Classic slow - Trueblueenvironment?

Same problems here. So, for all you fine Apple engineers, here is some data:

Configuration:
Apple Mac Mini, latest midrange product (wireless), default configuration 512 MB RAM, 80 GB disk, etc. Single user environment. Cable modem connected.

Steps to recreate:
1. Go to Update and update everything. (I've also installed some OS X apps but don't see how that could affect things.)
2. Install Classic.
3. Install Framemaker 6 (a classic app).
4. Open Framemaker 6 (it may or may not be necessary to open a file... just start the product and see).
5. Open activity monitor.

Actual result:
- Activity monitor for trueblue goes from Virtual Memory 112 MB to 1.09 GB.
- Real memory from 15 MB to 29.84 MB.
- Percent CPU from 2.8% to from 80% to 132% (yes really) usage.

Expected result:
- TrueBlue does not eat up system resources when a classic app is run.

Notes:
- If any OS X program is selected, system virtual memory usage for TrueBlue drops back down to 112 MB or so. The other indicators drop back down. But it all goes back up again when the OS 9 app is selected.
- Turning off all extentions does not make any difference.
- Rebuilding the desktop does not make any difference.
- There is no divx thing - according to spotlight - to remove.
- This is already a new install so I'm not inclined to re-install.

Hope you can get this fixed.

Brett

Well after some searching on the forum i found a band aid to say the least.
If you open activity monitor and find out the process id aka PID of trueblueenviroment then open terminal and type "renice 20 PID" without quotes this puts the priority of classic down. This stops a lot of the choppy performance but you will still get the odd small stutter unfortunately.
I do think this is a problem with the latest version of Classic using up too much cpu time on G4 and weaker cpu's.
As people with G5's haven't reported this problem from what i've seen.

Hi all,

WSnakey, since you said you had not heard of this problem with G5s, let me change that. I have an iMac G5 2GHz and have had the same problem described where TruBlueEnvionme takes 98-100% of the CPU power. About all I ever run in Classic is Excel 2001.

I was thinking that a clean install of 9 might help but it sounds like others have tried this to no avail. Looks like I will have to give renice a try.

Jim

Well maybe even more powerful G5 systems like the dual ones 😉 but apple really do have a problem here that they don't seem to be addressing or acknowledging. I really hope there is an update to classic soon to fix this issue.

Me too. I use a PowerBook G4 at work to run MicroStation - a CAD program that, sadly, was abandoned by the owner in terms of future development on the Mac about 5 years ago. On all OSX systems prior to Tiger the application actually ran better under Classic than it ever did under OS9 or its predecessor. But now, under Tiger, it can be virtually unusable - some of the time. The fact that the problem is so weirdly intermittent - one minute everything is going fine, the next minute TrueBlueEnvironment starts swallowing resources like a vacuum cleaner, then it backs off again - has got to be the biggest clue to Apple as to what's going on. I've tried all of the black magic tricks listed above and a few others as well and none of them have worked. My fear is that Apple may now be turning their backs on Classic in the lead-up to the Intel switchover and this problem will not be fixed.

Hi
I have the same problem and I find no solution.
Before I upgraded to Tiger everything worked fine.

I reduced the the classic system folder to System and Finder.
The system starts up and produces some new files, but everything is ok.

The application folder is reduced to the old programm SimpleText.
If I put in some letters in a new window and close the window the dialogwindow pops up and --- immediately Trublueenvironment jumps up to 100% CPU load.

Classic is absolutly useless to me.

Any help is welcome.

Hello, Classic Orphans,

Obviously no one here has a friend of a friend who shoots pool with Steve Jobs. (5 degrees of separation, you know, better check your Roladexes)

I haven't checked-in here in a month and --sad to see-- the posts are just the same as before. And I can't add spit.

But a couple of notes:
--Mine is a G5 and I'm having the same problems others are having.

--I had 2.7 Gb free on a 40 Gb HD. When I cleared 10 Gb (all my music!), the really severe system seizures and crashes and hog-bottom implosions quit happening.

--I was then able to at least get from 10.4.1 to 10.4.2 which may have helped some.

--I also ran all the weekly monthly etc. maintenance scripts. (with all that's mentioned above) That seemed to help too.

--But the CPU usage with OS9 has not changed. It's still 90-100% no matter what I'm doing with it. And much of the time the computer's still slower than swamp-meat.

My best to everyone,

W. Williams

Having the same problem.

Any one with a fix?

Not that this is helping anyone, but I too have the same issue. I've been following what you guys have been typing ever since our new Mac Mini's came in. When we Demo'd this unit last year it came with 10.3 installed and was able to run all of our classic stuff flawlessly believe it or not. Now the new units come with 10.4 and we are having all sorts of problems with Applications that run in the TruBlueEnviroment. As it stands now most commonly alot of our apps are running really slow and freezing up on a regular basis. I talked to our Apple Reps Systems guy and he asked me about extensions in classic and about maybe I had stuff enabled that shouldn't be.

So I have gone through and totally started from scratch. I took an Apple Dual Proc G5 (1gig memory and 160Gigs of HD space) and formatted it putting 10.4 on from the DVD and installing all Updates. I then put on a system folder for Classic and totally stripped tons of stuff not needed for what were doing. Lastly I installed the Quicktime 6.0.3 update for Classic since it complains about it everytime it opens. I didn't have this update install previously, but did put it on in hopes that it may help.

