10.6.2 deadlock?

Question

Level 1

89 points

10.6.2 deadlock?

It has been quite a while that some applications hang, hanging the Docks and part of the Finder as well. Until nothing moves anymore apart from the mouse cursor. If I force the Finder restart nothing happens. Some applications can be killed, other just hang. If I try to shutdown OSX nothing happens. I must press the power button in my Macbook. Is it a known issue or something went really messed up? I think this became more evident after that Parallels Desktop caused a severe crash. I did a repair permission and it was alright. Any idea?

White MacBook 2,1 (Intel), Mac OS X (10.6.2), 3GB RAM

Posted on Feb 25, 2010 5:31 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 25, 2010 5:41 PM in response to Michelasso

You may want to try to back up your information on another HD and try a clean install of Snow Leopard. If the problem continues after install and update there may be a larger problem somewhere with the software as it doesn't sound much like a hardware error... But with these fancy space age computers you never know....

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Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Feb 25, 2010 6:02 PM in response to Michelasso

See http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

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Answer 3

Feb 25, 2010 8:03 PM in response to Michelasso

Have you added ram?
Some ram (cheap) can go bad over time.
Did you run a hardware test?

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Answer 4

Michelasso Author

Level 1

89 points

Feb 26, 2010 4:01 AM in response to Donald Palmer

I did add RAM indeed, I had 2.5GB and everything was fine (with 10.6.1 tho), then I changed the 500MB card with a 2GB one. That was a couple of months ago. It has been 2 or 3 weeks now that I have this problem.

Sorry for the ignorance but do I run an HW test?

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Answer 5

Michelasso Author

Level 1

89 points

Feb 26, 2010 4:04 AM in response to Brad Warren

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. But since I upgraded to a 500GB disk I was thinking about "SuperDupering" only the account and the Apps directory (I don't have enough external disk space for the full backup). Then do a migration. Should it work?

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Answer 6

Cosman

Level 1

32 points

Feb 26, 2010 6:19 AM in response to Michelasso

I am having freeze problems as well. Sometimes a program will just freeze. I was running a PC application in parallels and it froze.

It didn't crash, it just sat there. No message in my Activity Monitor about "unresponsive". I could click out and run other programs.

I wondered about running out of memory, so I installed a CPU monitor pgm to see the memory allocation and CPU usage. It hasn't crashed when the memory was low (I shut down programs), but has when I have 500-1000 MB RAM.

I have had the Finder to freeze. I could scroll through the programs and run anything but the Finder. No message in the Activity Monitor. I forced it to quit and it came back frozen.

Yesterday my CAD program froze. Looking more and more like a SL problem.

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Answer 7

Cosman

Level 1

32 points

Feb 26, 2010 6:20 AM in response to Cosman

I did run permissions when I was having a "slow down" and it seemed to help. Once it freezes, I am out of luck.

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Answer 8

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Feb 26, 2010 10:40 AM in response to Cosman

You have different issues and should start your own thread.

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Answer 9

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Feb 26, 2010 10:42 AM in response to Michelasso

Sorry for the ignorance but do I run an HW test?

Find the disc that came with your machine (it should reference Apple Hardware Te st on it), pop it in, and restart holding down the D key.

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Answer 10

Michelasso Author

Level 1

89 points

Feb 27, 2010 10:07 AM in response to baltwo

baltwo wrote:

Sorry for the ignorance but do I run an HW test?

Find the disc that came with your machine (it should reference Apple Hardware Te st on it), pop it in, and restart holding down the D key.

Ok, thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

Anyway, I saw in the 10.6.3 changelog that there are some deadlock issues indeed, and also some problems with the sleep/wake up. I usually get this problem after opening the Macbook. Probably it's wakeup issue, then. Let's hope 10.6.3 addressed it.

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Answer 11

Feb 27, 2010 12:58 PM in response to Michelasso

What change log?

Still think its a hwd. problem.

Revert back to the original ram setup and see what happens.

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Answer 12

Michelasso Author

Level 1

89 points

Feb 28, 2010 4:06 AM in response to Donald Palmer

Donald Palmer wrote:
What change log?

Still think its a hwd. problem.

Revert back to the original ram setup and see what happens.

Well, this change log for example:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=845207

I see now in the comments that I'm not the only one having serious issues after waking up the Mac. Some people talk even about kernel panics. I dunno, I'll wait for the new update. The point is that the problem is very intermittent. In the last 2 days and a 1/2 with the laptop on I didn't get any problem.

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Answer 13

Feb 28, 2010 8:50 AM in response to Michelasso

IMHO
I think its sad that someone signs a non-disclosure agreement and then breaks it for a small amount of notoriety.

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Answer 14

Michelasso Author

Level 1

89 points

Feb 28, 2010 3:53 PM in response to Donald Palmer

Donald Palmer wrote:
IMHO
I think its sad that someone signs a non-disclosure agreement and then breaks it for a small amount of notoriety.

Well, I don't know about that. The change log is usually all over the internet as soon as Apple seeds a new update to the developers.

Anyhow, I did the hw test, both quick and full check, no problems reported. Actually it came to my mind now that the old 2GB card is a Kingston one (and I never had any problem with it), while the new 1GB card came from the Macbook Pro of my bro in law (DDR2 at 667Mhz)

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Answer 15

Michelasso Author

Level 1

89 points

Jun 28, 2010 1:35 AM in response to Michelasso

No more problems with 10.6.4

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