computer locks up

Thanks BDAqua!

Thanks yet again LostAccount, I fear you are spending so much time helping me that you will never find your Account. I don't mean to sound condescending but I am more than familiar with the get more info window and the box to run in 32-bit mode. I have already contacted the developers, some were still working on a 64-bit version and others said it wasn't their problem if Apple wants to force us to buy new hardware for 64-bit. I have now trashed the plug ins that have no good 64-bit versions but I am too poor to buy all new ones just because Apple wants me to. I know many composers who PREFER windows to OS X because the platform is more widely supported. I am not a Repairman for computers and so am limited to the 4GB's of Ram I now have,

The need for more Ram is in my opinion only interesting for some film music and game music composers,and lets not forget the dj's who are so overpaid they can afford a person who takes care of their computer and software and can add Ramm as if they were shooting a 17 year old for BBWW. Sorry, off topic, I have only 4 Gb's of RAMM so 64-bit does nothing for me but stop me from working.

I am learning some French software that doesn't lock up my screen and potentially has the capability of doing the job better and cheaper,though I have lost $400 in trashing that Choirs software, I had sent them a screen shot showing the problem on the 2nd of June, and only yesterday did they bother to reply-asking for a screen shot, I sent it again and requested to be informed if they ever have a working version of the software,so I don't think I will be hearing from them since their last up date versions says 64 bit compatableNOT. But they suffer from a complete lack of empathy, not uncommon in societies in decline and if I go to all the trouble of learning the french app I won't need their stuff anyway. Funny thing about the french app, it works with very little CPU +RAMM and is at least 22 years old. It doesn't even need to have a 64-bit version either.

I am also aware of the info available on this site, it has only one drawback-it assumes you want to do what the developer thought you wanted[or he/she wanted]. I have made myself quite unpopular in the Logic forum for asking why something can't be done in Logic ProNOT. My bad reputation comes from my love of patent bending,using a tool to do something it wasn't developed for. Heck, if a tool doesn't do what it says it can do why should I not use it for something else?

I don't use the CPU +RAMM hogging plug ins that most users need since I don't believe in progress or Equal Temperament,sorry getting too deep into musical problems,nothing there you can use. Oh yeah, That 64-bit "extra Ramm" is not a limit when I use different apps than the Logic developers think I should. I use a Canadian product called Plogue Bidule, it allows one to make internal connections that otherwise wouldn't be possible. And since it and the French freedom software are separate apps they each take the amount of CPU +RAMM that they need,until SL I never got the common message that Core Audio was not able to process the music because of insufficiant RAMM, and when Logic was working in SL I only got it once but after 3 seconds of my song Core Audio apparently saw that it had badly estimated what i would be needing. Logic has become so focused on that little wealthy group that a new"feature" is that it automatically assumes you will be using a lot of plug ins to get the LOUDEST possible sound out of their drum machine.

Lots of good rants in your message, I get the sence you are adventerous type with lots of tenacity on teh clutch! Good stuff.

At the end of the day, I am glad we both were able to conclude your mac has no hardware problem, that it's software at the end of the day.

It's a pity indeed that you had to wait so long for a support email and a bit of a thorn on the side when they ask for something you clearly sent them the first time around. As consumers, we sometime face an uphill battle and it's frustrating.

You know, if you found something that you like a lot, uses little memory and most importantly gets the job done then you've won! Logic Pro is an app I've only ever lied eyes on but never touched. I am not in the music creation business, I consume it and love it. My HiFi and music collection is a testament to that. Your cause is definitely a noble one.

I wouldn't worry too much about your personlity and some corner of this community. We all have 'em. It's what makes us human, we can't always be perfect but I think we can all agree, that we are here, in a small way to contribute in some way to helping our fellow mac user find some sort of a solution to a challenge.

Chime back if you need.

PS 64 bit is a good thing, it means your apps can have a bigger sandbox for you to throw all your data at. Then again, in some circumstances, my living room doesn't have to assume the size of a football pitch unless I like to play football (soccer) in the living room.

