Q: Random freezing from Snow Leopard - total lock-up for about 30 seconds

Thought I'd send an update on my MBP. Mine was experiencing the extreme slowness and it froze every night for 4 days straight (plug in iphone at 10PM, get up in the morning and the MBP needed to be hard-powered off). I took it to the Genius and they had me re-install the 10.6 OS at the store. They said it didn't look like it installed correctly the first time because the drive icon on re-install did not show a red exclamation point. We did that and the next day it was locked up again...

I tried the PRAM reset and it looks like that fixed all the issues! Since doing that it has not locked up and the temp is about 30 degrees cooler, just like it was with Leopard. This has been running for 4 days now without issues.

FWIW, my Macbook is considered the Late 2008 unibody 2.53GHz model and doesn't run the 1.7 EFI, it runs the 1.6.

So far, I'm a happy camper again!

any one tried this cleaner tool?
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=778819

I have the same problems, repairing disc permissions, verifying disk, resetting PRAM, countless clean installs all failed to solve the problem. If Apple does not get their act together, i swear this will just be my last Apple product. I have seen what a greedy corporation they are, never acknowledge a problem and never provide a proper solution.

How ridiculous is it to have your computer freeze on you every 10-15 minutes? sometimes every 5 minutes...This thing is a joke. If there isnt an update that solves this problem I am just getting the new Hp Envy 13 with Windows 7, at least I can do my work on it properly and watch Youtube videos. **** the flash plug-in...and yes the flash player works fine in Windows.

I'm, too, having the same problem. However, it started to freeze more frequently this week, sometimes like every minute. This is very unbearable.

I tried to check my systemlog and found some very miserable errors which I can say that is very far more than I can call "normal".

Here's the screen shot for some part of the log.
http://thatslife.tirkx.com/scarylog.png

24 hours - no beach balls. To recap, I ran the repair permissions with no success. Then I re-booted in 64 bit mode. Ran OK, but VMWare Fusion only runs in 32 bit kernel, so another re-boot sine I need this program. Has worked fine since. For me, perhaps all that was required was a repair of permissions and a re-boot. Good luck to everyone else.

I have been running >24h without freezes. I will list what I did - see if you can make any sense of what did it - I can't.

Repaired permissions - no effect
Booted with Option-Command-R-P - on effect
Started Safari in 32bit mode - no effect
Booted OS X into 64bit mode - 30s freezes gone, still had 10s freezes

Reverted back to OS X in 32bit mode, then uninstalled iStat Menus, uninstalled Evernote - no more freezes!

Then repaired permissions again, after running freeze free for 12h.
(swop file not 0MB)
(have not re-installed)
(have not downgraded EFI firmware)

Possible conclusions:
- Could toggling once to 64bit mode and back do it? (poster I am replying to did this too and is ok now)
- Could it be true, as per a previous post, that system monitoring apps be the culprit? (many freeze victims quote system performance stats, so many of them are using it)
- Could a few re-boot & repair permissions combinations do it?

You decide!

not working for me -- rebooted from 32 to 64 to 32.

Im still seeing this in my Console when the error occurs:

9/21/09 9:42:55 PM 9:42:55 PM thomas--macbook-pro kernel kernel 0 kern Debug disk0s2: I/O error.
9/21/09 9:42:55 PM 9:42:55 PM thomas--macbook-pro kernel kernel 0 com.apple.system.fs Error
9/21/09 9:42:55 PM 9:42:55 PM thomas--macbook-pro kernel kernel 0 com.apple.system.fs Error

Something with the disk -- I tried turning OFF the sudden motion sensor - and it may have lessened the occurrences of this issue... but its still happening.

Ive tried everything in this list:

1. reboots from 32 to 64 and back
2. reinstall Snow Leopard
3. clear caches with cache purging softwares
4. fix permissions
5. verify drives / repair drives
6. safe mode boot ups

I have a 250GB hitachi drive - I think I have the 1.6 EFI update installed...

this is an incredibly annoying issue...

still not working!

teemujin, your HDD definitely has a bad block. I did some research, and it seems that in contrast to Linux and Windoze, it is not possible to check unused disk space for bad blocks in OS X. Which becomes a problem when the swap file starts hitting that block or blocks.

Currently the only solution I can come up with is to use up all disk space when swap is still at zero, for example by making lots of copies of big files, and then check the disk.

I also found out that installing smartmontools from macports.org starts a background process that polls the SMART state of all disks every 30min, which could also cause brief freezes.

Mojo, there certainly are utilities to check for bad blocks for the Mac OS. TechTool Pro comes to mind, and should be included with every AppleCare purchase. I've often seen were SMART Utility will say the drive status is good, but then after running TechTool Pro advanced suite, SMART Utility will say the drive is failing (even if TechTool Pro said the drive passed). Of course if TechTool finds a bad block it will say it failed, but if every block passed, that is where SMART Utility can help as it detects pending failures.

Also, for what it is worth, my 13 inch MBP was freezing all the time for up to 30 seconds doing the simplest things. Now since installing the firmware downgrade to 1.6 I've had the computer running for 3.5 days without a single beach ball.

To be more clear, SMART Utility in my previous post refers to SMART Utility by Volitans Software, http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php
It will run 5 times or for 29 days, whichever comes first, so certainly free for checking out if you have a problem now, but costs $25 to keep using it after that trial.

Hey guys, I just thought I'd give an update.

I can confirm no further beach ball hangs since Sept 19 when I started booting into 64 bit mode. Currently I have an uptime of 2d 8h 58m, and everything is running smooth as silk! The only problem I feel gets a little choppy sometimes is Firefox, but no beachballs so far!

Now, I can see some people haven't had as much success with 64bit mode as me, so I thought I'd clarify what my problem was. I was getting beachball hangs of upwards of 30s, but there were absolutely no error messages on the console (and yeah, I checked on every possible log). So if anyone has the beachball but doesn't see any console errors this might be the ticket you need.

Hope this helps someone

I have been rebooting into 64 bit mode for a few days now, and it has helped, but it has not completely fixed the problem. I still get the beachball and insert-hang-detected in my console log, but it is nowhere near as frequent as when i am in 32 bit mode.

Ok I'm tired of this people!!!

What is your definition of a clean install ?!?!?

My definition of a clean install is to fully format the hard drive, install the OS and setup a new user account from scratch. NO Importing your profile from a previous install or other machine of any type!! If you do this and you have issues with Beach Balls, Stutters, lock-ups, while just using the base install then you OBVIOUSLY have a hardware issue to take strait to Apple Care. Also make sure if you have third party RAM installed that you remove it and put in your original RAM and test.

So far, every Snow Leopard stuttering or lockup issue I've encountered (save one) has been caused by none Apple software being installed that hooks into the system at some point.

I'm in the Bay Area (South Bay, USA California) I run all sorts of MACs, The engineering department where I work uses lots of macs (the IT department Hates us!!) and I do allot of trouble shooting and testing. I've fixed about 7 peoples issues with their Snow Leopard installs to date. If you would like some help fixing these issues (because this thread os covering several different issues which all result in some type of system stutter/lockup then drop me an email and I would be happy to take a look at your system and walk you through how I track down issues. but everyone gripping at Apple isn't going to fix anything. You have to have specifics to get a bug fixed, the "its not working!! Fix IT" yelling doesn't help anyone.

Hello GumbieMama

What is the correct way to fix this issue, I am in San Jose, and hope you can provide some advice

Thanks

Anyone who would like a bit of help contact me on my ichat id of "zoeross" I'll be available later this evening after 5pm PST.