Total OS freeze-up

The problem with Safari or Firefox may be a file on the website you were accessing. Video files, particularly Flash ones may be causing some problems.

If you have lost the keyboard as well as the mouse, there are only a couple of things you can do: wait and shutdown. In the case of the latter, it may be a good idea to do a safe start (start with shift key held down), then restart after that. If it does this often, there may be some need of maintenance.

Waiting is a good idea as the problem might clear; but then you may be waiting forever. It might be useful to attempt a Force Quit of the application with Option CommandEsc as the Finder might be able to access some small amount of processor time.

If you can supply the URL of the webpages involved, someone else might look and see if there were anything untoward. As this has happened a couple of times, you might try with another browser: there are several available.

Also, to track this down, if you can try in another location (different network settings) and also, if you have the time, create a second User (not Admin) account to see if the problem happens when you are working in there -- a test account is sometimes useful for tracking down such problems.

Crash logs are accessed via the application called Console in the Utilities folder. There ought to be a crash log for Firefox: logs are listed in the left panel.

Glad to have given some guidance. If Firefox is not shown, maybe it didn't actually get as far as crashing. It does not appear in my logs either, but I use it so rarely. Is there any information in the main Console log -- it is a bit dense so narrowing an event down with a time is useful.

If you suspect Handbrake to be the problem, why not test this by checking the same site/page without HB running. If there is no stop of activity, that would give you a higher probability.

I cannot imagine, of course, what one might use such software for. . . .

Bonne chance.

Sort of. Where I am, Handbrake is used for less legitimate reasons. Does iMovie really not export in a suitable format? My students, who all use PCs, just made MP4 / mov files for me, so I thought that these would work on a PC. Apparently not, eh?

Do not assumed about letitimacy of using handbrake; it's a compressing video software that may be used totally legaly in a lot of situation. Beside, it's a great free software... with, of course, some bugs you can expect in a free software.

The point I would like to add is that I found myself in a situation where HandBrake totally screw up OS X. That happen when HandBrake is trying to access a DVD that is already in use by another application. When this occurs, hard reboot is necessary. I haven't had any other issue with using HandBrake.

If you are experiencing the same problem, pay attention to close all application that may access a DVD while using HandBrake.

Not sure if this is related to the latest Security Update from a couple of weeks ago or not, but my Mac Pro was rock stable before and it has froze up a couple of times already. Every time it has happened, I was not doing anything specific. Once, while booting up a Windows XP VM Ware instance, second time while browsing in the itunes store. Came across this: http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20081006223426431

Not sure if this is the cause or not.

Total system freezes are so **** frustrating. I thought I left that world behind when I made the move over to the Mac from the crappy Windows world. Oh well.

Just my two cents.