🙂 Cheers!

Hi LostAccount, My iMac seems so much better now, I can't thank you enough for all the great help. I had mentioned that Time Machine had stopped working and said I would post back about it. It started back in 10.5.8, when I tried to restore something the bars on the right hand side of the Time Machine window didn't jump out and show a date, I made the problem worse by stopping it from cleaning up because it was doing it just when I was trying to move things around and the iMac wasn't to pleased with that[very slow then] Now it is slightly more than half full and if I turn it on and ask it to do a back up it says it hasn't got free space to do it. I was looking at something else and it involved a window where all Disks where shown[it is called Disk Inventory and shows a graphic image of what and where every thing is on a disk] The 1TB Time Machine disk was there and I saw it was, just like the internal disk and the external Boot, was HFS+. I was afraid I had not formatted the disk at all and so wasn't sure how to get into it, I can't access the old Backups in the Finder anymore, even though there must be quite a few in 55??GB's used. I was wondering what you would advise to get it going again. I need some good advice before I mess it all up again. I found another FW800 WD My Book in a shop for only €99 so I want to save what is still on the old one and try to see if I can get back to regular backups. My WD 1TB My Book Boot has been Disk Warriored so many times do you think it would be wise to use the new HD as Boot, just in case the old one is nearing exaustion, and use the old one for something else?

Glad to help…

So a few things…

Firstly, don't go out and buy another hard drive. I will recommend a few things here for you.

By the way, this is a very good article, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427Time machine 101 - there is a section on "Backup drive fills up"

-

1st option - create more room on the time machine drive.

What you can do is navigate your current time machine hard drive just like any other drive.

-You will find a folder titled backups.backupdb/the name of your mac/ and then a bunch of folders that have numbers.

The / (foward slashes represent a jump from one director or folder, to another)

You will eventually find a list of folders that look something like the list below:

2012-06-21-201345

2012-06-22-005847

2012-06-24-202225

2012-06-25-002744

2012-06-26-001425

2012-06-27-001427

2012-06-28-001428

2012-06-28-171503

2012-06-29-102107

2012-06-29-111403

2012-06-29-120354

2012-06-29-130406

2012-06-29-140354

2012-06-29-153323

2012-06-29-163212

The folder names follow this sequence, yyyy-mm-dd-hhmmss

Those are my backups for example.

-So, with that said, you could manually delete the oldest backup. If the list above were your mac, I would be moving to the trash the 2012-06-29-163212 folder.

2nd option - consider this but I doubt it will help but try before deleting data.

If we consider the following from the Apple support article:

As your backup drive begins to fill up to its capacity, Time Machine intelligently deletes the oldest backups to make room for newer ones (and will alert you if the "Notify after old backups are deleted" option is selected in Time Machine preferences).

Then the steps below may help because you should not be necessarily getting a hard drive full warning although you may. So if I would delete anything it would be my oldest backup folder.

Maybe we should simply try to link the backup drive to the time machine preferences, I doubt this will solve it though. Allow time machine to complete the preparing stage and begin a backup. If you interupt time machine backups they don't cause harm but they will cause the next backup to take longer than expected as it has to audit things.

To do this;

-open time machine system preferences

-click select disk

-click 'do not backup'

-click 'select disk'again

-click your target backp drive in the list

-click 'use back up disk'

The backups wil continue not start over, don't worry

As an addendum, re-building the spotlight index is also helpful but again, I doubt it will mitigate any change and it can take hours but it will complete.

Time Machine backups rely on a clean spotlight index so

To do this;

-open spotlight system preferences

-click the privacy tab

-drag and drop your boot drive into the list under the privacy tab

-close the system preferences

-your spotlight index will be gone, to test this, try a spotlight search nothing will come back

-now, open spotlight system preferences

-click the privacy tab

-remove the hard drive you dragged and dropped into the list and close system preferences

-if you click spotlight form the upper right corner you will notice it is indexing, backups can not take place while this happens.

Final words

Let's try these things before considering a new drive.

