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User profile for user: batondor
batondor Author
User level: Level 1
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Mac OS X 10.6.3 system "freezing" problems: my experiences and conclusions

My last post was lost in the pile and so here it is in a new "topic" for consideration:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2403126&tstart=0&messageID=114 57265#11457265

The bottom line is that my iMac has been working without a problem since I replaced the ATIRadeonX2000 drivers from 10.6.3 with those from 10.6.2 as explained in my last post. This iMac has been running since Thursday night without problems, it has been rebooted manually once or twice to insure that it restarted without problems, and it has been running with both an external video monitor and has been accessed via VNC without incident. The temperature monitor indicates nothing out of the ordinary and it is operating with a single external USB drive and a UPS monitor via USB...

Just to be clear, I have not added any third party software yet other than the temperature monitor. I have not yet begun using the system for email or work other than via webmail interfaces, but I have used it for at least ten hours for video streaming... again, without incident.

Yesterday, I submitted a detailed report via the Apple support feedback mechanism that I will not copy verbatim here, but the gist of my conclusions are here for your consideration:

1) There clearly is an issue with accelerated graphics on this machine that seem resolved with a simple downgrade of the device drivers for this machine (and don't forget that it worked just fine, if slowly and with restricted functionality, when started with Safe Boot).

2) Other users seem to see different if similar "system freezing" issues on hardware that contain different graphics devices, and these issues sometimes involve "frozen" mice, etc... but that they almost always seem to be connected with display issues.

3) While some users report problems during installation and/or boot procedures, I am wondering whether the 10.6.3 boot doesn't evoke the latest generation graphics drivers and systems libraries during that process... because I also saw sporadic cases where the system would not even boot normally with the 10.6.3 drivers (though I should add that I had no difficulty whatsoever with the erase/install...).

My conclusion, if I may be so bold, is that there is a problem with either code common to some or all of the 10.6.3 graphics drivers, whether at the device level, in Core Graphics, or in the OpenGL libraries (or something related to any of these).

I decided to submit this post even though I offered it to Apple via feedback precisely because someone else might be able to benefit from it. I do not want to enter into an argument about how "unique" each of these problems might be and hope other contributors will respect this by not speculating about motives or imagining other scenarios. I am not able to check for responses very frequently but will attempt to respond to queries about my experience and how it apparently has been resolved (esp. those that pertain to similar hardware), but I obviously cannot be responsible for any similar attempts to temporarily correct this situation...

... and frankly, I hope that someone at Apple support does monitor these forums and that the problem will be explicitly correct sometime soon.

Good luck to all...

iMac/Intel 20 inch 2.0 Ghz (version 7,1), Mac OS X (10.6.3), 2 gb RAM and ATI Radeon HD2400

Posted on May 3, 2010 6:01 AM

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User profile for user: R C-R
R C-R
User level: Level 6
17,782 points

May 23, 2010 10:38 PM in response to batondor

batondor wrote:
I forgot to add that nobody ever told me that an upgrade was actually available as per your statement…


I'm a little confused about what statement you refer to. I mentioned Apple +software updates+ that might have been released after 10.6.3 was installed on your Mac at the Apple Store, & in another comment about the +firmware update+ that you later said you had confirmed was applied to your Mac. Any of these not installed on your Mac would show up in the Software Update app. Do you mean SU did not notify you about one of those items or something else?
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User profile for user: batondor
batondor Author
User level: Level 1
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May 24, 2010 3:45 AM in response to R C-R

Really, man... you are wasting your time while insulting everyone's intelligence with your sophistry:

R C-R wrote:
1. Do you understand that my last reply was to sysvr4's specific question about how your problem could possibly be in some way not indicative of a problem with the 10.6.3 update?


... Yes, I understood that... but I also understand that you concretely misrepresented what I said.

2. "Apple Expert" is not a job title. You talk with Apple Customer Relations Representatives...


... Really? Well, that's how they are literally named in the tech support section of Apple.com and I don't have the time for rhetorical hair splitting that you seem to have... and for what it's worth, the people on the phone, especially the more senior ones, seemed to have as good idea of how to diagnose problems as anyone I saw in the flesh (though I frankly have had as much experience as they have, if not perhaps on Apple platforms...).

3. Don't assume that an Apple Store "test harness" can find any & every hardware problem...


... Well, I don't assume anything... but the idea that they would not stress a machine for fear of causing a component to fail is absurd: either the machine passes a standard stress test or it doesn't and components that are "close" to failure in normal operations should fail in a stress test... unless, of course, that test does not take into account the latest features of the operating system and its hardware interface and that those features exceed hardware specs... but then that would be a bug, wouldn't it? (and before you respond, I would expect to be asked to take the machine back in if the stress tests were 'updated'...).

4. You said in one paragraph that you weren't instructed to return the Mac for more testing but in another that there was an offer to return it to the Apple Store for more tests. Since your issue now seems repeatable & immediately obvious with or without an external monitor attached, it would be a good idea to take Apple up on that offer.


