Video ads crash MacBook Pro?

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Level 1

6 points

Video ads crash MacBook Pro?

I've been having an increasingly frequent issue for the past few months with certain video ads causing my 15" MacBook Pro to crash. The crashes occur in both Firefox 98.0.2 and Safari 13.1.2, and seem to be caused by specific ads. The symptoms are always the same; an ad will play for a split second, then the browser will crash, and I won't be able to force quit (if I leave it running for a few minutes, any other apps open will also become unresponsive). Since the browser is still open, I can't shut down from the menu, so I have to hold down the power button. Usually, after forcing a shut down, I can reopen the browser normally (until the next crash); however, sometimes the browser will instantly crash again – when this happens, the only solution I've found is to reboot in Safe Mode, open the browser, quit it, and then restart.

This happens occasionally on Youtube, but the worst offender seems to be www.ctv.ca – easy to reproduce, as almost every ad break causes a crash.

Sometimes, I also can't restart after forcing a shut down – instead, the startup screen hangs on a graphical glitch (flickering Apple logo, blue screen, some kind of white / grey grid pattern) until a Safe Mode reboot.

Solutions I've tried with no effect:

-clearing browser cache

-resetting SMC/PRAM

-disabling Firefox extensions (no Safari extensions)

Any help is much appreciated!

Specs:

mid-2015 15" MacBook Pro

2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

AMD Radeon R9 M370X

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6

MacBook Pro 15″, 10.13

Posted on Apr 4, 2022 3:07 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

BDAqua

Level 10

240,089 points

Apr 6, 2022 7:31 PM in response to jaydot

Thanks, good to get rid of Flash, but here's some problems...

Delete these files & restart...

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist

Also, not sure what to make of this yet, but all the crashes seem to have to do with memory, &...

"displayModeDidChange failed:
set_display_mode_and_vram failed!

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

240,089 points

Apr 5, 2022 7:46 AM in response to jaydot

We need to see what all is running, a report from this will not display any personal info...

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

https://pastebin.com/

Whew, they've changed pastebin & made it harder, but after pasting in, click Create new paste button, then Embed button, then copy the URL...

The important part of the above is...

https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA

Workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

240,089 points

Apr 4, 2022 11:41 AM in response to jaydot

Have you blown the dust out of the intakes lately?

What temperatures does this App report? Especially the GPU.

This App can be used to speed up the fans, all my iMacs would be dead without it.

Never ever ever drop fan speeds below the speed that the Mac itself is calling for.

MacFansControl…

https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control

Might try this, it's Chrome Browser without google & without Ads...

https://brave.com/

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Answer 4

jaydot Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 4, 2022 8:44 PM in response to BDAqua

Thank you for the reply! I'll clear any dust out from the intakes & report back with Macs Fan Control's temperature info – will see if I notice a spike in temp the next time it crashes.

(FWIW, I haven't noticed any excessive fan noise, and since I can watch HD movies without issue on platforms like Criterion Channel or Netflix with no ads, I'm having trouble isolating a specific cause.)

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Answer 5

jaydot Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 6, 2022 9:13 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes, I’m also not sure what to make of those two errors. Search results are mainly for the 2013 Mac Pro models with faulty GPUs, but as far as I know none of the MBPs have similar issues? (At least, not in general.)

I’ll look through this thread to see if I can find any relevant info:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-late-2013-gpu-driver-issues.1860297/page-61

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Answer 6

jaydot Author

Level 1

6 points

May 13, 2022 3:20 AM in response to BDAqua

Update: I'm unfortunately having crashes again, after a few weeks of relative stability. They seem to be occurring regardless of browser, including Brave (thanks for the suggestion though!). Today, after a random crash (not triggered by a video ad for once), I had to force shut-down the MBP and couldn't restart without getting constant graphical issues on the startup screen (blue screen, white screen, flickering, etc.). After rebooting once in Safe Mode, I'm still experiencing more frequent crashes, especially when waking from sleep – it's becoming quite disruptive. :/

I also haven't had any luck chasing down the "displayModeDidChange failed: and set_display_mode_and_vram failed! errors reported above, if they are the cause. I'm kind of at a loss for now, any additional help would be much appreciated!

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Answer 7

jaydot Author

Level 1

6 points

May 13, 2022 3:34 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes, I was afraid of that. :(

Is there any way to diagnose a GPU problem more accurately? I'll run Apple Diagnostics / Hardware Test later, at least. Also, I'm guessing it doesn't make a difference whether the issue is with the integrated Intel Iris Pro card or the AMD Radeon R9 in a case like this?

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Answer 8

BDAqua

Level 10

240,089 points

May 13, 2022 4:03 PM in response to jaydot

If you can force it to just use the integrated GPU,it will slow things but may stop the crashing.

Also...

THE SOLUTION TO THE KNOWN CRASH PROBLEM OF THE MACBOOK PRO RETINA MODELS 2013-2015

Macbook Pro (2014 with two gpu) crashes randomly

WHAT DOES THIS PROGRAM DO?

This program creates a small load in the background. The sudden crashes occur when the Mac goes into a special (aggressive) economy mode.

There are 3 stages of the program, with the aim of keeping power consumption as low as possible.

For most cases, Level 1 is sufficient.

Otherwise, the other two levels are available for download.

Level 1: ~ 6% Last

Level 2: ~ 10% Last

Level 3: ~ 20% load

WHICH MODELS ARE AFFECTED BY THE SUDDEN CRASHES?

MacBook Pro(Retina) - 13 Zoll: 2013 - 2014 - 2015

MacBook Pro(Retina) - 15 Zoll: 2013 - 2014 - 2015

Download:

Level 1 - MBP-Crash-Fix

Level 2 - MBP-Crash-Fix

Level 3 - MBP-Crash-Fix

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Answer 9

jaydot Author

Level 1

6 points

May 14, 2022 2:47 PM in response to BDAqua

Thank you for the links! I searched for some more info and seem to have found the problem – apparently it's widespread across 2013-2015 15" MBPs:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/help-updated-to-macos-10-12-4-mbp-randomly-shuts-off.2039446/page-4/

https://boards.rossmanngroup.com/threads/820-3662-sudden-power-off.28288/page-2#post-30480/

It looks like the crashes are caused by the CPU cycling into an unstable low-voltage state. I'll try some of the posted solutions, hopefully one will work.

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Answer 10

jaydot Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 3, 2022 3:13 AM in response to BDAqua

Posting one more update in the off chance anyone has any other ideas of what could be causing the crashes. Unfortunately, it sounds like it isn’t the issue above – although my MacBook is in the range of potentially affected models, the specific type of crash doesn’t match the ones caused by the low-voltage state CPU issue.

FWIW, Apple Diagnostics found no issues (ref. ADP000), and EtreCheck hasn’t found any errors the past handful of times I’ve run it (including the two mysterious displayModeDidChange and set_display_mode_and_vram failed! errors posted above).