-please, if something is not clear, write back

Thanks LostAccount! you are great! The oldest backup in the Finder view was incomplete so I deleted it, then there was only one more, so I deleted it. But time machine says it needs 532GB's but has only 420,32 There must be many more but how do I get to them? Or would it make sense to erase the 1TB disk and start again?

But time machine says it needs 532GB's but has only 420,32

So we have to make some more room or as per the time machine 101 article exclude some items. Your drive must be bigger that 532GBs by the way.

There must be many more but how do I get to them?

Hmm, start at the root level of your backup drive. Open the folders one at a time. Can you see any other folders? Maybe there is more but I can't see your drive. I have to rely on you a little here.

Or would it make sense to erase the 1TB disk and start again?

This is a good point, yes you can start over. Before considering this though be aware that everything on your backup drive will be gone, in practical terms, forever.

On the other hand, there is one important question, if all your data is currently on your mac and you don't miss anything it backed up then this is not a problem — you can start over.

To do this then, open Disk Utility found in Applications/Utilities

-select your backup drive from the left side bar

-the backup drive is made up of two icons atleast.

-The one flush to the left is the 'volume'

-The one directly below indented to the right is the partition

You may as well select the volume, click the partition tab on the right and then under the Partition Layout heading choose 1 partition. see screen shots below.

This image I selected an external volume (500.11 GB G-Tech), chose the partition tab and under partion layout selected 1 Partition.

Get to the window below by clicking on the 'Options…' button seen in the window above.

-do choose GUID Partition Table and click OK

Once you've clicked OK, click Apply. Disk Utility will warn you that all the data will be lost if you do this, it's a precaution.

After the disk is re-partitioned (erased as it were) you should be invited to use it as a time machine backup. A new backup will take place, it may take hours. Your mac will not sleep, if schedules to, until it completes, don't worry.

Let me know if something is not clear.

Alex

Thanks Alex, I think everything is still here, I went into the backups I had moved to another HD and found all the missing Logic song files. I have already bought the new 1TB WD FW800 HD, so would it make sense to unmount the present Time machine HD[disconnecting it correctly in the Finder window;meant unmounting it correctly] and use the new one to start backups again before I do loose something? Would I need to install an OS on the Disk, or just format it,if so to what and how? A few days ago I tried to find something with spotlight and it said it was busy fixing its index and that would take 30 hours, I pay a lot for electricity over here, taxes mostly but it means I never leave the Mac on all night. If you say this should be done I will, it would be better to have spotlight indexed and pay a few Euros more to the power company than have no backup at all. We could always see if the backups hidden in the old HD can be used later, after getting the new drive working as Time Machine.

I said all seems to be here but there are so many tiny one note files in the music software some could be gone but I wouldn't know until I tried to use an instrument and got the message that some of the notes were not found,by starting a new backup HD now I would have more certainty that all really was there,it would be impossible to search for ever note separately.

I have already bought the new 1TB WD FW800 HD, so would it make sense to unmount the present Time machine HD[disconnecting it correctly in the Finder window;meant unmounting it correctly] and use the new one to start backups again before I do loose something?

The advantage to keeping the old backups and starting over with a new drive are as follows:

1) Your old backups stay on the old drive - I suggest that if you do this, unmount it and apply some masking tape with the data you 'archive' it on so that you can retrieve relatively older data later on.

Would I need to install an OS on the Disk, or just format it,if so to what and how?

no

A few days ago I tried to find something with spotlight and it said it was busy fixing its index and that would take 30 hours,

you likely need to rebuild the spotlight index file, I've noted steps in my last post to you.

I also explained how you can start a new backup, erase the new drive and you will be invited to use it as a backup.

Let me know how it goes.

