Dave Sag
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Q: Since upgrading to 10.7.4 the screen savers on my iMac freeze

Since upgrading my iMac to 10.7.4 my screensaver now tends to freeze, requiring a forced reboot of the mac.  Stuff does seem to be running under the hood still but I have no way to access it via the UI.  I can ssh into the iMac from my other macs and Top claims all is quiet, but I can't actually use the iMac again unless I force a reboot by holding down the power button.  This is less than ideal.

 

It inly happens on my iMac however, and not on my MBP or MacMini.

 

The workaround for now is for me to disable the screen saver but that's hardly a sustainable solution.

Time Capsule, Mac OS X (10.7), new 3TB time capsule & new 27" iMac

Posted on May 13, 2012 7:32 PM

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Dave Sag

Q: Since upgrading to 10.7.4 the screen savers on my iMac freeze

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  • by PaulKemp,

    PaulKemp PaulKemp May 13, 2012 9:37 PM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (135 points)
    May 13, 2012 9:37 PM in response to Dave Sag

    Is it a 3rd party screen saver or a screensaver provided by the OS?

    Can you open /Applications/Utilities/Console.app and copy/paste logs from the times that the issue occurs?

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 13, 2012 9:55 PM in response to PaulKemp
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    May 13, 2012 9:55 PM in response to PaulKemp

    Actually it's not the screen saver I've just worked out.  (All basic apple standard screens avers) but ithe problem seems to be trying to wake the screen up when the screen sleeps.

     

    Right now I've set screen savers to 'never' and iTunes is happily playing but I can't wake the screen up.  It's just glowing black. I can use the volume controls.

     

    If I SSH into the mac from my other mac and run top there  is not much happening.  iTunes is using about 2% of my CPU and the backupd says it's 'stuck'  all other threads are 'sleeping'.

     

    Naturally I can't run the Console app without forcing a reboot of the mac to gain control of it again.  I've looked in various log files in /var/log/ but nothing stands out as weird.

     

    I've repaired permissions, verified the disks etc just to be thorough but that's not helped.

     

    Curiously I just tried to remote-desktop (using ARD) into the iMac but it says 'connection failed'

  • by PaulKemp,

    PaulKemp PaulKemp May 13, 2012 10:00 PM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (135 points)
    May 13, 2012 10:00 PM in response to Dave Sag

    If you're familiar enough with getting to /var/log/, then copying/pasting the lines in the log files that pertain to the timeframe of the issue would be helpful. Most importantly the system.log and kernel.log would be helpful. It is certainly interesting that SSH allows access, but not ARD.

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 13, 2012 10:43 PM in response to PaulKemp
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    May 13, 2012 10:43 PM in response to PaulKemp

    I've fixed the ARD issues — it's unrelated to my problem.

     

    The next thing I am trying is turning off the need for authentication to wake up from sleep or screensaver.

     

    Looking in Console.app now I see nothing too odd.

     

    I am seeing a lot of

     

    'PM kernel: en1 duplicate IP address 192.168.1.153 sent from address c8:2a:14:23:75:e1' though but I can't

    1) work out what device c8:2a:14:23:75:e1 refers to, or

    2) see how that would be related to my issue.

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 13, 2012 11:31 PM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 13, 2012 11:31 PM in response to Dave Sag

    Okay so without requiring authentication to wake up from sleep or screen saver all is fine.  So my workaround is now to turn off the need for authentication when waking up from sleep.  That's not really ideal but it will do until a proper fix is found, and now I can turn my screen saver back on for what it's worth.

  • by PaulKemp,

    PaulKemp PaulKemp May 14, 2012 9:06 AM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (135 points)
    May 14, 2012 9:06 AM in response to Dave Sag

    I'm glad you have a workaround! I'm not sure if it is related, but if backupd is "stuck" you could temporarily turn Time Machine off in System Preferences to rule it out as a culprit.

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 14, 2012 5:19 PM in response to PaulKemp
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 14, 2012 5:19 PM in response to PaulKemp

    Yep - done that and no, time machine is not the culprit.  The culprit seems to be realted to the authentication / security system which borks when trying to wake from sleep or screen-saver.

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 15, 2012 3:07 AM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 15, 2012 3:07 AM in response to Dave Sag

    update: now even without the need to authenticate to wake up from the screen saver I am getting the same result.  and ARD won't connect to the iMac now.  I can SSH into it and top shows nothing much happening at all.

     

    This is really annoying me

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 15, 2012 3:09 AM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 15, 2012 3:09 AM in response to Dave Sag

    ARD wont work because I have remote desktop running on my iMac.  sigh.

  • by Khurt Williams,

    Khurt Williams Khurt Williams May 15, 2012 3:47 AM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (34 points)
    iCloud
    May 15, 2012 3:47 AM in response to Dave Sag

    Do you have a Samsung Blu-ray player on your network?

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 15, 2012 3:50 PM in response to Khurt Williams
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 15, 2012 3:50 PM in response to Khurt Williams

    No I don't have any sort of BluRay player.

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag May 19, 2012 5:19 PM in response to Dave Sag
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 19, 2012 5:19 PM in response to Dave Sag

    I've come across this discussion which also relates.

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/18431484

     

    No solution on offer yet though

     

    d

  • by FlyinPhil,

    FlyinPhil FlyinPhil Jun 12, 2012 5:22 PM in response to Dave Sag
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    Jun 12, 2012 5:22 PM in response to Dave Sag

    I have had a similar issue with my wifes new imac 27". After the screen saver kicks in on its own and puts it to sleep, it wont wake up when you hit the space bar etc.The screen saver just keeps going. Another comment I read identified the securty settings as a potential culprit. After speakking with support it seems that is the case. Apparently the issue was due to having the screen saver set to a shorter time than the setting which requires a log-in. I had that set to four hours and the scren saver set to 45min. I was told to set the time required for log-in to less than 45min. Apparentlky the issue wont happen if you forcce sleep. Only when it happens on its own. I have only just changed the settings and can't yet say if it works. I can say my Mac Pro has never had the issue, but I've never had the log-in required checked in the security system preferences.

     

    P

  • by Dave Sag,

    Dave Sag Dave Sag Jun 12, 2012 5:33 PM in response to FlyinPhil
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 12, 2012 5:33 PM in response to FlyinPhil

    Hi @FlyinPhil, I also suspected the security settings so, to experiment, have had my iMac running without the need to enter a password to wake it up from screensaver or sleep.  The problem still persists however so that's clearly not the culprit.

     

    I tried setting the screensaver to the simplest one possible - just shows the iMac's name - but this made no difference.

     

    On a hunch I tried resetting the PMU of the iMac by shutting down, pulling out the power cord, leaving it for a while (overnight in my case), plugging the power back in, waiting a minute or so, then powering up.  This seemed to fix the problem for a while but then last night it happened again.

     

    Now I am trying the following.  I've created a new test account on the iMac with the screensaver set to come on in 5 minutes, requiring a password to unlock, and energy saver set to sleep the screen in 15 minutes.  I'll see if the issue recurrs.  If so then it must be a system wide issue.  If not then it must be something specific to my user account.

     

    Note this issue does not occur on my 17" MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, or my wife's 13" MacBook. Only my 27" iMac.

     

    If, after a day or so, the issue does not recurr on my test account then I'll try migrating all my apps and settings etc over to a fresh account on my mac and see how that goes.

     

    I'll report back here with progress or things I discover.

     

    Cheers

     

    Dave

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