Q: New Retina Macbook pro 13 Haswell system hang/unresponsive

Andrei Tchijov wrote:

 

Not sure if anyone one this discussion will want to go to the trobules... but I bite the bullet and did clean re-install of Snow Leopard (wipe the mac book, install Snow Leopard, restore from time machine backup).  Took better part of the day (restoring from time machine takes forever ), but now I have my fully functioning Mac Book Retina back and all (numerouse) simptoms are gone.

 

The biggest problem with downgrading - you have to find access to mac with Snow Leopard (Maverick refuse to run Snow Leopard installer - which is silly in my opinion). I was able to install Snow Leopard on external drive and than boot my mac book of this drive and than do clean install.

So you had freezing Trackpad/Keyboard problems using Mavericks on your "old" retina?

This group is amazing. Bunch of total wild *** guesses proclaiming to be facts.

1. This is a hardware issue, firmware issue or driver level issue stemming from hardware. That is a fact based on deductive reasoning. Based on apple's own information their support post states this is a problem with the 13" MBP. The fact that this affects only the 13" MBP means it is the hardware, bad firmware as a result of different hardware, or bad driver as a result of different hardware from other models.

2. Apple does not state anywhere this is a software issue. Their customer support stating it is software is not a fact that it is a software issue. These guys are not engineers, did not produce the hardware or the software and we have no official confirmation from Apple engineering.

3. However, Apple will attempt to compensate for the issue in software via updated firmware or driver if possible. They certainly do not want to recall hardware unless they have to. And they will not recall hardware unless it is a manufacturing defect which software cannot correct for (i.e. bad solder joints, bad chip, etc.....). I agree with folks here, whatever it is they will take care of it. But it will take more time than I care to spend dealing with it.

4. Apple support is doing an ok job of handling the issue. It has been raised, they have recognized it, they are working on a fix. Ok. But I am an enterprise software architect for fortune 500 companies. In any place I have worked this would be considered a severity 1 defect (production halt). While staying calm is fair, returing the product if your not happy with it is fair, this IS a serious issue with the MBP hardware. This is very serious for professionals trying to get work done on it. To others points you have a choice, go return it, get a different version, get a Windows machine, whatever. But for this particular model, this is a serious issue and Apple needs to take it seriously. This is not what I would call a quality release and certainly does not qualify as an acceptable production release of a product. Alpha, beta release ok, but production release no way. If you accept the premise that early adopters need to work this kind of thing out and it is normal, then you have a low bar on reality of software engineering and hardware engineering. Apple should not have released this type of defect into the wild and should be directing significant resources towards it and communicating with customers about it. Especially in a line of products that is titled "Pro".

5. It is also not a given that this affects ALL models of the 13". That is a huge stretch of a statement. How many unique posts are on this site discussing they have the issue? Let's say there is 200. 200 out of how many sold? There is no way to state this affects all 13" MBP's. There may be some machines that are perfectly fine.

6. This is happening to some older hardware. Well maybe. Evidence is anecdoctal at best and not wide spread. There is no confirmation from Apple on that. Just that the 13" model has this issue.

Summary. Wait if you can for a fix, do not use it for serious work until resolved, return it and wait or look someplace else.

@bcozd Well said!

Ok I have just checked in two differente Best Buy stores.

I have checked:

1. Late 13' rMBP 13" 2.4 Ghz i5 128 GB Build 13A2093:  No error

2. Late 13' rMBP 13" 2.4 Ghz i5 128 GB Build 13A2093:  No error

3. Late 13' rMBP 15" 2 Ghz    i7 256 GB Build 13A3017:  No error 

I just want to confirm I am doing it right. I am opening a Console terminal and I am searching for the following error (this is the way I found the error on my rMBP):

"The USB device Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad (Port 5 of Hub at 0x14000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (2)"     

The error appears in none of these rMBPs. Please advice if there is a different way to access the syslog.

