40 (a procedure I have done many times without incident). Usually I shut the camera off and pull out the USB connector once the volume disappears from my desktop, with no problem. This time, as soon as I shut off the camera, I got a strange "You must restart your computer" message I'd never seen before (I've had the computer almost 3 years). Discovered this was a "kernel panic" message.
Why did my computer do this? The only thing that's changed on it recently is that I installed Adobe Air although I don't believe I was running any Air applications at the time. At the time I was running Photoshop Elements, Nikon Picture Project, Firefox and a feed reader called Feedpopper. Again I have run all these programs without trouble for several years.
Here is the message from panic.log:
Wed Dec 31 13:57:16 2008
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 0, Type 14=page fault), registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x0000001e, CR3: 0x00d99000, CR4: 0x000006e0
EAX: 0x00000000, EBX: 0x0311ec00, ECX: 0x0039a412, EDX: 0x01f06520
CR2: 0x0000001e, EBP: 0x0b8b3d58, ESI: 0xe00002ed, EDI: 0x02017e00
EFL: 0x00010202, EIP: 0x1fbd8654, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x00000010
Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0xb8b3b88 : 0x128d08 (0x3cc0a4 0xb8b3bac 0x131de5 0x0)
0xb8b3bc8 : 0x1a4a55 (0x3d24b8 0x0 0xe 0x3d1cdc)
0xb8b3cd8 : 0x19aeb4 (0xb8b3ce8 0x0 0xe 0x390048)
0xb8b3d58 : 0x538d3c (0x311ec00 0xe00002ed 0xe00002ed 0x1f)
0xb8b3db8 : 0x8ed0e0 (0x1f5e000 0x2017e00 0xe00002ed 0x1f)
0xb8b3e68 : 0x8eda23 (0x1f5e000 0x30a2918 0x0 0x0)
0xb8b3ec8 : 0x8eda77 (0x1f5e000 0x0 0x0 0x1fbd254)
0xb8b3ee8 : 0x8e68d4 (0x1f5e000 0x0 0xb8b3f58 0x1fbd238)
0xb8b3f08 : 0x39b3c3 (0x1f5e000 0x0 0x1 0x38169e)
0xb8b3f58 : 0x39a595 (0x1fa8600 0x0 0x0 0x19e23a)
0xb8b3f88 : 0x39a2cb (0x1fc03c0 0xb8b3fd4 0x134c09 0x135eb4)
0xb8b3fc8 : 0x19ad2c (0x1fc03c0 0x0 0x19e0b5 0x2837458) Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x0
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI(2.7.5)@0x8e3000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(2.7.5)@0x534000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x59c000
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(2.7.5)@0x534000
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.1: Wed May 23 16:33:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.22.5~1/RELEASE_I386
Message was edited by: ebedgert

Answer 1

Perhaps try it again and see if it was just a bad alignment of the planets last time. You could also post more of the log to see which thread it was that actually crashed and what was happening. In the meantime this will keep you busy:
[I got a black screen telling me I had to reboot in many languages, what was it?|http://www.dslreports.com/faq/4970] Also has detailed description of what happens during a KP.
[Apple docs: What's a kernel panic? (Mac OS X)|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106227]
[Topic : kmosx: Kernel Panics? Don't panic too !|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121923]
[X-Lab: Resolving Kernel Panics|http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html]
[Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics|http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060911080447777]
[Tutorial: An introduction to reading Mac OS X crash reports|http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060309075929717]
[12-Step Program to Isolate Freezes and/or Kernel Panics|http://macosg.com/group/viewtopic.php?t=800]
[Texas Mac Man's post on kernel panics|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1723768&tstart=0]