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User profile for user: Tom.my
Tom.my Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

OS X 10.9 freeze when WiFi is turned off (POSSIBLE SOLUTION)

Hi, I just found a possible solution for this problem: my MacBook Pro freeze completely (without the spinning beach ball) after I turn off WiFi.


I have a MacBook Pro 17 inch late 2007 (MacBookPro3,1 - A1229), with a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB card, running OS X 10.9.


What happened:

- I updated the OS from 10.8.4 to 10.8.5

- My Mac started freezing everytime after login, I don't remember if WiFi was on or off

- Reverted back 10.8.4, thank you Time Machine!

- Updated to OS X 10.9

- Everything was OK, but then I did some work in my home and I had to turn off the modem

- Modem was off, so I decided to turn off also the AirPort card on my MacBook Pro

- After a couple of seconds my computer completely stopped responding, trackpad and keyboard were useless, the UI froze

- After pressing the power button I managed to shutdown the Mac and then start it up again

- Now after the startup process I was stuck in loop: WiFi was still off and I had few seconds to login, wait for my account to load and turn on WiFi from the menubar icon; I failed countless times!

- In an attempt to slow down the Mac and earn some more seconds I did a PRAM reset and logged in with the Shift key pressed (after typing my password)

- I managed to turn WiFi on and looked immediatly for clues on Console logs:



04/11/13 14:31:02,000kernel[0]AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 8 (Disassociated because station leaving).
04/11/13 14:31:02,000kernel[0]en1: BSSID changed to 90:72:40:16:09:df
04/11/13 14:31:02,000kernel[0]2766.617367: setDISASSOC from ATH_INTERFACE_CLASS disconnectVap
04/11/13 14:31:02,000kernel[0]2766.630567: setDISASSOCIATE ****STA SYNC DISASSOC SUCCESS
04/11/13 14:31:02,000kernel[0]2766.630581: switchVap from 1 to 1
04/11/13 14:31:03,000kernel[0]flow_divert_kctl_disconnect (0): disconnecting group 1
04/11/13 14:31:03,980configd[19]network changed: v4(en1-:10.0.0.4) DNS- Proxy-
04/11/13 14:31:03,984UserEventAgent[11]Captive: CNPluginHandler en1: Inactive
04/11/13 14:31:04,145netbiosd[170]network_reachability_changed : network is not reachable, netbiosd is shutting down
04/11/13 14:31:12,814awacsd[58]KV HTTP 0
04/11/13 14:31:17,886awacsd[58]KV HTTP 0
04/11/13 14:31:27,959awacsd[58]KV HTTP 0
04/11/13 14:31:28,344Google Drive[282]BUG in libdispatch client: kevent[EVFILT_WRITE] delete: "No such file or directory" - 0x2
04/11/13 14:32:44,000bootlog[0]BOOT_TIME 1383571964 0


(Last line is me powering the Mac on, after a forced shutdown; for some reason some lines have been lost forever: before the last one, there were some more "awacsd ... KV HTTP 0")


This is what happen to my Mac when I turn off the AirPort card; I don't know if "Google Drive" or "libdispatch client" are the problem, but quitting Google Drive solved this madness.


Hope this helps.



Also on this forum:

Re: MacBook Pro (2007) 3,1 & 10.8.5 freezing

Re: MacBook Pro (2007) 3,1 & 10.8.5 freezing


Message was edited by: Tom.my

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 4, 2013 6:31 AM

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39 replies
User profile for user: Tom.my
Tom.my Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Nov 5, 2013 4:37 AM in response to Tom.my

If I leave the AirPort card on and instead power off my AirPort Extreme base station, my MacBook doesn't freeze and I get this in the Console:


05/11/13 13:23:02,000kernel[0]AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 8 (Disassociated because station leaving).
05/11/13 13:23:03,936configd[18]network changed: v4(en1-:10.0.0.4) DNS- Proxy-
05/11/13 13:23:03,938UserEventAgent[11]Captive: CNPluginHandler en1: Inactive
05/11/13 13:23:04,037netbiosd[414]network_reachability_changed : network is not reachable, netbiosd is shutting down
05/11/13 13:23:09,878WindowServer[135]disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Console" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
05/11/13 13:23:09,990WindowServer[135]common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "Console" after 1.11 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
05/11/13 13:23:12,798awacsd[67]KV HTTP 0
05/11/13 13:23:17,871awacsd[67]KV HTTP 0
05/11/13 13:23:27,944awacsd[67]KV HTTP 0



Maybe someone (ie. Apple) can take note of the differences from the log on first post and track down the problem, which many in this forum think it is a bugged kext.

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User profile for user: AlfaMikeDelta
AlfaMikeDelta
User level: Level 1
4 points

Nov 17, 2013 12:25 AM in response to Tom.my

I'm experiencing a similar issue.