I will check one more store, which is about 2 or 3 more rMBPs. Statiscally a sample of at least 30 or more rMBPs would be needed to make better assumptions, so if anybody else can go and check on your apple stores it would be helpful.

If it is Firmware or Driver ==> it is a Software issue

If it is a bad OPamp or IC or diode or capacitor or Mos or Bjt transistor or resistor or ... ==> it is a Hardware issue

Davikoz wrote:

 

Ok I have just checked in two differente Best Buy stores.

 

I have checked:

 

1. Late 13' rMBP 13" 2.4 Ghz i5 128 GB Build 13A2093:  No error

2. Late 13' rMBP 13" 2.4 Ghz i5 128 GB Build 13A2093:  No error

3. Late 13' rMBP 15" 2 Ghz    i7 256 GB Build 13A3017:  No error 

 

I just want to confirm I am doing it right. I am opening a Console terminal and I am searching for the following error (this is the way I found the error on my rMBP):

 

"The USB device Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad (Port 5 of Hub at 0x14000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (2)"     

 

The error appears in none of these rMBPs. Please advice if there is a different way to access the syslog.

 

I will check one more store, which is about 2 or 3 more rMBPs. Statiscally a sample of at least 30 or more rMBPs would be needed to make better assumptions, so if anybody else can go and check on your apple stores it would be helpful.

it's a bad new...

Great work! But make sure there are no USB devices connected

That's the right way to access the console, yes. You do have to move the mouse with the trackpad, though -- every time you leave it alone long enough to time-out then touch it again, the dreaded message appears.

I've got a 13A2093 build here and it has the same problem. Pretty disgusted that the Apple rep' stood there and sold me a defective machine yesterday when they must've been aware of the issue. I don't know why they're still on sale.

I have been using my new MBPro Retina for 3 days [i5 2.9 512 SSD 8Gb Ram]. Once or twice I thought the Touch Pad was slow to react on coming back from sleep but I tend to use a USB external Microsoft Mouse which seems to have worked fine.

Today whilst using Spelling in Pages the system has frozen with a Rainbow wheel rotating for several minutes.

This is my first venture into Mac, I wanted a lightweight portable system to use with Lightroom, display is brilliant QC obviously not so good.

I will inform Apple and see what response I get.

We have a Windows Haswell i5 desktop which is behaving perfectly!!

Allan

It appears to be only the Pages which is frozen I can get to other Apps which seem fine. How can I close the faulty frozen program? Is there anything like Task Manager in Macs?

Just adding one more piece of reasoning to point #5:

Either

It affects all 13" MBP models: Then it is a firmware or driver level issue.

OR

It affects some 13" MBP models: Then it is a hardware issue. Could be different controllers used in the same model machine (but that is conjecture).

So figuring out via facts if this is all or some machines will be a key piece of information for Apple to know in order to do gross level troubleshooting of where the error is. That does not mean that software cannot solve the problem. We need more information to determine that.

The key for Apple engineering to figure out after all or some models will be how to reproduce the problem. Randomness does not occur in machines. They are not random things. They may appear random, but they are never random. There is always a reason.

Some set of steps in a finite sequence is deterministic to lead to the error. That is a fact.

Apple will likely resolve this way:

1. If the set of steps can be traced in the software (firmware or driver) to its conclusion in the deterministic case then this is fairly straightforward to fix. (meaning do step 1, 2, 3, 4, ...., error! is repeatable set of steps)

2. If the steps appear at random (remember it is never actually random but it can appear so) then this can take quite some time to resolve and may continue to occur after the 1st patch is released. Apple's goal will be to minize the risk not eliminate the error if the error appears at random.

Interesting that you on one hand say that guesses are proclaimed as facts, on the other hand you yourself make statements for which you have no evidence at all. And you have not really made enough research, as your comment shows.

1. The fact that this affects only the 13" MBP means it is the hardware, bad firmware as a result of different hardware, or bad driver as a result of different hardware from other models.

