MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) freeze with Yosemite

If it's not recognizing the Nvidia GPU driver you definitely have a major problem. Mine shows "GPU Driver Version: 10.2.1 310.41.15f01". I think I'm running the same machine "MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) - Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1". Does this match your info? If it does and the CUDA Pane does not show the GPU driver version then you need to check on that Logic Board Replacement program with Apple, sounds like a need for replacement to me!

Yes, indeed the same model: "MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) - Model Identifier:MacBookPro10,1". I will definitely look for the Logic Board Replacement - the program is running here since last Friday...

ntennies wrote:

What I'm leading up to here is the possibility that what we're seeing is being caused by two issues. There may be a Yosemite-specific software issue related to how the GPU is being reset that is causing this process to fail in Yosemite; as a trivial example, these hardware reset procedures often have timing elements, and it could be one of those timing elements got modified in the GPU driver used in Yosemite. BUT, the reason that we're only seeing this problem on a small number of MacBook Pros is due to a problem in hardware that is causing the GPU to glitch out in the first place. So it works like this:

• If you have a MacBook Pro in which the GPU doesn't glitch out, you don't get repeated reset attempts on Yosemite, so you never see the problem
• If you have a MacBook Pro in which the GPU does glitch, attempts to reset the GPU fail on Yosemite and you see the problem
• If you have a MacBook Pro in which the GPU does glitch, attempts to reset the GPU succeed in Mavericks, so you don't see the problem (except maybe a brief screen freeze)

What still doesn't make sense here is why swapping logic boards doesn't fix the problem by pushing your MacBook into the first bullet. Or why you'd see variations in behavior between user logins. Options are:

• Apple says they swapped the logic board but really didn't.
• Apple swapped with a "refurbed" logic board that came back from another user that had the problem
• That some batches of GPUs or logic boards have this glitchy problem, and it's just bad luck that you got another one with it (seems too coincidental)
• That whatever is glitching your GPU is not on the logic board, so it survives the logic board swap. One example is nrj45's GPU shorting theory, but there could be others.
• Something else

I'm just tossing this out as a theory. Interestingly, I also ran across a parallel discussion thread (fequent mid 2012 macbook pro retina kernel panic reboots possibly GPU related) that has been going on since late 2013 and still has activity. Most of these folks were reporting problems pre-Yosemite; it's not clear when some of these people report their computer "freezes" exactly what that means.

This seems like the most likely theory for everything going on.

Like others, I was also seeing several GPU resets (sometimes as many as 9-10, sometimes as few as 2-3) that were clearly correlated with the screen freezing (except for the cursor) before the machine restarted itself. All of them reported that the Intel GPU had hung and was being restarted. This explanation makes sense, but if there is a hardware issue, I think think it's with the integrated Intel GPU, not the nVidia one. If the issue was with the nVidia GPU, then disabling automatic graphics switching should exacerbate the issue, not solve it (since the nVidia GPU is being used all the time). Either that, or the issue really does lie in the core of the switching process/hardware, and whatever the problem is ends up getting blamed on the Intel GPU hanging.

I'm going to try ripping the back off this week and see if the logic board looks brand new or if it has any sort of revision number printed on it.

I have no information from before, but after having my logic board replaced I get the same information as you in the sysreport …

After all of my testing and tracing I can definitely say the problem is in the switching from one GPU to the other. We know there was no problem in Mavericks so that right there tells you it's a problem with Yosemite. If you could disable automatic switching and use the Intel HD 4000 GPU alone I'm sure there would be no issues at all as I believe that's the same and only GPU used on the previous non-retina MBP. As shown, turning off automatic switching allows the nVidia GPU alone to work as well but some of us, including myself, still have problems when using the nVidia GPU with auto switching off. The CUDA driver resolved this problem for me and I've been quite happy with my MBP for the last 2 months. It's quite obvious that the problem is in the Automatic Graphics Switching routines and that would be a software problem but as I stated earlier, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Apple!

Just to add another data point, though it sounds like this is already known to be somewhat of a fix, I was having say maybe one or two system freezes per week with my Early 2013 rMBP running 10.10.2. When I did what was suggested here and shut off the graphics card switching, the freezing stopped. Should we be giving feedback to Apple or do we think they already know??

thanks... bob

Apple - Mac OS X - Feedback

Feedback posted... thanks... bob

I'm being hit by this increasingly often. I had to force power off my MBP Late 2013 more times in the last week than I did in the past year on Mavericks (actually, I don't recall having to ever force power off on Mavericks). It's really bad when I give a talk to an audience, I plug in the projector, it freezes and the entire audience has to wait for me to get back up ... then it freezes again if I forget to uncheck the auto gpu switching.

I'm on Yosemite 10.10.2, so two patches applied, and this still happens.

This is just ridiculous. It's been almost 5 months since it's been reported, what is Apple doing?

I'll now have to waste a few hours to downgrade to Mavericks.

I removed all of Microsoft Silverlight. The problem seems to happen less, but it still happens.

Have you not tried this yet?

Download and install CUDA here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-6.5.46-driver.html

It will install a new Preference Pane in your System Preferences. Go to the CUDA Preference Pane to make sure you have the newest update.

Go to the Energy Saver Preference Pane and turn OFF Automatic Graphics Switching.

If you've had problems with Photoshop and had to turn off the "Graphic Processor Settings", go ahead and check "Use Graphics Processor" and click Advanced Settings.

Set the Drawing Mode to Advanced and check all except "Use OpenCL".

Click Ok to close both dialogs, Quit Photoshop and Restart your computer. Problem should be solved.

I've had no more problems since doing this on my mid-2012 MBP(r) on Dec. 27, 2014. Photoshop CS6 runs faster than it ever has!

@JWDemon I don't use Photoshop. Also the CUDA driver is not a display driver and it should not affect the behaviour of switching graphics. The hang seems to come from the Intel driver (that's what the dump says). I don't want to disable automatic GPU switching because I use the MBP a lot on battery ... that's not a solution.

Apple needs to fix this pronto!

Apple isn't going to fix this right away and NVIDIA CUDA is a general purpose parallel computing architecture that leverages the parallel compute engine in NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) to solve many complex computational problems in a fraction of the time required on a CPU. It is not just for Photoshop, it is for the NVIDIA GPU and if you'll just try it you will be happy with it. I understand the battery concern but I can tell you I've only lost about 2 hours of battery usage but using my MBP without having to constantly force quit and start over..........PRICELESS!!!

I'd rather be working with my machine than fighting with it!

@JWDemon you're missing the point. I don't use Photoshop, nor any application that uses CUDA at the moment. I know very well what CUDA is (I'm a developer) and it's not a display driver, nor is it related in any way to the freezing problem. The freezing problem comes from the display drivers (particularly, the Intel one).

NO, YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT! Your NVIDIA GPU with CUDA will allow you to use your machine, would you rather fight with it or do without it and continue posting your complaints or would you rather use your machine??? There are many other applications, including Apple apps that can benefit from the use of CUDA with the NVIDIA GPU. Your waisting your time if you think Apple has any type of priority to try to fix this issue. Oh, and the freezing problem comes from the Automatic Graphics Switching routines so it's software related but I wouldn't hold my breath for a fix.