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

Dors this solve the problem of the freeze? Checking the option in System Preferences/Energy Saver/Restart automatically if the Computer freezes.

Ben Friedman,

I'm sorry to report that there does not appear to be any reliable work-around. 

The changing of settings in Preferences will likely not make a difference.  Even setting the machine up so that it never sleeps didn't stop the freezing in my case (LION often freezes after waking from sleep).

The setting you refer to most definitely does not work.  Only Apple can fix this with an update----we hope.

Dylan Rhea,

I've no idea if chipset makes any difference.  I doubt anyone really knows.

Following the thread over time, I've noticed most people posting have new iMacs (not specifying chips), and some have 2010s, and some have 2007s, and I use a 2008.  Many iMacs are affected.

I don't know if other Macs like the MB Air and the MINI are impacted by this.

Since we have no way to know which hardware configurations are causing trouble, you would still be making an expensive gamble if you were to follow thru and purchase an iMac desktop at this time.

Tough one. Guess I will keep an eye on the situation to see if anything gets resolved. Hard to believe that these are still selling in droves even though there appears to be a critical failure somewhere in the configuration.

Thanks for the feedback.

Dylan for the moment i know mac mini dual core 2009 not problem in lion, imac 2010, 2011 cpu i5, i7 21.5 or 27 inch screen have the problem with video freeze, i contact apple care but apple say  to me like is small bug but this people try to cover the problems with some stupids task like reinstall lion, hardware test loop test but don't have a really fix this people don't know what is the exactly way to fix it.  apple knows have problem but don't say nothing.

I change in 3 months two times my imac i5 21.5 inch and have the same issue in both the second one on the hardware test the apple care toll me to do the computer damage the boot on the system and i lost all my information, i try to do for my selft some test and for the moment i don't have freeze for one day, i install last flash player update, last java runtime for lion is available on download in apple page and reset the safari.

I hope i help you

Wow, this is quiet a long post.. It is disturbing not to hear a word from Cupertino.

I own a mid 2011 27" i7 iMac once I got it home I installed two 4GB RAM chips from OWC myself.

When running under 10.7 (preinstalled) I experienced issuses after sleep, issues with wifi, and issues with video-related files (full system freeze, hard restart required).

Once upgraded to 10.7.1 all of the 'major' system problems were resolved. There was the occasional hang or wifi disconnect once in a while though.

Once upgraded to 10.7.2 I honestly havent experienced a single problem. My iMac runs happily under a heavy load with many Mac App Store apps installed and running Microsoft office, iPhoto, iTunes, Mail etc. I also am a heavy iMovie user. 

I don't know if this helps or just makes things more confusing. But I am a very satisfied iMac user. I truly have no clue why so many are experienceing problems.  Good luck to everyone, hopfully these issues will be corrected soon.

I would rather the problems be 100% consistent than find out that some machines have no issues at all. I am on the verge of going back to a MBP just to avoid the drama...

Thanks for the good input anyway. I suppose that I could always get a refund and swap to a different line if it did not work out. Hate that it has come to this though. Every Apple machine that I have ever had was 100% bulletproof and ran for years without an issue.

I have a 2011 iMac 27" that I purchased in August.  Last month it started freezing while watching videos.  It gets about 5-7 minutes into a video and then freezes the video stream.  If I try to stop the pause it reboots to the beginning.  It will do this over and over again.

I have upgraded the system, installed the latest flash player, and called Apple care Support three times and had over 3 hours of conversation and fidling with the computer with them.

All to no avail.

I also have a MacBookPro, 2010, which runs just fine with streaming, so this is not an internet connection issue.

After spending this kind of money on a computer that I hoped to use for streaming as well, I did expect it to actually work.  This is beyond frustrating. 

Dawn

Dawn, have you tried to turn-off your wifi and use ethernet cable instead?  I had a similar problem with Lion 10.7.1 and fortunately it's okay now when I use ethernet cable or Airport router wifi (instead of Belkin).  It was frustrating but I am very happy now.  Good luck.

I actually don't have it on wifi now.  It is connected through ethernet.  It is currently running on Lion 10.7.2.

Thanks,

Dawn

Just talked with AppleCare.  He had me do the following:

1.  Disconnect all USB connections from the back of the computer with the exception of keyboard and mouse if they aren't wireless.

2.  Turn off computer.

3.  Unplug cord from the back of your computer (not from the wall).

4.  Hold the start button down for 10 seconds.

5.  Start computer.  Does your mouse and keyboard work?  (mine did)

6.  Shut down computer again.

7.  Hold down the command, option, r, and p keys immediately after pressing the start button.

Mine seems to be working okay now (knock on wood).  Let me know if it corrests your problem.

Well, that didn't work.  While I was coming to this site, everything "hung" again.  I'm calling those jerks again.

Marjean,

It does not surprise me that what they had you do did not work.  They've got their routines they make you go through, but it's all a waste of time, really.

There does not appear to be any work-around at all (I've had to re-install OS X 10.5.8 to avoid freezes).  This is a serious bug that only Apple's engineers can correct.  Let's hope that they are trying to do that.

Yes, I went through that entire series of disconnecting, unplugging, holding down command, option, r, and p keys all 3 times I phoned AppleCare.

It does nothing.

None of them wants to stay on the line with me while I watch the 5-7 minutes of video before the freeze happens.  They just want to know if it is working for the first 20 seconds and say, "Great! Hope it fixes it" and then they end the conversation.

How does one uninstall current updates and reinstall old updates and does that fix the streaming issues?

I am so glad I didn't upgrade to Lion on my MacBook as I can at least still stream on it.  It is only my new iMac with Lion that is the problem.

If this many of us have this problem I sure hope they LISTEN to get it fixed!

Dawn

Dawn,

If you are wanting to 'roll back' to a previous OS X, then you will have to get a copy of Snow Leopard.  If your iMac came with SL, just use the Snow Leopard DVD to erase the hard drive and re-install.

If your machine came pre-installed with Lion, you might NOT be able to install Snow Leopard (not sure about that---better ask Apple).