restart windowserver without reboot

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Level 1

9 points

restart windowserver without reboot

I am working with a MacPro in HighPerformanceComputing. This means I would like to avoid a reboot. Unfortunately, after a frozen keyboard/mouse event nothing helped. We could restart the Finder over ssh, but no unfreeze happened. Unfortunately, we killed the windowserver (Quartz) process and now we have a black screen (no video displayed). Jobs are still running fine. How can I restart the windowserver under Snow Leopard just as this would happen after a restart (launch CoreGraphics) without rebooting? Any unix geek out there knowing the inside of Snow Leopard well enough? The keyboard issue I will put on a different thread after I have a video signal again. Those who cannot imagine why one would not press the power button: Some use Macs for doing big calculations and those are running for months and since they are iterative, one would lose months of work in some cases at shutdown.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Nov 5, 2011 10:17 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

TeenTitan

Level 4

2,640 points

Nov 6, 2011 2:28 PM in response to maybelucky

it seems like launchctl runs com.apple.WindowServer. if you do "launchctl list" on a working system it lists "com.apple.WindowServer". Witch means it can be unload it and load it with launchctl command.

ie:

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist

and:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist

I wouldn't just run this without forethought. If you have a box to test with... Remote in, see if you can break it. so it's stuck like your current Mac Pro, and then see, if your logged in as root, if you can recovery CoreGraphics by using:

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist

The reason I say this, is I wouldn't want you to get more stuck. But Maybe just knowing about the launchctl command will help you figure out whats going on.

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Answer 2

maybelucky Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 7, 2011 1:21 AM in response to TeenTitan

Yeah, you are right about the WindowServer. We can relaunch it, but unfortunately, we get Status D (on Demand) instead of A (Active). We cannot wake it somehow and will choose a reboot soon.

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Answer 3

maybelucky Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 11, 2011 12:30 PM in response to maybelucky

At the end of this story it turned out, that my mouse was defect! It shoot down USB (so the keyboard and mouse froze), no input meant the screen saver turned on, no input after some time, the monitor went to sleep (turned black) and could not go awake (no signal) anymore.

After I replaced the mouse with a new one, the screen turned on and I saw the login mask. After this even the keyboard recovered!

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