Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

cockyjeremy wrote:

I think everyone has said going back to SL does NOT fix the issue.

Going back to Snow Leopard (by restoring a previous SuperDuper clone) completely fixed the problem for me. Before I was freezing several times a day; now I have an uptime of four days and have not had a crash since I restored Snow Leopard.

Guys, stop putzing around trying to make it work. Waste of time. Let's wait that Apple comes out with a fix and go back to Snow Leopard. This is what I did and my laptop did not crash since I went back after trying Lion the first day.

However if we don't get some kind of aknowledgement from Apple on this post that they are working on this issue, I suggest them to reimburse us the 30$ for the upgrade and post that Lion is only compatible with certain machines excluding the macbook pro 15" mid 2010 icore 7 with NVIDIA GT330M

I am quite amaze to see how many people are spending hours to try to make something work that is BROKEN

going back to Snow Leopard fixed completely the issue on my macbook pro 2010. No crash since a week

Earlier today I rang the Apple Asia support line (I live in Singapore). I described the problem, and directed them to this discussion thread. I ran a utility that the support guy sent to me to capture data about my MBP, and sent back the results along with the 10 or so crash reports that I collected when the crashes started happening after upgrading to Lion. I also gave the support guy the bug report ID of the original developer bug report that raised this problem with these crashes-to-black.

Until I rang, Apple Asia had not heard of this problem. Several other posters also said that Apple customer care was unaware of the issue too. So perhaps we can press for a solution from two directions:

1. Those of us who are registered developers should file a bug reports.
2. All of us should call or visit Apple or an authorised service agent and get them to open a case.

I am astonished. Don't these guys read posts ? The issue has been reproted on CNET and other web sites. It is a known issue. On my side I went back to SL and do not plan to waste more times dealing with it until trying again Lion when 10.7.1 comes out. I also feel that Lion does not bring anything really new to os X other than a few gimmicks

I really had to write about it on my blog : http://geekbooth.com/osx-lion-black-screen-issue

This is happening to me again. Seems like Apple is ignoring us!

I just took my MBP to Apple, I will let you know what they did. Though they told me already that there are going to replace the logic board - If this is the case... I don't think Apple will fix it with a software update.

Again, I have the same issue as you guys.

Rotem

Digitus,

Can you send me a copy of the bug report that originally identified this as a problem?

Thanks

Sure,

This is only part of it:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x9d4c97): NVRM[0/1:0:0]: Read Error 0x00000100: CFG 0x0a2910de 0x00100000 0x00000000, BAR0 0xc0000000 0xa6fce000 0x0a5480a2, D0, P3/4

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

Already sent the machine to apple, I only kept this.

Rotem

gatesbuster wrote:

 

Guys, stop putzing around trying to make it work. Waste of time. Let's wait that Apple comes out with a fix and go back to Snow Leopard. This is what I did and my laptop did not crash since I went back after trying Lion the first day.

 

However if we don't get some kind of aknowledgement from Apple on this post that they are working on this issue, I suggest them to reimburse us the 30$ for the upgrade and post that Lion is only compatible with certain machines excluding the macbook pro 15" mid 2010 icore 7 with NVIDIA GT330M

 

I am quite amaze to see how many people are spending hours to try to make something work that is BROKEN

For many people, going back to Snow Leopard is not possible (see posts about inabiility to boot from pre-Lion install media). In addition to this, some of us (luckily it seems a minority) have experienced the same crashing even after switching back to Snow Leopard. Luckily, the efforts of some of the contributors on here have born fruit in finding a workaround (gfxCardStatus) that allows us to at least continue to use our computers.

As for Apple posting on this forum, they rarely do so, especially not when they haven't released a fix (unfortunately Apple have a bad history of refusing to acknowledge bugs until they find a fix). I agree that it should be possible for people to request a refund from Apple for what is essentially a non-working product, has anyone tried doing this yet? As for compatibilty, from the relatively few people having this problem (given how many people with similar hardware are not having this bug), Apple are pretty unlikely to consider this specific MBP not compatible.

And another reminder to all: if you're having this crash, report it to Apple directly! Posting on here doesn't get anywhere near as much notice as a bug report (bugreport.apple.com), a phone call to Apple support, or taking your laptop into your Apple store.

@bluegrassbrad

I was not the originator of the first developer bug report to be filed about this issue. Therefore I don't have access to it.

The bug report ID# is 9533294. I was told that if I want a status update I should email devbugs@apple.com. I don't know if you must be a registered Apple developer (I am one) to get a response.

I am quite amaze to see how many people are spending hours to try to make something work that is BROKEN

That's a ridiculous approach - if I ignored the problem I wouldn't have figured out that it's the graphics switching that is causing the blackout, and that on my machine I can avoid the issue by keeping my external monitor connected.

If I'd use your approach, I'd still be having crashes.

I know it's not a fix, but it's a workaround until a patch is released.

I just bought a new Mac Mini, comes with Lion. A week of flawless use and the other day I was just browsing the web (news article) when my input device stopped responding (track pad). I checked to make sure it was on, tried the keyboard and nothing... no response. Then I saw the cursor move a minute later. What was happening was... if I moved the cursor, it would respond 2-3 minutes later. Anything I did was 2-3 minutes later. Eventually, I had to hold the power button in the restart.

Nothing was running except Mail, a Finder window and Safari.  Recent changes were, I installed the Adobe Flash beta (was the only option on their site).  I'm positive Apple is not ignoring anyone, they probably just have nothing to report yet. I am also sure, without a doubt, they will resolve any issue ASAP.  I'm just going to wait it out. It hasn't happened again yet so I'm ok waiting.

Oh.. I should also state, it was the lower end Mini with the lower end graphics card.

Message was edited by: theLanester

Since installing the NVIDIA drivers I can use my 15" MacBook Pro without difficulty as long as I do not let it sleep. Once it sleeps I have to use the integrated graphics card or I start gettign the spinning beachball and then a totally hung system or less frequently the black screen of death.

Oddly after sleep sometimes gfxCardStatus shows a different graphics card in use than About this Mac does. Usually this happens shortly before total unresponsiveness or a crash. Wonder if the system gets confused about which graphic card is active?

After sleep the programs most likely to hang are Mail and Safari. Once either hangs it is seconds to minutes until total crash so if I'm fast I can sometimes restart before the system hangs.

Without letting it sleep I've use Parallels, played MacMame games, played PopCap games, used Word and Excel. After sleeping it wakes up grumpy (when I can get it to wake up at all) and Safari, Mail and most games fail to load fully or hang shortly afterwards.

Let me just jump into the pool and say it's been happening to me since day one.

I have an external display Samsung X2370. Crashes into a black screen. USB ports are still active after the crash. I need to manually reboot my Mac (MacBook Pro 15" mid-2010). Worth mentioning that I tried to turn on the "automatic restart after crash" feature in System Preferences but my bluetooth devices (Wireless Keyboard, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad) don't work when it reboots automatically.