Level 1

5 points

OS X Lion freezes at login screen + App Store is slow

I installed OS X Lion in my Mac Book Pro (Mid 2010) and have two issues:

- Login screen freezes sometimes. "Colored rotating disc" appears, text cursor stops blinking and I can not do anything; I can not click anywere, I can not enter my user name/password... Only option is to hard-reboot the computer, which is not a pleasant thing to do.

- App Store is very slow. It takes about 30 seconds of "rotating colored disc thinking" every time a page has to be loaded!

I first installed OS X Lion via Mac App Store and login screen freezes happened about 50% or more of the times I turned on the computer! Also random freezes happened during computer work. Computer was almost unusable under these circumstances, so I reinstalled OS X Lion by doing a clean install (from DVD). After this clean install everithing seemed to run smoothly at first, but now login screen freezes happen again and Mac App Store is very slow as I explained.

I did not have any of these problems with Snow Leopard. I have checked permissions, and I have not installed too many apps yet.

Anybody with these same issues? Any idea of a solution? Somebody at Apple working to solve these problems?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 25, 2011 3:47 AM

1,019 replies

Oct 17, 2011 1:36 AM in response to Evilence

@Evilence: I have the same problem and same laptop - MBP6,2 with NVIDIA GeForce 330M and Revision ID: 0x00a2. Discussion so far (last 2 days) tells me that the best thing to do, for now, is to reinstall Snow Leopard and wait for a few months until Lion Cub grows up. (SBBoD on Lion login) hard freeze is also happening with iMacs, and one brand-new MacMini (with Lion preinstalled in the box). Sounds like a process synchronization bug - and needs a more general software fix.

Anyway, I've got an Apple Certified Technician troubleshooting this laptop. If it gets fixed I'll let the discussion-thread know what happened and whether the fix works. I am not optimistic, and my laptop is also out-of-warranty.

Oct 17, 2011 2:04 AM in response to Terry Mahoney

As an aside, it's been reported earlier in the thread that pressing F12 (adjust volume) during a SBBoD when switching users or logging in can resolve it - well this worked for me for the first time on 10.7.2 today - normally I experience the SBBoD via Screen sharing so this wouldn't work but happened to be on the computer. Previously when trying this, it had no effect. Very fustrating but it can help. Stil get SBBoD when running certain apps and this is normally worse when there's two accounts logged in. I love how I can run Lion in a Fusion VM on an iMac and it's smooth and works perfectly but on a new Mac Mini server with dediectated hardware, it's aweful!

Oct 17, 2011 2:16 AM in response to Terry Mahoney

I have been running Lion for over a month, now on 10.7.2, and i HAD the freezing at login problem, but after switching off auto graphics switcing (AGS) and switching on auto login, it runs very nicely. Are other people finding this? Doing these two things basically means Lion runs sweetly with no problems. Although i would like a fix to turn on AGS and save some battery life, i mostly use my MBP plugged in at work so its not much of an issue for me.

How are others doing with AGS off and auto login on?? everything then runs OK?? I am loving Lion and could no bear to go back in time to SL.

Cheers

Oct 17, 2011 4:31 AM in response to michaelfromhatfield

I also had the login freeze problem. Since I turned off AGS, I haven't had it once again, even with automatic login turned off.

Last Friday I upgraded to 10.7.2 and switched on AGS again (out of curiosity). No login freezes since then (I restarted about 8 times). 1 freeze during normal operation though, and 1 kernel panic. Not sure it's related.

Cheers

hkoci

Level 1

4 points

Oct 17, 2011 7:03 AM in response to jmacbookpro

Ok. here is my report. I had many freezes at login screen and some other crashes during my work with the macbook pro.

After installing 10.7.2 their was no problem anymore. But the system is still kind of busy. God thanks no freezes at login screen anymore.

fortegas

Level 1

1 points

Oct 17, 2011 7:58 AM in response to jmacbookpro

I continue having same freezes at login with 10.7.2 and my nvidia gpu

version is the same as yours.

Also using MBP 6,2 Core i5

Chipset Model: NVIDIA 330M

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0a29

Revision ID: 0x00a2

ROM Revision: 3560

gMux Version: 1.9.21

I phone apple support because the lion version was doing this freezes in

my laptop and they were doing with me several clean of files mainly

temporary files of the system and it seems that solve the problem but

only during 1 day.

I am currently waiting because an apple store is

going to be oppened in Marbella (Spain) for christmas, and i hope they

can do something for my laptop.

Apple gave me many moths of warranty because this issue with my out of

warranty macbook pro.

jmacbookpro Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2011 8:11 AM in response to Evilence

Evilence:

Of course it is difficult to solve the problem when your computer is out of warranty and you can not travel to a retail store. Also, I understand that they do not care about what people say in forums, because it is actually true that people say what they want 😉 Anyway, if you purchassed Lion, you have 90 days of free support... maybe that 90 day period have already expired?

If you can not travel and you can not convince them on the phone, then maybe Toshiba or Samsung will be the option to go... 😮 unless you do not mind to work with Windows and do not need any mac-only software.

They are probably not produced in the same factory in Asia, but their components (gpu, cpu, hd, etc.) are.

Good luck with your computer!

jmacbookpro Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2011 8:20 AM in response to michaelfromhatfield

michaelfromhatfield wrote:

[...]

