System Freezes Randomly after 10.6.3 Update

I'm not trying to discredit you, just pointing out that (in general) these things are often more complicated than they may seem. For instance, the firmware really just plays a part during the initialization process at startup time. (If you are interested in all the gruesome details of how this is implemented in Macs, try wading through System Startup Programming Topics: The Boot Process.)

No offense intended, but it is unlikely that even top tier Applecare support specialists (who are not themselves employed as engineers) will try to explain all of that in detail over the phone but not so unlikely that you will end up further simplifying the already simplified version of what they do say. That's natural. We all try to be brief, concise, & easy to understand (I did this above) but we still need to be careful not to generalize overmuch to avoid spreading misinformation.

There may well be some "glitch" (about as general a term as one could imagine) in the update that affects a minority of Macs in this way. But there are also other sources of glitches that can do the same thing, most of them correctable without reverting to 10.6.2. The problem is that there is no simple way for a user to tell one from the other. If you imply, intentionally or not, that all of them are obviously 'THOSE' Macs, then you are not helping as much as you might think you are.

This is especially true for the procedures that suggest migrating everything to a clean install from a backup, which is why I discussed that.

Hi R C-R,

I fully agree with this post, thank you. Users need to be very careful when they stumble upon this thread with freezing problems since the cause of their problems may be different. Unfortunately, in my case and probably many others the downgrade to 10.6.2 is the only solution at the moment. With regard to that I wish it would be possible to downgrade directly to 10.6.2 (similar to system restore for Windows). Especially if your hard drive does not have the space to store an image of the problematic install (10.6.3) aside from a new installation, your only remedy will be a clean formatted hard drive with a re-installation via Snow Leopard DVD and backup.
The bottom line of the story is that frequent backups (preferably two or more) are critical for any user.

tz12 wrote:
Maybe I'm over-exagerating but it is true that Windows has never had a system update that has rendered the system useless... at least from Windows XP on forward.

You're exaggerating 🙂

Both operating systems have updates which break the system for a small number of users. e.g. A quick search on 'windows 7 updates breaks' yields http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/windows-7-stability-update-breaks- stability-for-some-users.ars

Fair enough, I'm just frustrated.

Oh well... I guess I will have to wait.

Meanwhile, where can I check to find out what is happening behind the scenes when the freezing starts?

Thanks

firedragon76 wrote:
The bottom line of the story is that frequent backups (preferably two or more) are critical for any user.

Amen to that! Plus, it never hurts to have a tested clone of the startup volume made just before applying the update should anything go wrong (whatever the cause).

Your data is the only thing that can't be replaced so you are always living dangerously if it isn't backed up. This applies to any computer, Mac or PC, so there is no excuse for not doing this, no matter your previous experience or how lucky you think you are. The old saying that there are only two kinds of users, those that have lost data & those that will, is as true now as it ever was.

Plus, with Macs you also have the clone option, made simple with utilities like Carbon Copy Cloner & SuperDuper! The value of this is if anything goes wrong, you can just use the clone or clone it back to the original volume & pick up exactly where you left off. You can even apply the update to the clone instead of the original & use it until you are satisfied there are no issues that affect you, at which time you can clone back to the original. This is much quicker than any other kind of restore, & more accurate as well. That is its only drawback: if you had any preexisting problems you probably will faithfully preserve them on the clone.

An interesting MacFixIt article that discusses the problem:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20003220-263.html?tag=mncol;title

2 quotes from the article:
1) "Several Apple discussion threads have a number of people affected by this issue looking for a solution, and it indicates that the problem could be a bug in the latest OS release, which updated the drivers, OpenGL, and other graphics technologies. Despite this, the problem does not affect all users, and I have not been able to replicate it on several Macs running OS X 10.6.3."

2) "Rumor has it that Apple has started issuing developer releases of OS 10.6.4 already, so hopefully the update will address these issues, though there is no information so far on what Apple's focus will be in the update."

With regard to the second quote, I truly hope that 10.6.4 will fix the problems and will further improve Snow Leopard / OS X.

Last but not least, always backup your data (via Time Machine and SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner).

Please note that the article in not about random freezes.

Wow!

This is the thread I have been looking for since Saturday (April 24th).
I think my Finder crashed - other apps were still running and responding.


.

1. Problem started happening after 10.6.3 update? Yes
2. Did you get any errors during 10.6.3 update process? No
3. Mouse cursor moves? Yes
4. Mouse clicking does nothing? No
5. Keyboard key presses do nothing? No
6. Only way to re-animate system is by holding down power button? Yes
7. Mouse/Keyboard Model? Wireless K/B and Magic Mouse (bluetooth)

BTW, is every one using a wired keyboard/mouse here or bluetooth?

I've never had such fits with my Mac, either. I believe that what's happening is that the Finder is crashing and won't restart.
Does anyone disagree ?

I've read all 11 pages of postings here and that's what it means when you get a spinning pinwheel or beach ball and nothing works.

Oddly, most of my applications, like email and browsers continued to work, but I couldn't navigate, open or save documents, and frankly, I'm surprised that Entourage worked at all.

I tried to fix it by running Disk Utility and Repairing Permissions.

However, it continued to freeze, it just took a little longer.

Then, I booted up *Disk Warrior*, and it took 45 minutes to finish cleaning up the file systems and restore the directory.

I ran *Disk Utility* to *Verify permissions* and still had a lot of bad one, so I fixed them and verified it came up clean on the last pass.

Meanwhile, I've been saving copies of the *Console Log* and *System Log* files, trying to find some common error messages.

