Occasional Kernel Panic and "invalid catalog btree depth info (4.1)"

Question

Occasional Kernel Panic and "invalid catalog btree depth info (4.1)"

My Mac is 6 years old, and is functioning OK in general. Occasionally in the morning I find my Mac making a loud noise coming from the fan, blank screen, and as told, it's one of those Kernel Panic crashes where I have to press the power button to shut down, wait 5-10 minutes and power up again to have my Mac get back to normal.

This has happened 3-4 times in the past couple months. Only one time it happened in front of my eyes, while surfing the net, when I suddenly watched the gray curtain coming down with a message to shut down and restart. Again, once I restart -- all is back to normal again...

This morning it happened again, which was disturbing, since just last night I performed my weekly Cocktail run.... This time I decided to do a few tests. I started up from the install CD, run Disk Utility -- all was OK.

I have an external drive, which is my back up and my HD's MIRROR (runs every Saturday morning, using Tri-Backup). So I restarted from that ext. drive, launched Drive Genius 2 to test my HD: ran the Repair utility > Verify --- and it FAILED ("invalid catalog btree depth info (4.1)"), as was the case with REPAIR or REBUILD, all failed.

When rebooting again from my internal HD, launching Drive Genius again, this time testing my ext., MIRRORED drive --- verification was successful.

The only difference between the 2 drives is, my internal drive is S.M.A.R.T-supported, while my ext. is not, if that makes any significance...

One more note: For years now, any attempt to launch Disk Warrior (4.1) has failed.... It just would never complete the launching process (=crash)....

.......OK, that's my story, let's see how good you guys are......... 😉 😉 😉

Thanks!

G5 Dual Core 2 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 5 GB Ram

Posted on Nov 12, 2011 1:00 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Nov 12, 2011 1:39 PM in response to mynameismyname

Whew, this is the perfect job for DW, or DG3 if IntelMac, (DG2 was a disappointment to me).

Let's see if we can figure out DW's problem... Open Console in Utilities, watch for clues as you try to open DW, or look for DW or Alsoft crash logs.

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Answer 2

Nov 12, 2011 1:52 PM in response to BDAqua

No IntelMac here, I got one of the last of the pre-intel G5 machines (Oct. '05)... I use my Mac to make my living, I refuse to be Apple's Guinea Pig... Always the last to buy any new hardware or software....

...I will try launching DW, then open Console and see what it says about what happened at that particular time...

....Or can I have Console OPEN while trying to launch DW? Can I see what's going on in REAL TIME?

--- Thanks, BDAqua, I KNOW I can trust you, as has been always before...

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Nov 12, 2011 2:45 PM in response to mynameismyname

Or can I have Console OPEN while trying to launch DW? Can I see what's going on in REAL TIME?

Yes, please try that first. 🙂

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Answer 4

Nov 12, 2011 5:32 PM in response to BDAqua

Excuse my ignorance.... I have Console running, and I had launched DW. It crashed, as expected.

NOW: where in Console do I go to get the information that would help figuring why DW has crashed, which of the logs should I select?

Under Logs > CrashReporter I have DiskWarrior.crash.log --- I see a report dated back 2006 (and of an older version of DW), full of "stuff".... I used the CLEAR button, everything was deleted, and today's date showed up on the top, but no report is showing up... Even after I Forced-Quit DW, no report is showing.

When I clicked on another log, and then came back to DW's crash.log -- the same old report from 2006 shows up again...

So clearly this NEW report I should look elsewhere...

---------- EDIT: Go to console.log?

Here is what I get from that time-frame:

2011-11-12 19:07:06.600 python[372] Matcher finalizing...

2011-11-12 19:07:07.190 python[372] JunkMatcher stopped.

Nov 12 19:07:27 my-names-power-mac-g5 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/DiskWarrior 4.1/DiskWarrior.app/Contents/MacOS/DiskWarriorRebuildServer

DiskWarriorRebuildServer: Rebuild server lost communications with application, exiting.

2011-11-12 19:11:23.578 Mail[582] Loaded JunkMatcher bundle 1.6.1 (Tiger).

2011-11-12 19:11:23.614 Mail[582] *** -[NSBundle load]: Error loading code /Library/Mail/Bundles/UnsubMailPluginMailAppOSX.mailbundle/Contents/MacOS/Unsub MailPluginMailAppOSX for bundle /Library/Mail/Bundles/UnsubMailPluginMailAppOSX.mailbundle, error code 2 (link edit error code 0, error number 0 ())

2011-11-12 19:11:24.632 python[585] JunkMatcher Engine 1.6.1 listening at port 50000.

2011-11-12 19:11:24.657 python[585] Matcher initialization completed.

Nov 12 19:16:57 my-names-power-mac-g5 authexec: executing /Applications/Utilities/DiskWarrior 4.1/DiskWarrior.app/Contents/MacOS/DiskWarriorRebuildServer

DiskWarriorRebuildServer: Rebuild server lost communications with application, exiting.

Message was edited by: mynameismyname

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Nov 12, 2011 5:42 PM in response to mynameismyname

I don't have any DW crash logs to know exactly, but you you force quit DW, what was DW doing?

Do you still have the DW CD to boot from?

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Answer 6

Nov 12, 2011 5:53 PM in response to BDAqua

When I force-quit DW it just quits...

Yes, I do have the DW boot-up cd, and it takes forever to launch from there, and then it hangs....

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Nov 12, 2011 6:20 PM in response to mynameismyname

Well, if your backup/clone is perfectly fine & complete, we could erase the internal drive & clone back to cure the problem.

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Answer 8

Nov 12, 2011 6:29 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes, I took that as a last resort.... I was hoping I could fix the issue with my drive....

....Do you see the reason for my repeated (though occasional) kernel panic crash in this invalid catalog btree depth info (4.1) ? I also ran TechTool Deluxe, testing my RAM, V-RAM and bunch of others and all came back OK....

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Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Nov 12, 2011 7:45 PM in response to mynameismyname

Do you see the reason for my repeated (though occasional) kernel panic crash in this invalid catalog btree depth info (4.1)

Yes, that error will cause major problems, & the more you use that drive the worse it'll get.

Have you tried Booting off the External in Safe Mode then running DW?

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Answer 10

Nov 12, 2011 10:44 PM in response to BDAqua

BINGO !!!

Not sure why I forgot all about this, something that we used to do quite a bit in the old days, but we called it a different name......

So I did it, and DW did launch, took a while to do it's magic, and fixed lots of things. Re-tested it with Drive Genius, and this time the verification went thru flawless...

Thanks, BDAqua, you saved me again..... 😍

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Nov 12, 2011 10:54 PM in response to mynameismyname

Fantsatic news, thanks! 🙂

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