Complete system freeze Mavericks 10.9.2

Question

Level 1

0 points

Complete system freeze Mavericks 10.9.2

Hello guys, I have a Retina MacBook Pro 13.3 from late 2013 and it had been running rock solid until 2 weeks ago or so. Now the operating system is freezing (and I mean a complete hang up that requires a hard reset by pressing the power button), and this is happening at least once a day and randomly. I'm not doing anything extraordinary, sometimes it just happenes when browsing the Web using Firefox (latest version, yes) or Safari, which by the way always crashes when I turn the computer back on, as reported by many others.

I suspect this begun after updating to 10.9.2 as I've never had this happen before since buying the machine. I've been trying to obtain anything useful from the logs and the console app, however the only reported kernel event is a panic from March 5. Don't know if it's relevant or no to this problem. The last time I had to hard-reset the machine was a couple hours ago, and the logs show nothing with regards to kernel panics.

Is there any other place I should be looking for diagnostic / system log information?

Can I rollback to 10.9.1 (I understand I'd be vulnerable to the SSL bug, but right now with 10.9.2 I'm more vulnerable to the smash-computer-against-wall bug out of frustration!)

Needless to say, any pointer to fixing this is more than welcome.

Thank you,

-Enrique

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 14, 2014 12:30 PM

Reply

Answer 1

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Mar 19, 2014 8:28 PM in response to evaamo

I have had similar symptoms—unpredictable freezes that started recently. The first was (I believe) a week ago, March 12; there have been 2 others since then, including one today. It is a 13-inch late 2012 MacBook Pro.

The system is now running OS X 10.9.2, but the upgrade was not installed until March 15, so I doubt this was the cause.

Software updates prior to the first crash include:

March 5: iTunes 11.1.5
March 11: Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.77

Flash video was playing in Firefox during at least one of the crashes, so perhaps Flash is the culprit.

Reply

Answer 2

evaamo Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 19, 2014 9:03 PM in response to neatnate

hi neatnate ... I just got a random freeze moments before answering to your reply!!! I wasn't using anything flash related, actually just using twitter via Safari.

This is my first Mac experience since my last Macintosh 512k, and I must say I was enjoying it, but ever since this started I'm losing confidence in this machine and OS X by the minute. 😟

If this continues I'll have to try installing Linux, because no way I'm going to Windows 8. But I cannot afford to have a semi-functional / unreliable work laptop.

Reply

Answer 3

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Mar 19, 2014 9:13 PM in response to evaamo

I wasn't using anything flash related, actually just using twitter via Safari.

Do you have the latest version of Flash installed, though?

Reply

Answer 4

evaamo Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 19, 2014 9:36 PM in response to neatnate

Yes, 12.0.0.77 just like you.

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 5

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Mar 24, 2014 12:16 AM in response to evaamo

Another crash, again while watching something on YouTube...reinforces my suspicion that this is Flash- or video-related. Let's see if installing the Flash 13 beta helps.

Reply

Answer 6

canasian

Level 1

0 points

Apr 4, 2014 4:19 PM in response to evaamo

Same thing is happening to me. It happens for me when I'm using Safari, but not when I'm using other browsers. I usually have multiple applications running at the same time, but I don't know why this behavior would suddently start (I recently upgraded from Snow Leopard).

Mac Pro 4,1

8 Core 2.26GHz

28GB RAM

OSX 10.9.2

Reply

Answer 7

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Apr 4, 2014 4:38 PM in response to canasian

For the record, since installing the Flash beta (13.0.0.168) over two weeks ago, I have not had any problems.

Reply

Answer 8

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2014 12:47 PM in response to neatnate

I spoke too soon, of course. Another freeze while opening a multimedia page in Firefox.

Reply

Answer 9

canasian

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2014 6:25 PM in response to neatnate

Do you think it's some sort of Mavericks memory leak?

Reply

Answer 10

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2014 7:40 PM in response to canasian

Possible. I noticed nearly all of the memory was in use just before the last crash.

Reply

Answer 11

Apr 5, 2014 8:00 PM in response to evaamo

You need to post the Panic so we can read it. There may be something you are missing.