On Monday, I started up each application, one by one, monitoring the log files. Everything was find until I started WORD. I ran about 10 minutes and then froze. Nothing else did, but I'm wondering if I have a Microsoft bug.


I do install ALL the updates from Apple and from Microsoft. I also recall one large and one small update from Microsoft last Friday.

But, I haven't had a repeat after restarting Word.

The only error message that keeps coming up in my Console log file:


*4/28/10 6:20:38 PM PreferenceSyncClient [7841] Preference plist was NOT a dictionary.*

I think, is a MobileMe problem. If I go SYNC MobileMe, it's stops, at least for a while.


I have not tried to reset my PRAM and I may do that, next. It can't hurt. In my experience, corrupted PRAM and PLIST (Preference Files) are the source of most Mac OS problems that I have ever experienced or read about. I can fix the PRAM problem easily enough, but I don't know much about the PLIST files.


REMINDER: There was a warning about error messages during the initial Snow Leopard upgrade. I read, here, that you should run Disk Utility Repair, PRIOR to the upgrade AND after. I had to run it 3 times before it was clean.


KEEP POSTING! and thanks for sharing all your details!


(If you think this is bad, I can tell you a horror story when my root "/" directory changed to d--------- and NOTHING would fix it, not even in Single User mode, but an upgrade from a CD to the next Mac OS release did work!?)



Have you all been checking your CONSOLE for error messages, too? Check the system.log file, in particular. I suspected this was just file system damage, but I can't figure out what caused it.

Message was edited by: Mac_Cat
(I added the check list requested - good idea)

My issue is apparently so complex that three "senior Apple advisors" have been collaborating to assist. It appears that the spotlight reindexing of my boot internal drive was at least part of the problem. They had me drag the main drive into the "privacy" area of spotlight system preferences then back out which causes a reindexing. After that I did not have any issues with the free space changing widely.

Today my new 251 G solid state drive arrived and I installed it. After formatting the drive and installing 10.6.3 I have had no issues whatsoever. No freezing, no drive space fluctuations. I am going to keep the computer with only the bare essentials for 48 hours then begin installing applications one at a time. I have been requested by the Apple senior advisors to let them know of my progress. I will also post it here.

3 days ago I've reinstalled from scratch 10.6, reconfigured, reinstalled everything, upgraded up to 10.6.2.
Running fine, no freezing since. Finally I can get back to work.

Downgraded to 10.6.2 and my MacPro is great again. I did everything ever posted on the web to fix this, and it was a good exercise to look at every single kernel cache, preference, etc. (Mac user since the 80's btw). My gut feeling is it's a graphics driver issue. ATI cards here. Wish they would put some of that "magic" from the iPad into the good ole Mac OS. The future of mobile computing is unwritten, but in the last 10 years Apple has definitely proven they have the best desktop OS, hope they will keep it up.

Just an FYI - I tried leaving my Time Machine backup drive unplugged (a WD 1TB My Passport, USB) when using the machine and have not gotten any freezes AT ALL in the last 10 days!

I had noticed a trend for the graphics glitch to happen shortly after waking the machine - this also corresponded with Time Machine spinning up my external drive. I could hear my external and internal drives spinning and writing when the freezes occurred.

There might be some sort of software glitch between the "improved" 10.6.3 Time Machine backup process and either RAM or the graphics card... how these tie in to each other is really a mystery at this point. It makes sense that this glitch starts happening when we either use our machines for a while or boot them - triggering a Time Machine backup event.

I do not think it's a coincidence that the top "priority" issues that the first 10.6.4 build reportedly is addressing are (you guessed it): "*Graphics Drivers*, SMB, *Time Machine backups*, USB, and VoiceOver." Three of those issues more than likely tie directly into the problems we are seeing here.

Just as a side note - this drive is only about two months old. It works perfectly, passes all WD hardware tests and I use it regularly on three other machines in my house, none of which have this issue. Only when I plug it into the iMac with this issue.

Here's to hoping that at least we have found out what the culprit was here. I urge everyone here to at least give it a try - unplug your Time Machine backup disk and only use it sparingly. Hopefully I don't have to amend this post with "well, that didn't work."

(And before you reply, R C-R, this is just a community test to get a workaround. I am 100% convinced that this is a 10.6.3 bug at this point. I have seen too many computers with the exact same problem for this to be a random hardware / third party software / OS corruption issue. I'm just trying to help the other people out that are having very, very similar issues. On top of that, I have it on good authority that this is a known issue with the OS 10.6.3 update at this point... trust me.

I don't have a time machine, never had ... I think this is not related to time machine.
The only thing that solved the problem was downgrading to 10.6.2
regards.

I DO have a Time Machine, but no external drive. Just the one 500 GB internal.

Are there any log files that would help narrow down the problem?

Andrew, I also believe there is a graphical glitch in 10.6.3 but I doubt it's Time Machine. Problem is that no-one really knows what's causing it. I've had freezes when it was asleep but also while I was actively using my Macbook pro (without any Time Machine or waking up activity). Moreover, I tested 10.6.3 on a brand new hard drive without any user data loaded and STILL got freezes at some point. Therefore, I'm puzzled what's causing the trouble. As I pointed out before my opinion is that it's related to a communication trouble of some sort between the graphic chip on the logic board and the 10.6.3 operating system on certain Macs (but which ones exactly is not clear either). That's the suspicion of the engineer I spoke after Apple support redirected my call to him after I called Apple for the third time. Again, opinions on this cause vary in this thread and freezes could surely be caused in other ways. I just hope that 10.6.4 will indeed fix the problems for me, you and many others. Until then 10.6.2 is rock solid for me.