You are mistaken on this. The 13 inch modell has a different build of Mavericks (13A2093) so a bug inside this build would easily lead to the situation that only the 13 inch modell is affected. So right now there is no evidence for a hardware defect. The fact, that only the 13 inch retina MBP has the build 13A2093 makes a software bug an absolutely realistic scenario.

2. Apple does not state anywhere this is a software issue. Their customer support stating it is software is not a fact that it is a software issue. These guys are not engineers, did not produce the hardware or the software and we have no official confirmation from Apple engineering.

I can hardly believe, the support team is allowed to make wild guesses and proclaim these as facts. I assume some sort of internal communication has to happen at Apple. Otherwise a support would simply not be functional.

I agree on 3 and 4.

5. Not given, but very likely. So far, although searching on Mac/Apple forums as well, so far not a single person has been found who owns a 13 inch Haswell rMBP who does not either have had freezes or at least sees the errors inside the syslog. Of course, it is not proven that these errors are connected to the freezes, but if you plug in an USB device, the freezes stop and the errors do no longer shop up in the syslog. Unplug the USB device and you will have freezes again and the error (a kernel error btw.) will reappear as well. That is quite an indication.

6. Quite many people report it. I can not see a point, why people should report it if it wasn't true.

Davikoz wrote:

 

Ok I have just checked in two differente Best Buy stores.

 

I have checked:

 

1. Late 13' rMBP 13" 2.4 Ghz i5 128 GB Build 13A2093:  No error

2. Late 13' rMBP 13" 2.4 Ghz i5 128 GB Build 13A2093:  No error

3. Late 13' rMBP 15" 2 Ghz    i7 256 GB Build 13A3017:  No error 

 

I just want to confirm I am doing it right. I am opening a Console terminal and I am searching for the following error (this is the way I found the error on my rMBP):

 

"The USB device Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad (Port 5 of Hub at 0x14000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (2)"     

 

The error appears in none of these rMBPs. Please advice if there is a different way to access the syslog.

 

I will check one more store, which is about 2 or 3 more rMBPs. Statiscally a sample of at least 30 or more rMBPs would be needed to make better assumptions, so if anybody else can go and check on your apple stores it would be helpful.

Thanks for that input. It's quite bad news as it leads more to the direction that it is indeed a hardware issue. You wouldn't happen to have checked the build of Mavericks on these machines?

edit: sorry, of course you wrote down the build

Firmware by definition is firmware, not software. Drivers have arguably been called software since they are written in code. However, I tend not to call a driver software. I tend to call them drivers. However, my primary point is, the threads have been relating the word "software" to Mavericks. Mavericks is an significantly over generalization of the problem. This is very specific problem due to a unique set of hardware in the 13" MBP. This is not a fix for Mavericks. This is a fix to one of the Apple core service packages (KEXT), only IF it is a driver level issue.

You are mistaken on this. The 13 inch modell has a different build of Mavericks (13A2093) so a bug inside this build would easily lead to the situation that only the 13 inch modell is affected. So right now there is no evidence for a hardware defect. The fact, that only the 13 inch retina MBP has the build 13A2093 makes a software bug an absolutely realistic scenario.

     That still leads to hardware, firmware or driver only.

I can hardly believe, the support team is allowed to make wild guesses and proclaim these as facts. I assume some sort of internal communication has to happen at Apple. Otherwise a support would simply not be functional.

     So you really believe that the help desk is manned with highly paid engineers or their engineers told the support team to say, "Oh yeah don't worry this is a software issue" without any kind of formal customer channel release? When has Apple ever worked that way. The support team is speaking off the cuff trying to abate your concern. They have no direct knowledge of what the actual issue is. Try this and then I will believe it. Next time someone talks to Apple Senior Support tell them to send you that statement a post conversation email follow-up.

Ok today or tomorrow we will give back our rMBP and ask for refund...