OSX Lion + 2011 iMac 27'' + Video = Freeze

I seem to be having some luck by turning off Norton Antivirus totally. At least I've had the iMac on since 5am (1:24pm now), and doing all the things which had previously made it hang or crash. I'm pessimistic but I'm really not able to reproduce the freeze now with antivirus off.

TUAW is now covering this, I sent them a tip this morning, along with 9to5mac, but 9to5mac wants to see video first.... anyways, either way we're getting blog coverage now: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/24/lion-bug-some-imacs-locking-up-after-playing-vide o/

First try after coming out of sleep.

video proof.

I just uploaded it, so the quality ***** at first, until youtube does a second pass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np4ilm0tPPc

Cool, thanks, I just forwarded this along to 9to5mac....

Sometimes (as happened just now) rather than the crash I get bizarre graphical artifacts. Again this happens while watching video (mostly youtube). Here is a screen shot I took on Friday

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r129/OverHaze/ScreenShot2011-07-22at183608.pn g

I just viewed your video and my iMac froze... oh the irony. Must remember to never sleep my Mac until this is fixed.

Nice video, now hopefully this gets some major attention.

Hello,

I wrote to an apple contact and here is what I was told about this issue.

Here is what I wrote:

Hi Tim,
I upgraded to Lion and now when when I view YouTube videos or any type of video content my IMac freezes up. The entire system freezes except the mouse cursor. The only way around it is to Hard boot the MAC. Any ideas?

Chris

Here is his response:

"Hi Chris,

YouTube's default is to always give you the Adobe Flash version of their website. There are currently some issues between Adobe Flash and MacOS X Lion. Compatibility issues like this can happen whenever an operating system gets upgraded, and I can certainly understand your frustration.

I have some solutions for you to try.

First, opt in to the trial of HTML5 video on YouTube. HTML5 is a set of web standards which have a video format that provides an alternative to Adobe Flash. Many of YouTube's videos can be viewed using this standard. Currently, YouTube is allowing you to opt-in to an HTML5 trial by going to this website:

http://www.youtube.com/html5

This will address the YouTube issue, but not other Flash-based movie issues. For that, I would recommend waiting for Adobe to update Flash Player, and update when it comes out. I'm sure that an update is on it's way."

Actually, your video is pretty effective in showing the bug. I almost wish there was some animated GIF beside it to really drive the point home. 🙂

Just FYI, with 10.7.2 I haven't had any lockups for 24h. I tried after sleep, various videos- flash and not flash. Will see...

Can't edit my post, also a 2mb limit on image size, so hopefully this illustrates it well enough.

http://vimeo.com/26840477

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np4ilm0tPPc

@Tulmac. thanks for trying to help, but if you read the pages and pages of this discussion, this happens outside of flash too. We've all narrowed it down to coming out of sleep mode and GPU hardware decoding of video (quicktime or flash).

@meobis

I understand that. Like you said I am just trying to help. The message I wrote to Apple also included "other type of video content". It simply wasn't addressed in the response.This has also happened to me after a reboot and not just out of sleep mode. However, I have only been able to duplicate the issue coming out of sleep mode.

I will be swinging by the Apple store tomorrow. Maybe a display model will have the same issue. I would be curious if it does.

Either way. A permanent solution is what we all want.

Also, the article on TUAW regarding faulty HDs in IMACs makes me even more concerned with all this Hard Booting going on...

I also have the same exact problem. Not too happy about it. Brand new iMac 27in completely up to date with OS X Lion. The first movie ever executed on you tube caused the entire OS to freeze except for the cursor. The only remedy was a hard boot down. This has occured for most all video I have tried. I hope apple recognizes all of these postings and gets on top of this problem, since it would be awesome to enjoy using my iMac.

Same issue here, iMac mid-2011 21.5-inch with Lion..

Same issue here. This is getting really annoying...