In my case, a conflicting kext (kernel extension) from a vitual machine (VirtualBox) was causing an immediate freeze after turning Wi-Fi off. After disabling the kext's scripts, I can now disable Wi-Fi safely but if I reboot then the system hangs at radom instances of boot sequence (for example while showing the apple logo, or at the login screen or a few seconds after entering the password).


I can only boot in single user mode (command-option-S) so after looking around a way to turn on WiFi from the command line, I ended up using a daemon (boot script) that turns on WiFi before anything else happens (at least as soon as the airport card is running).


In any case, I left the instructions here, just for reference.


The script should be created in /Library/LaunchDaemons


It can have any name with "plist" extension, I choosen "com.fixwifi.wifion.plist"


To create the file type: nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.fixwifi.wifion.plist


Enter the following text (it's a lot of text, I know, but it is better than nothing):


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Label</key>

<string>com.fixwifi.wifion</string>

<key>RunAtLoad</key>

<true/>

<key>KeepAlive</key>

<dict>

<key>SuccesfulExit</key>

<false/>

</dict>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>networksetup</string>

<string>-setairportpower</string>

<string>en1</string>

<string>on</string>

</array>

<key>StartInterval</key>

<integer>2</integer>

</dict>

</plist>


When finished, type "ctrl-x", then "y" to save and enter. Reboot.


This script will:

- try to power on the en1 interface as soon as the script loads

- if it fails (because the interface is not running yet), will try to turn it on every two seconds

- once the interface is on (exit is succesful), then unload the script.


Note that this script assumes the airport interface is named "en1". It can also work with the word "airport" (at least in my tests).


Good luck!

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User profile for user: wkn
wkn
User level: Level 1
0 points

Nov 24, 2013 6:15 AM in response to Tom.my

I am having exactly the same problem on my MBP 3,1 (oldie, I know). Turning off wifi freezes the entire Mac. I have had the same problem twice. The first time I turned off wifi and my Mac froze up completely. I had to force a restart by holding the power button for several seconds. The problem persisted however after reboot. I tried several reboots but I did not get past the grey boot screen. Even in safe mode it would not start. Single user mode did work, but I was unable to determine the problem there. Eventually I reinstalled Mavericks from the recovery screen, but that did not help either. In the end (after many hours) I ended up recovering from time capsule to a state of two days earlier, that did help.


At this point I did not yet know the problem was because of the wifi. So after recovering I turned off wifi again. Almost right away the system froze up again. Luckily this time the system did not save the 'wifi off' state yet, so I was able to reboot with wifi on and continue.


I am trying to determine the cause but at this point the logs do not seem to contain any useful information. I had installed vmware and parallels at some point. But as far as I know there were no kernel extensions left to mess up the system (safe mode should have disabled them anyway).


Obviously I am not going anywhere near the wifi setting at the moment but I would still like to have a solution to this problem.

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User profile for user: siliconfarm.com
siliconfarm.com
User level: Level 1
0 points

Dec 17, 2013 4:26 PM in response to Tom.my

hi,


I had the same issue right after doing the wonderful "free" 10.9 upgrade on my macbook pro 3,1.

Thanks for the free headhache apple ! and no official update or fix yet as far as I know ?? Apple is the windows or what ? it *****...

computer runs 10.9 just fine but freeze within seconds EACH time I turn off the wifi.

And the worst as mentioned that no reboot of any kind will complete if the system starts with the wifi disabled afterwards !


So after trying everything I also found out the single file that store the wifi state. Accessing your hard drive in target mode, go to:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist


and rename the file to com.apple.airport.preferences.plist~bad for example do disable it and reboot.


but it's terrible, I feel that I'm back to my old days on windows spending sleepless nights sweating cold staring at wiping/installing/updating/rebooting/etc...screens, all that windows nonsense way of wasting your time and driving you insance.


How somwthing so problematic yet apparently simple and so commented all over the web from day 1 of the 10.9 release is still not resolved ?


Steve Job is dead and so is apple, very sad.

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User profile for user: yvettefromgroningen
yvettefromgroningen
User level: Level 1
0 points

Dec 30, 2013 3:36 PM in response to siliconfarm.com

Your remark saved half a day's work. I wanted to use my MBP in my studio whitout wifi. Everything happend as discribed here, ze frozen screens etc. as if we are still in the age of windows 3.1


I first tried

  1. boot in single user mode (command-option-S)
  2. rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist checked, and yes the file disapeared
  3. reboot


It did not work: it apeared that preferences.plist was rewritten after reboot. Same for the rename

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist to something.else


So I also added:

  1. boot in single user mode (command-option-S)
  2. rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
  3. mv /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist backup.list make a backup like siliconfarm.com sugested
  4. shut down, and use the standard apple rituals like: disconect from power, remove batery, wait some time and reboot with Option-Command-P-R until startup sounds a second time

and It worked!

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OS X 10.9 freeze when WiFi is turned off (POSSIBLE SOLUTION)

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