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

same for me! I have a Macbook (2006) and upgraded my HD to 7200 rpm- having the same problem now. I can't install the update!

hey everyone
i've been using snow leopard for around two weeks now. first install was just the upgrade, which worked fine but i had a lot of clutter on my mac. i then did a clean install of snow leopard, erasing the HD (zero out), etc. since then i've had a lot of the random freezing that has been mentioned. itunes will lock up for a 10-15 seconds when you insert a CD. the dock keeps freezing and deleting the preference file doesn't seem to help. simple actions like changing a patch in logic or garageband will hold up the system, where as before it was fine. i've tried reseting the PRAM and repairing permissions.

don't know if it means anything, but when i repair permissons, it states that two files have been modified and will not be repaired.

i think it's time to go a little deeper, but i'm a bit of a noob with some stuff.

ProgRockAbuse wrote:

don't know if it means anything, but when i repair permissons, it states that two files have been modified and will not be repaired.

That is normal and is no need for worry!

Try using Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, while booted up on your install disk.
You could have some directory corruption. Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them.

 DALE

I just installed this update, unfortunately within the first two minutes I got the freeze. It could possibly be the applescript I was working on, but I doubt it. I'll give it another go with some other processes and update you guys with the results

edit: I think it just made the problem worse

Message was edited by: trulow

still getting INSERT-HANG-DETECTED in console during beachballs, after update...

Yes, it only covers the models listed in this About the Performance update.

Sorry, have you tried any Disk Repairs?

 

DALE

 

 

I have just finished using Disk Util to fix permissions and things seem to be going great. We shall see how it goes..

Permissions helps, but the following should also be done......Try using Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, while booted up on your install disk.
You could have some directory corruption. Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them.

 DALE

hey dale

i've just run the disk utility on my OSX disc. asked it to repair the hard disk, then watched. just says macintosh HD is ok, volume repaired. doesn't say what it repaired or if indeed it repaired anything. just looked like a normal verify disc screen.

robrecord wrote:
I am having random freezes like the authors of many recent topics on this forum. From the number of 'views' on their threads, it seems that many other users have the same problem.

These are not like any other freezes I have ever had - usually when the beach ball shows, it still allows me to show the dock, move windows etc... but these freezes bring everything to a halt.

I've had similar freezes since installing Snow Leopard. They began to be really annoying after updating to 10.6.1.

It seems to me that Spotlight is the cause for the problem, at least it's heavily involved. When I use Spotlight to start an application (by pressing Cmd+Space and entering something), the harddisk remains constantly active even after the search box has disappeared. If I simply ignore this, it takes a couple of minutes until the spinning beachball begins to appear. At first it's only there for a couple of seconds, freezing just the application I'm currently using (e.g. Safari, no scrolling possible). After some time, the whole system freezes, and I can't do anything besides moving the mouse. Even my keyboard is dead while the beachball is spinning for 30 seconds or more.

As soon as I open Spotlight again and delete what I typed into the box, the freezes stop and the harddisk becomes silent again.

However, this does not help when Spotlight goes crazy on its own. Sometimes, about every 2 or 3 days, I get the same problems I described above without doing anything. In these cases, the process "mds" uses 50% CPU or more and doesn't stop. The only solution is to reboot.

I've never had freezes during the past few weeks where Spotlight was not involved. Rebuilding the index and checking for drive errors did not help.

Hello,
I also am experiencing repetitive freezing with snow leopard 10.6.1. This did not happen with leopard.
I noticed that those freezing were often happening while I used Skype. But it also happen when I leave the computer for a while (it freezes the screen saver...). The freezing is complete : nothing works. Then , the only solution is to unplug the beast and to reboot. Nasty isn't it?

I have similar freezes for 30 sec to 4-5 minutes.
These occur during increased disk read activity.
Spotlight also is frozen during this time.

My freezes clear if I am patient.
Next freeze wait 5 min to see if it clears.

Cloned disk has the same issue.

Thanks ... Ken

Here we go, 1 day post-Performance Update 1.0:

Oct 16 17:21:22 Waanzin Safari[115]: INSERT-HANG-DETECTED: Tx time:9.899495, # of Inserts: 22, # of bytes written: 868275, Did shrink: NO
Oct 16 17:24:48 Waanzin Safari[115]: INSERT-HANG-DETECTED: Tx time:10.594813, # of Inserts: 22, # of bytes written: 120142, Did shrink: NO
Oct 16 17:28:27 Waanzin Safari[115]: INSERT-HANG-DETECTED: Tx time:20.078030, # of Inserts: 123, # of bytes written: 1035954, Did shrink: YES

I think it may be slightly improved but I still get beachballs, stuttering itunes, stuck videos. This is with the stock 5400rpm HD. I'm going to return this piece of **** for a repair/exchange. Hope they don't give me a hard time claiming beachballs are normal.

For me, the "Performance Update" did the trick. I use my MacBook Pro (mid-2009) heavily and was getting the 30 second (exactly) freezes with extreme regularity. I've had the performance update installed since the day it came out and no freezing since.

Prog,
That's good. Did it help any?
Dale