Snow Leopard freezes over time

If only I had spoken to you sooner...I have just moved over from Windows, where I would have been very cautious and also would have waited before upgrading to a new OS version, but I had always been lead to believe the Apple OS was so reliable, I did not even hesitate before doing the upgrade.

Neil Paisnel wrote:
also would have waited before upgrading to a new OS version,

There's always little and sometimes bigger quirks that need to be ironed out in a new OS. I just prefer to wait till it is more stable.

but I had always been lead to believe the Apple OS was so reliable, I did not even hesitate before doing the upgrade.

OSX is more stable then Windows, but each new Apple OS has some growing pains to go thru.

I'm running 10.5.8 and have found this to be the most stable OS I have used since Apple's OS6.0.8 in 1995.

DALE

Message was edited by: Dale

10.5.8 most stable since 95...say it all really.. I suppose there was OS 7 8 and 9 before 10.

Hello,

I have installed the Performance Update 1.0, but yesterday night I got a freeze for 20-30 seconds with the spinning wheel.
I was litening music in iTunes with the graphic visualization for iTunes, suddently the music stopped, the graphic too, spinning wheel, nothing responsive (even the dock)... in the panic I've realized, after few seconds, that a Time Machine automatic backup had started. After more or less 20 seconds the system restart to be operative (music, visualization and dock). So it was just a temporary freeze at the startup of the instance of Time Machine.
I use an external HDD WD myStudio 1Tb connected at the wirefire800 (which should be fast enough to minimize the impact to the system....

Marco

Have you had any more lock ups since the Time Machine startup?

Right, I forgot to mention it.....

It appended once just at the real beginning of the TM instance, I guess TM was looking for the changes in my internal HDD and prepare the file to backup. (in fact I had some new software installations before i was enjoying iTunes).
Tonight I will not install anything, than i will put iTunes up again as yesterday and see if i get the same freeze....

Marco

I'm still getting lockups about every hour which is understandable because the same thing happens even on machines that don't need this 'performance update' (older iMac's). I'm eagerly awaiting 10.6.2 - hopefully it fixes it.

My issue is still with DirectoryService.

Neil Paisnel wrote:
10.5.8 most stable since 95...say it all really.. I suppose there was OS 7 8 and 9 before 10.

Yes, I went from OS6 to OS8. Then used OS9....skipped a few.... ordered 10.2 (Jaguar), skipped one, installed 10.4 (Tiger) and now am up to 10.5.8.

I got to say Tiger was pretty stable also. Still run it on my 10 year old G4.

Dale

Hey Guys!

I installed the performance update about 2 days ago and I'm still getting those freezes. Just had another a few minutes ago when I wanted to open a Finder window -,-

It's really annoying. Does someone else still have the same problems?

I have a MacBook Pro 15-inch, Mid 2009.

Philipp

Can't help with that, but this might be worth trying, at least to see if a clean install will fix the problem

I re-partitioned my Mac HD, then did a clean install on the new partition on.
It certainly ran better from the clean install. Even after using Migration Assistant to copy all the old apps and user settings across, it still seemed to solve the problems.

You should only need 20Gig or so for the new partition, and you can delete it afterwards.

I deleted my new partition after, and I am back with the unstable system for the moment, simply because I am buying a new HDD later this month and will do a complete full clean install on that only installing the software I currently use, rather than use Migration Assistant and bring all the crap apps from the old system across.

Removed LCC, Removed VMWare, Removed Growl ... Installed 10.6.1 from scratch and my iMac froze again last night. So except a Firewire 800 HDD I had nothing exotic running. I am getting really frustrated.

what do you mean with freeze?
All the users here (including my self) use the word "freeze" to define an operational blockage of the system.
But those "freezes" could be a temporary hold (few seconds with or without the spinning wheel, and than back to normal operation without any input), or a complete freeze of the system which left you the only choice to force the shut down by holding the power button.....
To understand better and share the different experiences maybe we should define the two situation with different terms..... (just a suggestion).

For example, for me a freeze which let me keep working without loosing anything after few second it's for sure annoing, but acceptable until someone will fix it with an update. It's not acceptable and extremely annoing be forced to power off due a complete freeze.

AT the moment it's more than two weeks that i don't get any TOTAL freeze, but still experiencing minor freezes time to time.

Marco

Well I have no direct connected external drives on my system, and from the clean install everythin gwas OK.
I think somewhere in this thread it was suggested that it is external volumes that 'may' be causing the problem.
For me freezes vary, from complete lockouts where nothing responds and even if you leave the machine for 10 minutes it is still locked, it does not even displaythe message telling you to restart with the power button, but that is the only option.
Other freezes are only temporary, 10-30 seconds.

No idea why, but Finder has been stable for the last few days, that has not refused to start with the 10180 error

Hello, what I call freeze, for my part, is the dock that keeps open on the screen, with no click possible, and the cmd-tab navigation killed…
This occures from time to time when I open Mail.app.
The I have to power off, throw away the dock prefs, and hope to be able to work for a non to short time…

Exactly the problem. Just have to open a new tab in Safari or open Mail or start a Finder window, what ever -> Beach Ball turning and I have to wait for about 30 seconds till everything is working again (it freezes not every time I open an application, but sometimes), just waiting for the next freeze. When I click during a freeze on a dock symbol, it's jumping for a while and then also get stuck, so you can't click anything anymore.

I think, I'll go back to 10.5.8 and stay there till this problem is solved...