After doing all the above some apps aren't as bad as they were but I figure that has to be because I'm running them on a G5 and not a mac mini. When these Apps are run I watch the activity monitor and TruBlue goes up to a 100% and higher (still has 500Megs of Ram free however). I have tried the renice trick mentioned further up in this topic and that did help a little, but it seemed that the voice ques in our software got a little off track. Most apps still lag badly however.

I can't see any possible reason why any app from the Classic days needs 100% of any newer processors today and like everyone else I've tested this same System folder with these same apps on a 10.3 and 10.2 machine with very little issues. No issues like the lag anyways...:> I have also tested this out on the following machines: MacMini, ImacG5, and Imac Summer 2001 model with a 700Mhz G3 proc.

Like I said I am talking to my Apple reps so if I hear anything that helps me I'll post back. Is anyone who has posted here trying this in bulk? I mean working for a school district or something and you have a lot of tiger giving you issues? Maybe talk to your sales Reps as well? Currently I am being told that no one else is having these issues even though I have pointed out this forum with all of you on it:> Or no one has offically reported it maybe?

Thanks.
-Jesse

Hi Folks,

Its good to see that I am not the only one with big performance problems with Classic apps.
I read all 39 postings above and found 1 solution, the removal of "DIVX" usefull. Before I had to restart many times Classic, power on the printer when only Classic was running, restart the PrinMonitor several times before my HP4110 worked for a single document.
After removing DIVX for the first time Printmonitor acted well and it gave me the option to "print again" after a problem. So that is hopefully the end of my printing problems.

What keeps is the very bad performance of Apple own HyperCard 2.4.1. It's the usuall problem, a smoking processor and very slow actions. There is one difference in the behaviour of my system (iMacG5+Tiger10.4.2). As soon as there are no actions required by the Classic apps the proccessor gets air and the TrueBlueEnvironment load drops to less then 10%, even when a few Classics apps and windows are open.
I have the same HyperCard stacks running on an eMac700+Panther and on that machine HC really rocks !

So it is defenitely a poor performance of Tiger.

I assume that in the rush to kick some Windows Longhorn *** the people at Apple on purpose looked at the other direction when the Classic problems came out of the closet.

Its the usuall story about the downside of strong marketing. This goes back to the release of Apple's first OS (version 3 ?, can't remember what version it was on the 400k disk) and it will continue forever.

I hope that 10.4.3 will resolve this nasty Classic issues.

Regards, Wim.

alright...i may have found an answer...i went to an
apple store and they fixed my problem. once again, my
problem was that i would start classic and it would
get to the "Mac OS 9.2" startup screen and it would
stop working...it would take up all of my processor
power and about 1.15gb of virtual memory. what they
did, was (if you use or have ever used DivX) go to
the hard disk on desktop (usually named Macintosh HD)
and go to the "library" folder. then go to the
"application support" folder and move the
"DivXNetwork" folder out of the "application support"
folder. (dont delete because it might need it if you
still use divx.) it should boot right up. try that.
good luck

Yep, removing the DivXNetworks folder out of Application Support fixed my Classic no start problem!!!! THANK YOU!!

I've also been affected by this problem. I've filed a bug under Apple's http://bugreport.apple.com website. I've been given the bug #4360739 with title: Trueblueenvironment claims >90% CPU with launch of certain classic applications.

No one at Apple has yet to respond. I've done a battery of tests since my machine was upgraded with a new graphics card prior to installing Tiger. I thought perhaps that was causing my problem, but it doesn't seem so if a people with new mac mini's are experiencing the problem (according to this thread). So I installed Apple's developer tools and ran the Shark.app performance profiler application. It indicated that the TruBlueEnvironment process was continually calling the CGSNewRegion method within the CoreGraphics framework.

I interpret that to mean that something is wickedly wrong in the graphics engines (QuickDraw or Quartz) with respect to Classic support. It explains why some apps like SimpleText do not increase TruBlueEnvironment's CPU usage, while others like the Prince of Persia game, Photoshop, CAD programs, etc. do.

Can anyone help us pinpoint what the issue might be and better direct Apple in how to fix it?

I forgot to mention that I opened the bug with Apple on Dec 1, 2005 and have verified it exists with 10.4.3, and 10.4.0 (and I assume the others in between) and verified it exists with both fresh OS 10.4 installations and fresh OS 9.2.2 installations.

I've also been submitting information on my tests and results to the bugreport website. I strongly encourage others to sign up to the ADC website and create similar bugs. I've filed mine as a performance bug since my OS 9 apps function, albeit very slowly.

The more bugs apple "officially receives" on this topic via the bugreport.apple.com website, the more likely they will be to fix it. The bug report also asks for you to submit a profile of your computer. This will help apple identify if it's a common hardware or software issue. Please create a new ADC account and create a bugreport at the website.

Hi All,
I've experienced this causing crashing and buggy audio.

I found that by disabling the "Sound Manager" extension in Classic my issues disappeared - YMMV but see how you go!

eMac 1.42Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.4) 512MB RAM

Been having this problem ever since the Tiger upgrade, driving my wife and daughter nuts over the poor game performance.

Saw this thread and tried the "renice" command, and there was a dramatic improvement. Haven't had them try all their games but the stutter was gone in Hoyle Card Games, at least.

Thanks for the tip.