Hi Alex, I unmounted the oldTime Machine HD and hooked up the new one. I opened system Prefs for Time machine and chose the new 999GB'S FW 800 WD,I told it to use that to start a backup now,knowing it could take 10 hours or so to back up. Strangely, the screen locked again during the backup, I think it is still backing up because the Lamps are flashing on the two HD's but the progress bar is locked as it was i the start of backing up. I don't have a missing manual yet for 10.6 but I looked in Pogues manual for 10.5 and there he claims [ in 10.5] that one can stop the back up and start again later,Does this apply to 10.6.8 too? Do you think it would be OK to stop the back up and reboot just to un-lock the screen? I am using my MBP to send this.

Cheers,david

Hi

Sorry for getting back so late but I was doing other tasks.

For your own knowledge, yes you can always interrupt a backup, the drawback is that the next backup may take longer than normal.

Here is what I would do.

1) Stop the backup.

2) Rebuild the spotlight index (I provided steps for you)

3) Wait for spotlight to complete the backup

4) Erase the drive again (don't worry about erasing it again.)

5) Start a backup

I suspect some issue with the spotlight index, I think you eluded to that as well, in terms of searches not working as expected. Remember you should let spotlight finish before beginning a backup, in fact if I am not mistaken, a backup will not begin until the spotlight index is complete.

You can always check if spotlight is indexing in a more rigourous way by opening the Activity monitor and searching for 'md' (short for meta-data) and you will find a few processes that have 'md' in their process names running to reflect spotlight indexing your drive. 'mdworker' is the one. He's a busy guy, he is always working. Notice I have all processes so that I don't miss anything.

When Time Machine is backing up you will find a process called 'backupd' (short for backup daemon).

So these are the two ways you can really confirm what is going on with these two tasks.

These two processes by the way are designed so that what you do on the computer is prioritized, you should not see performance hits when backing up or when spotlight is indexing.

I hope I was not too late responding.

PS A first backup will take the longest as it is backing up everything. Also, consider connecting your backup drive to the fastest port on your mac. For example, if the drive has firewire, use that path instead of USB as there are clear performance advantages.

Cheers!

Thanks Alex, I was unable to use the iMac most of the day Monday because after starting the new backup the screen locked, not knowing if it was a good idea to stop the new backup I just left the iMac going all day. I could see the flashing lights that the external boot was working hard as well as the new Time machine External FW800,with the screen locked the progress bars didn't move but the flashing to me meant it was working. And at 6PM the lights stopped and stayed on as they normally would have, so I had to hard reboot again and then everything worked again. I am going to use Disk Warrior to rebuild the Boot HD again before it does something strange. I must leave for work in two hours so that is just enough time to rebuild it. Tomorrow I have free so I will look at your spotlight re indexing instructions and do that, then this thing should be good for another year or two.

Hi again

OK I am glad the backup appeared to finish. You can verifiy this by navigating the hard drive and it's directories, you should see one backup of course, it should be a folder with a name that looks something like:

2012-07-09-120354

Disk Warrior might be overkill, just run the standard disk utility, it should be enough but I will leave it up to you. Just don't have disk warrior perform operations that you selectively turn on or off if you don't know what they do. It may, in those circumstances give you results that you might not expect. I don't know much about Disk Warrior because I don't use it so I am working blind with this precaution but I think it's a general rule of thumb — don't turn something on if you don't know what the it does.

Of course let me know how it goes, I can't promise and immediate reply but I will be on the lookout once a day due to my workload. 🙂

Thanks.

Thanks again Alex. I use it regularly, most Logic pro users on the forums use it on a regular basis just as a precaution because it works so well,quick and thourough it reports any possible disk problems and puts everything back in place, as it were. Reindexing spotlight will be much easier if the HD has been cleaned up by disk Warrior first. I am just about to start it so I won't be able to use the iMac until it is done,uasually about 2 hours. I report back, but am working all afternoon so I won't be online again until tomorowll

No worries, I shall be here waiting for your report.

After rebuilding the spotlight index, trigger a backup. Your time machine backups are automaticly performed hourly as long as the drive is connected but consider going to the time machine icon at the top and choosing backup now. Check the performance of your backup. I mean the speed varies of course, USB/Firewire, if a lot of data has to be backed up, if the previous backup was interrupted but you should get a feel for it after the fact.