Increasingly unstable MBP with 10.5.6

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Level 1

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Increasingly unstable MBP with 10.5.6

My MBP seems to be more and more unstable. I have 10.5.6 (how can I check when I installed this?), and my current issues are

1. After the screensaver has been on, I can't get "back in". When I move the cursor around I only get a black screen with the "colored thinking-circle".

2. Suddenly applications just start hanging. When I left Activity Monitor open it said that systemuiserver was not responding, and after that all apps I try to do something with hangs.

My Mac has been nice and stable, but this suddenly started happening today. It has been running stable in 10.5.6 up until now.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Dec 29, 2008 1:23 PM

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Answer 1

nerowolfe

Level 6

13,090 points

Dec 29, 2008 1:27 PM in response to Ayabara

When did you last run disk utility and repair HD and permissions?
Do you have any 3rd party apps that are not fully 10.5.6 compatible?
Check your console for information about what is happening - it is not normal behavior at all.
I am running 10.5.6 on three boxes with zero issues, so it's most certainly an issue with your machine and its software and/or hardware.
Sometimes USB devices are problematical.
Unplug all external devices, remove all login items and see what happens.
Create a new user account and see if the problems occur with the new user.
Most likely the problems are related to bad software.

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Answer 2

Ayabara Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 29, 2008 2:57 PM in response to nerowolfe

I ran disk utility a couple of hours ago. Permission check found a few iSync inconsistencies, and the HD was verified ok.

The console is a good tip. I'll leave that one open in case it crashes on me again.

I agree with you that the problem is most likely bad software, and right now Transmission is the primary suspect. After downgrading and reducing number of torrents, my system looks to be much more stable.

Thanks for answering 🙂

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Answer 3

Dec 29, 2008 3:45 PM in response to Ayabara

Beyond running disk permissions, you might try verifying and repairing the hard drive (repair requires booting off the leopard dvd). Additionally, you might periodically boot into safe mode to ensure various other maintenance scripts (which run when booting into Safe Mode) get run. Doing this on a regular basis will keep the system a little happier over time.

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Answer 4

Ayabara Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2008 11:00 AM in response to Topher Kessler

I'm almost positive that Transmission was the app causing the problems. I switched to uTorrent, and haven't seen the problem again. Since I like uTorrent, I don't think I will look more into this issue. Thanks for the useful tips on permissionrepair and disk verification. Coming from Ubuntu, I was not aware that it could be useful to do this now and then 🙂

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