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MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) freeze with Yosemite

After installing the OS X Yosemite my MBP Retina starts freezing due to graphic problems. The only option is to restart the Mac


How to find the problem and solve it?

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 2:25 AM

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751 replies

Nov 4, 2014 7:06 AM in response to TLFonseca

Experiencing the same issues here with integrated GPU crashes in Yosemite, all related to some activity in Safari but most likely due to graphics switching.

Symptoms are exactly the same as others already posted with frozen display but audio still playing and mouse pointer able to move. The issue is not that frequent (around once per day at most, and went for 4 days without) but running on discrete graphics which makes the crashes disappear is not so great for battery life and heat.

Maybe of interesting note :

  • When on integrated GPU, Safari can show some graphics corruptions in its windows when the web inspector is open. This never appears on other apps, nor "bleeds" from Safari windows to other areas of the screen as often happens with hardware GPU failures. Those corrupt areas do not seem to be tied with the GPU crash happening, and causing Safari windows to redraw by resizing them does clear the issue but this certainly shows that something is up with the drivers and/or Safari graphics operations. This is most likely not exclusive to Safari but I did not experience this in other apps.
  • The corrupted areas appear to be related to heavy (30fps on frame counter) and unnecessary identical redraws by the graphics subsystem, as can be seen by firing up Quartz Debug and checking "flash screen updates". The redrawn areas can be as large as a third of the window.
  • This rMBP (Mid 2012, 16GB) was sent for repairs and had its logic board replaced for a kernel panic issue related to graphics switching. This was definitely a hardware failure at the time and is a separate, solved issue as already written in this thread
  • Issue never appeared with Mavericks
  • But it did appear once in Mavericks Developer Preview (I don't recall the build but it was one of the latest) and at that time was successful at restarting the discrete GPU on-the-fly, nearly without interruption : 2-3 seconds freeze then the dialog everyone experiences saying that there was a graphics issue. Console showed one intel GPU crash report identical to the ones we see after restart. I did not have to reboot and the system was perfectly usable after that (I only rebooted days later for an update to Yosemite DP)

This last point and the time of appearance with the Yosemite update suggests that this is most likely purely software-related. It also shows that recovery without crashing the whole computer is actually possible at least in some cases (or was in the DP Yosemite versions, I am curious about what prevents the retail version from doing so : disabled debug or different graphics driver ?)

Nov 4, 2014 2:28 PM in response to TLFonseca

I also have a MBProR from Mid2012. Funny for me is: I don't have upgraded to Yosemite yet (still on Mavericks), but I remember that I got those freezes since around 1-2 weeks ago, and the only thing patched since then were two things: Flash-player and iTunes (seeing the Yosemite upgrade I thought, no I will wait until the first big patching iteration on this big build, Apple is known to be unstable with big versions in .0).


When I have both running or start youtube I get a full freeze. Not every time I am using one of the two, but with a high probability. As soon as I let youtube run and switch to something else in the foreground, bam... no mouse movement. Running streamed radio in iTunes and switching to another app... freeze. In addition to this the youtube/itunes stream still continues to play, while the whole display is frozen. So the OS still is active on the network, otherwise the streams would stop.


I have turned off the graphics card switching now and will give feedback if the crashing stops...

Nov 5, 2014 5:19 AM in response to Botts85

hi,


just a few words to say that I'm on a macbook pro retina 15 inches from mid-2012, and experience many many GPU panic since I updated to yosemite.


My macbook being under warranty, I called the support and they didn't make any research except "you need to go to an apple service retail".


Since then, I read about the potential bugs, including this post, and I found out that a software called gfxCardStatus helped me to identify the bug : you can chose one of the integrated GPU or NVIDIA (in my case), or automatic (default behavior). When I chose integrated, I yet (only a few hours) no longer got any bugs. If I chose "dedicated" (which is nvidia GT650M in my case), the computer crashes and once rebooted says "there was a graphics issues".


Just my few words to tell others that you're not alone 🙂


Apple, any plans to fix this on a 10.10.1 ? I have a $ 2000+ macbook, with an applecare, and I feel like getting NO SERVICE from you !!

Nov 5, 2014 6:33 AM in response to TLFonseca

Just to chime in:

I have late-2013 MacBook Pro Retina with 750M on Yosemite. When I disconnect my 4k display by simply pulling the mini-display-port cable the screen on my MacBook freezes and I have to force-reboot. However no freezes if I first turn off the display and then disconnect it.


I didn't try a clean install of Yosemite yet because I don't have the time.

Nov 5, 2014 6:38 AM in response to TLFonseca

I have (had) the same issues (Re: rMBP with Yosemite freezes / spinning ball), or at least very similar. I'm working on a 2012 MBPr with Yosemite, and on a 8h working session the MacBook freezed about 3-4 times. I could only power-off and make a restart. I use a multi-monitor setup, with a Thunderbolt too DVI adapter, so the GeForce chip is always used, and not the HD graphics.


However, a safe boot, repairing the flashdrive, the disk permissions, and resetting the PRAM and SMC helped and the freezes never happened again.

Nov 5, 2014 9:50 AM in response to TLFonseca

Just dropped in for a "me too" with the same problems as described before. I even noticed a chirping sound from my early 2013 Retina MBP (i7/16gb/512ssd) when moving windows around or upon bigger changes on the screen before the system freezes.

At work I'm using a full HD external monitor via HDMI which goes black or snowing from time to time.

The system freezes occur at home with the external display disconnected.

Nov 5, 2014 1:50 PM in response to Matt.Hias

hi all,


for follow up, I did the following :


- PRAM reset :

- SMC reset :

- rebooted with CMD+R (restore) and did a full disk check + repair and disk permissions check + repair


now everything seems to be fine... thanks to matt who gave a clue !


Thanks to apple service with applecare who was not even able to tell a solution exept "change the main board"...

Nov 6, 2014 9:31 AM in response to romaba69

I have finally solved problems with my freezing retina MacBook.


Here are things I did:

- Updated to Yosemite 10.10.1 seed version (pre-release since I am beta tester).

- PRAM reset

- SMC reset


Now problem appears to be gone but I am not sure which one helped the most or was it the combination between all of these steps.

Nov 7, 2014 1:03 AM in response to Matt.Hias

I wanted to report back that SMC and PRAM reset and booting in safe mode does not help - i've had right now two freezes again.


First one was with several applications opened up, and the second one happened right after the restart when opening a JPG on the desktop. It's really annoying, and i do hope that something will be done regarding this problem!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) freeze with Yosemite

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