How are others doing with AGS off and auto login on?? everything then runs OK?? I am loving Lion and could no bear to go back in time to SL.

Cheers

This thread has become long and I understand that information is now hard to find in here. Always check for posts marked as "Helpful answers" or "Correct answers".

The facts you post have been already reported, and yes, turning AGS off is a workaround to this issue. The side effect is that your battery will last less.

chairmo

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2011 11:01 AM in response to jmacbookpro

Hi everyone,

I have mid-2010 MBP 15" i5 with the above mentioned GPU. Here are the details:

Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics

Type: GPU

Bus: Built-In

VRAM (Total): 288 MB

Vendor: Intel (0x8086)

Device ID: 0x0046

Revision ID: 0x0018

gMux Version: 1.9.21

I installed Lion yesterday and initially had the freezing a couple of times on login screen. This surprised me as previously Snow Leopard had been solid as a rock - I have never had to do a hard reset. I have Win 7 bootcamp partition and I have had to hard reset a number of times using that OS.

Anyway, I stumbled upon this thread and have been slightly worried, as my warranty ran out two weeks ago and have not purchased AppleCare thinking "what could go wrong?"

On SL I had MacFuse installed and NTFS-3g. Of course, these both no longer are supported in Lion and it was causing a fail to mount bootcamp partition error and bringing up the login screen freeze. I've since installed over the Tuxera verion of MacFuse and deleted NTFS-g all together. Fingers crossed I have not had a problem since.

I know people have mentioned they have had hardware fixes and clean installs but thought I must add this into the discussion as some people might have a fix using this solution.

It's an absolute disgrace that Apple have released Lion with this known bug. You can only officially install OSX on Apple hardware, so there really is no excuse for the issues people are having. How many different system configurations upgrade fine on Linux or Windows? A disgrace.

Good luck everyone.

jmacbookpro Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2011 11:32 AM in response to chairmo

chairmo:

I hope your solution continues working for you, and also helps others.

Nevertheless, it seems the problem (if we are speaking about the same issue) is not in Lion, but in some revision of nvidia 330M GPU. So, the disgrace, if there is one, seems not to be about "Apple releasing Lion with this known bug", but with nVidia manufacturing some malfunctioning GPUs. This is what I can understand from the information I have right now -of course, other conclusion may arise if new consistent information comes.

You say you had to hard-reboot your computer using Windows 7. Then also Windows 7, and not only Lion, may have some bug in there...

It is not that I want to defend Apple. It is simply that, in orther to solve a problem, I believe it is important to analyze the information at hand, not rushing and letting one go with anger and first impressions. As I said before, Apple is just a hardware/software company, not different from Microsoft, nVidia, AMD, etc. They make mistakes like everybody does. And of course, they should also provide a solution for their mistakes (the one for my MacBook Pro is, I hope, in process! 🙂).

bruleke

Level 1

8 points

Oct 17, 2011 11:43 AM in response to jmacbookpro

People, I opened this thread: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1253761

MacRumors are more visible, maybe we can get more information.

Just FYI.

Rasmus.B

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2011 2:28 PM in response to bruleke

@bruleke: Excellent idea to bring light to this issue with MR!

I've posted once in this thread, same story as most of you; MBP 2010 bought at launch, 15" i5 with high-res screen. Spinning beach ball of death at login screen, random hard freezes and not awakening from sleep.

Here is my update: A week ago I called Apple Support in Sweden and got quickly forwarded to a senior support tech. He told me he was not aware of the issue and that their connection to the Apple support system was down today. He promised to investigate but I have not heard from them since. I will call them again tomorrow.

I updated to 10.7.2 when it became available. I have since had a couple of freezes at login as well as random freezes so unfortunately it did not fix my issue. Interesting note is that the login freezes did not feature the beach ball since updating to 10.7.2, don't know if anyone else experienced this.

My GPU stats looks like the rest of yours by the way:

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0a29

Revision ID: 0x00a2

ROM Revision: 3560

gMux Version: 1.9.21

Oct 17, 2011 3:23 PM in response to damien7579

@damien7579: Thanks. I hadn't seen the F12 tip before. Maybe it generates a higher-priority "interrupt" that "interrupts" the SBBoDℹ I wonder if it may work in other SBBoD cases - not just for login?

Oct 17, 2011 3:58 PM in response to jmacbookpro

@jmacbookpro, @chairmo: the SBBoD on login issue may be affecting other GPUs. A case in point is damien7579's Lion Server on (brand new) MacMini. And that machine also has the integrated Intel HD Chipset. Its interesting to note that the only thing the two chipsets have in common is the "gMux Version: 1.9.21" - I have no idea what gMux is. 🙂

@chairmo: are you sure about your MacBook model ("mid-2010 MBP 15" i5")? I can't find it on everymac.com.

Oct 17, 2011 4:01 PM in response to jmacbookpro

Just a quick update, brought my MBP to the store and could easily reproduce the issue for the tech, lol. Tried to explain that this was due to the revision of the graphics card and the board might need to be replaced as a result but I don't think she really heard me. On the upside they did fix my memory which failed the diagnostic and ruled that out after it continued to freeze. It's now been sent in for reinstall/repair. I'll see what happens but short of replacing the entire board I'm not hopeful. 😝

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OS X Lion freezes at login screen + App Store is slow