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html

Don

Reply

Answer 12

neatnate

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2014 8:23 PM in response to Donald Morgan

Contents of /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports:

Hedwig:DiagnosticReports nathan$ ls | grep -v '.diag' backupd_2014-03-19-230917_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin diskarbitrationd,NortonMissedTasks,sh,sh,sleep,SystemStarter,Use_2014-03-15-133754_Hedwig.shutdownStall eclipse_2014-03-20-094655_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin eclipse_2014-03-20-232355_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin eclipse_2014-04-04-142002_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin firefox_2014-03-18-230829_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin firefox_2014-03-20-230803_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin firefox_2014-03-23-232913_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin firefox_2014-03-26-001655_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin firefox_2014-03-26-101838_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin firefox_2014-03-28-010713_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin firefox_2014-04-05-224806_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin mtmfs_2014-03-15-151432_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin ntpd_2014-04-02-120852_Hedwig.crash plugin-container_2014-03-19-205546_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin plugin-container_2014-03-21-205347_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin plugin-container_2014-03-23-144457_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin plugin-container_2014-04-05-110945_Hedwig.wakeups_resource.spin

Not sure exactly what to look for, but here's the top of one of the files:

Hedwig:DiagnosticReports nathan$ head -n 40 firefox_2014-04-05-224806_Hedwig.cpu_resource.spin Date/Time: 2014-04-05 22:45:17 -0400 OS Version: 10.9.2 (Build 13C64) Architecture: x86_64 Report Version: 18 Command: Firefox Path: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox Version: 28.0 (2814.3.14) Parent: launchd [219] PID: 654 Event: cpu usage (microstackshots only) Thread: 0x1a66 (55% cpu over 164 seconds) Duration: 164.00s Steps: 162 Hardware model: MacBookPro10,2 Active cpus: 4 Fan speed: 2143 rpm Powerstats for: firefox [654] thread 0x1a66 Start time: 2014-04-05 22:45:20 -0400 End time: 2014-04-05 22:48:01 -0400 Parent: launchd Microstackshots: 122 samples (75%) Primary state: 115 samples Frontmost App, Non-Background Priority, User mode User Activity: 0 samples Idle, 122 samples Active Power Source: 0 samples on Battery, 122 samples on AC 29 ??? (XUL + 11972002) [0x101b6ada2] 9 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 981 (AppKit) [0x7fff8f711d86] 7 -[NSApplication _setCurrentEvent:] + 43 (AppKit) [0x7fff8f8b496d] 2 -[NSEvent isEqual:] + 71 (AppKit) [0x7fff8f8b4a0d] 2 object_getClass + 2 (libobjc.A.dylib) [0x7fff8c30fab6] 1 -[NSEvent isEqual:] + 845 (AppKit) [0x7fff8f8b4d13] 1 -[NSEvent subtype] + 36 (AppKit) [0x7fff8f8b6fb7] 1 _CFExecutableLinkedOnOrAfter + 74 (CoreFoundation) [0x7fff891f66ea] 1 -[NSLayoutConstraint dealloc] + 178 (Foundation) [0x7fff90951e19] 1 objc_msgSend + 20 (libobjc.A.dylib) [0x7fff8c310094] 1 -[NSEvent locationInWindow] + 1 (AppKit) [0x7fff8f8b9cd9]

Reply

Answer 13

evaamo Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2014 8:29 PM in response to neatnate

I stopped using Firefox on my MBPr and haven't had a freeze since. I suspect it's a Flash issue indeed. I will perform some tests late next week, including trying the latest beta from Adobe.

Thanks

-E

Reply

Answer 14

Apr 6, 2014 12:56 PM in response to evaamo

What about me, it has begun a couple of weeks ago. The Macbook freezes completely sometime by trying to watch an embedded Youtube video in Firefox browser v28.

Have changed Flash Player to 13.0 beta, now it's OK, at least the last 5 minutes.

Definitely, it's not a Mavericks problem, I use it a long time.

Reply

Answer 15

Jul 11, 2014 12:45 AM in response to evaamo

Any new solution on this problem other than not using firefox ? I have been having this problem since I updated to MacOS 10.9.1 (and I am now on 10.9.3).

This only happens to me when watching videos on YT and sometimes on other streaming platforms. I updated flash several times, making sure I am up to date but the problem remains. I have about 1 hard reboot per day on average due to this ... thanks in advance if you can contribute.

Reply