... No, these was no "offer" from Apple: I said that I was the one who had explicitly offered to return the machine to the Apple Store (or send it somewhere else) for more tests and was told not to bother by both the people at the Apple Store that I had already visited, by the Apple "Expert" with whom I spoke on the phone, but that individual's supervisor, and by the two people with whom I exchanged emails concerning the bug report that I submitted.

5. (from the previous post concerning "upgrades") Moreover, an "Apple Expert" (quoted here because there is no such job description at Apple with that exact title) told him that "the upgrade is not stable yet on some configurations" & he concluded from this oddly vague statement that his must be one of those configurations.


I never said anything like this. I did indicate that I had checked my iMac for all applicable firmware upgrades posted by Apple and that I was not going to try any of the third-party firmware sources that other posters have suggested. There are also some folks who discussed the 10.6.4 developer release, but I see no reason to try that unless Apple support where to suggest or request that I do so.

The bottom line is that of course I will take the machine back to the Apple Store at some point, probably at the end of May, if I have not received any feedback or gotten satisfaction from a generic update. At the moment, I am satisfied by my workaround (disabling the X2000 driver) because I still use this machine as a home server with printer, scanner, and archives attached while using it primarily for video streaming...

... but if the question is proving that you "might" be wrong with all your alternative scenarios that argue that these problems "might" not be related to the 10.6.3 system software update, that's asking to prove a negative and I think you know that.
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User profile for user: R C-R
R C-R
User level: Level 6
17,782 points

May 24, 2010 6:10 AM in response to batondor

batondor wrote:
5. (from the previous post concerning "upgrades") Moreover, an "Apple Expert" (quoted here because there is no such job description at Apple with that exact title) told him that "the upgrade is not stable yet on some configurations" & he concluded from this oddly vague statement that his must be one of those configurations.


I never said anything like this.


I copied the quoted passage directly from your post of April 22 in Spoke too soon... iMac Problems Persist ...:

"3) The techs at the Apple Store told me that they would not be able to do more than (2) other than check out the hardware that had already passed their tests... so I called an Apple Expert and we checked out all the versions, etc... and he agreed (as others in this forum have attested) that _the upgrade is not stable yet on some configurations_ …"

Are you now saying that the "Apple Expert" said something else?

... Well, I don't assume anything... but the idea that they would not stress a machine for fear of causing a component to fail is absurd: either the machine passes a standard stress test or it doesn't …


You assumed that there is "a standard stress test." There is no such thing; rather, there are series of tests that exercise various subsystems for varying periods of time under various test conditions, that look for errors or other signs of failure. For instance, if you have ever run a utility like Memtest that tests memory for defects, you may know that it can take many passes to find a bad memory cell, & sometimes an error doesn't appear until the test has been run continuously for a day or more. Bench techs do have a few methods for accelerating the process like running systems at elevated temperatures or at unusually high or low supply voltages that literally stress the system to its design limits, but these methods do shorten the service life of even perfectly normal components so they are used sparingly & only when there is some reason to believe there is a marginal component that kind of stress test will reveal.

At this point, I really don't have any idea of what various Apple employees have told you or how you have interpreted it. What I do know is that based on over thirty years of experience in the electronics service industry, part of it as a bench tech & shop owner, & about a dozen years of dealing with Applecare & Apple technicians, for whatever reasons you are assuming too much about how "back room" testing works.

Based on that, my best take it or leave it advice is to take the Mac back to the store, demonstrate the problem, & see what they are willing to do to resolve it to your satisfaction. Waiting is not to your advantage.
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User profile for user: batondor
batondor Author
User level: Level 1
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May 24, 2010 6:23 AM in response to R C-R

You really are too much...

R C-R wrote:
batondor wrote:
5. (from the previous post concerning "upgrades") Moreover, an "Apple Expert" (quoted here because there is no such job description at Apple with that exact title) told him that "the upgrade is not stable yet on some configurations" & he concluded from this oddly vague statement that his must be one of those configurations.


I never said anything like this.


I copied the quoted passage directly from your post of April 22 in Spoke too soon... iMac Problems Persist ...:

"3) The techs at the Apple Store told me that they would not be able to do more than (2) other than check out the hardware that had already passed their tests... so I called an Apple Expert and we checked out all the versions, etc... and he agreed (as others in this forum have attested) that _the upgrade is not stable yet on some configurations_ …"

Are you now saying that the "Apple Expert" said something else?


No, the "Apple Expert" told me that the 10.6.3 upgrades (the original and the v1.1 supplement/combo) were not stable on some configurations... not some hypothetical upgrade not yet released...

... Well, I don't assume anything... but the idea that they would not stress a machine for fear of causing a component to fail is absurd: either the machine passes a standard stress test or it doesn't …


You assumed that there is "a standard stress test." There is no such thing; rather, there are series of tests that exercise various subsystems for varying periods of time under various test conditions, that look for errors or other signs of failure. For instance, if you have ever run a utility like Memtest that tests memory for defects, you may know that it can take many passes to find a bad memory cell, & sometimes an error doesn't appear until the test has been run continuously for a day or more. Bench techs do have a few methods for accelerating the process like running systems at elevated temperatures or at unusually high or low supply voltages that literally stress the system to its design limits, but these methods do shorten the service life of even perfectly normal components so they are used sparingly & only when there is some reason to believe there is a marginal component that kind of stress test will reveal.

At this point, I really don't have any idea of what various Apple employees have told you or how you have interpreted it. What I do know is that based on over thirty years of experience in the electronics service industry, part of it as a bench tech & shop owner, & about a dozen years of dealing with Applecare & Apple technicians, for whatever reasons you are assuming too much about how "back room" testing works.

Based on that, my best take it or leave it advice is to take the Mac back to the store, demonstrate the problem, & see what they are willing to do to resolve it to your satisfaction. Waiting is not to your advantage.


Well, you may not believe what Apple employees have told me, and you might claim a superior understanding of tech support both in the Apple universe and in the rest of the world, but taking back the machine immediately when they have told me that would not serve any useful purpose in the short run seems wishful at best. I have no doubt that at some point their test capabilities will be upgraded to deal with this situation or, perhaps, they will be empowered to offer a replacement machine for an iMac under warranty that cannot run reliably. I am simply trying to give them time to reach that point so that I won't be making multiple trips to the Apple Store for naught or, on the other hand, be asked to simply leave my machine with them for an indefinite period.

For what it's worth, a little bit a patience can be a virtue... as can a bit of modesty
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User profile for user: trader p
trader p
User level: Level 1
5 points

May 25, 2010 5:14 AM in response to R C-R

Having followed the dozens of threads (on this site and others) related to a wide range in the variability, frequency and type of system freezes - I think there is no doubt there is a problem with 10.6.3. I manage dozens of macs in our offices and labs. The descriptions offered by many of the contributors seems to occur on about 20 percent of the computers we use since updating to 10.6.3 --- in one form or another. We are very familiar with Macs and have used them for decades. We do weekly maintenance on all the machines. I have spoken with senior techs at Apple many times over the course of the past 5 or 6 weeks and tried virtually every fix mentioned in these threads with no reliable improvement. We have done clean reinstalls of the 10.6 OS and reinstalled combo updates to 10.6.3.1 on the problem computers, but have not reverted to 10.6.2 on any of them. Problems were not solved reliably. For us, the best performance we are able to get is by disconnecting the external backup hard drives run by Time Machine and be sure to shut the computers off every night. We go without backups except for once a week when we plug in the hard drive, do the backup on each computer and eject the drive. Since following this method, we have only had one freeze that led to a white screed and reboot. I am anxious for 10.6.4

BTW the back and forth banter led by RC-R is not helpful and I hope I speak for others when I say ---- RC-R enough please until you can provide us with a new idea.
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User profile for user: R C-R
R C-R
User level: Level 6
17,782 points

May 25, 2010 2:41 PM in response to trader p

trader p wrote:
The descriptions offered by many of the contributors seems to occur on about 20 percent of the computers we use since updating to 10.6.3 --- in one form or another.


What is different about this 20% from the others, aside from displaying some type of freezing issue? IOW, are all the Macs the same model, running the same software, configured the same way, used with the same peripherals, etc.?

What are the differences in how they freeze? Some users report random freezes at odd times, others freezes immediately or shortly after logging in. Some report the freezes resolve themselves after a delay of a few seconds or minutes, others that a warm or cold restart or log-out/log-in sequence is required. And of course, some report no freezing issues at all.

With a sample of dozens of Macs to work with, you may be able to provide useful clues about which ones are affected, & possibly why.
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User profile for user: batondor
batondor Author
User level: Level 1
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May 25, 2010 3:42 PM in response to R C-R

RC-R... your obstinacy is amazing, so please let me summarize my view about it:

- "We" cannot prove in any absolute sense that there is a common underlying problem with the 10.6.3 upgrade even if our collective experience and repeated efforts _in concert with Apple_ lead us to believe that this is the case.

- "You" cannot prove that there is not one simply by arguing that the multiple variations of the same phenomena are not identical or universal or that you have not seen them or that they do not fit with your personal experiences over the years.

I guess I simply don't see why you insist on doubting the veracity of our conclusions. Are you still willing to suggest that an upgrade to 10.6.3 is the recommended step for anyone considering it who has not already attempted it? (note: it is obviously easy for you to say "yes" because you have no skin in the game in the event of difficulties... but then again, your insistent arguments that there must be some other explanation will always be in reserve...).

I have already accepted your statements in previous days (weeks?) that this phenomena might only effect a subset of hardware in any given model... but that does not mean that the operating system software upgrade is "off the hook"... nor does it mean, more importantly, that Apple is not ultimately responsible for resolving the issue for machines that are under warranty.

Whether that resolution is with an update to the OS or a hardware upgrade is of no great importance to me as long as the solution is stable, reliable, and does not result in any noticeable degradation of performance from previous versions... and for what it is worth, I have no problem with discouraging others from doing the upgrade until the problem is resolved by Apple for those of us who are experiencing it in one form or another...
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Mac OS X 10.6.3 system "freezing" problems: my experiences and conclusions

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