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Level 1

15 points

mac pro late 2013 freezes with spinning wheel

i bought a mac pro (late 2013) 50 days ago, os is yosemite 10.10.3. I often get the spinning wheel of death and the mac freezes, i.e. it doesn't react to mouse click or keyboard. it happens on average 1 time a day. When it happens i have to restart the machine by pressing the computer's power button.

I have already contacted apple support by phone, i have made many reset operations under their control, but nothing changed.

After the restart, when i examine the console log the last message before the reboot is often the following one

windowserver: surface testing disallowed updates for 10 sequential attempts

By searching this message on google i found that the problem might be related with the energy saving settings, i.e. it happens when the mac wakes from sleep. So i changed those settings to prevent the mac going on stop state, and today the problem did not happen, but i'm not sure what wil happen tomorrow ... so i'm looking for information/advice about this kind of problem.

Mac Pro (Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 16, 2015 12:19 PM

213 replies

Aug 27, 2016 11:13 AM in response to albertouch

I've read your post above, thanks for sharing every detail: I’ve been through the same ordeal.

I’m so glad for Neuroreaction’s solution, but you must be very lucky: I’m not able to reproduce the issue and sometimes it needs days between a freezing and another. Then when it happens it can freeze 8 times in a single day just surfing the web or simply browsing the finder or watching a film, no stress is needed! as you clearly wrote.

When I first explained the problem to the Apple Support I also reported the testimonies I found online: they replied saying that forum discussions are not to be trusted, and that they can’t rely on them.

Here is what I’m going to do next Monday. I’ve produced evidence of my last 48 reboots by filming the monitor with my cell phone, in order to show them something concrete. But I’m afraid they’ll say that might be due to some device, or some application I’m running, or something else, and still that my Mac Pro is ok.

I’m an Adobe customer too, and as a professional photographer and Photoshop teacher my Cs6 Creative Suite is original.

I also have external monitors (Eizo) which have always been working fine with my beloved MacBook Pro 2009 (still running Snow Leopard!! never crashed in 7 years -I’m crossing my fingers now). I unplugged my Wacom pen tablet but the Mac frozen with apple magic trackpad too.

I just can’t believe that in almost two years Apple hasn’t answered, considering that this machine has been created essentially for a professional use and aimed at video editing and graphic in general. The Repair Extension Program Apple unofficially launched in february is meant for just some D500 and D700 graphic cards: why, since the issue concern the D300 too?!

In october I’ll be out of my second year warranty. If you know about a class action let us know.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Sep 25, 2016 12:48 PM in response to shashin'ka

update: i am now using an lg monitor 34" resolution 3440x1440, it's connected over thunderbolt with apple TB to TB cable. I set the monitor frequency to 50 hertz (default is 60 hz) and then it worked without any freezing for almost 17 days. Then i installed adobe flash and i suddenly had a freezing. In a previuos test (flash not installed) i let the frequency at 60 hz and i had a freezing in 2-3 days, as usual.

g4hd

Level 1

9 points

Oct 5, 2016 9:44 AM in response to mauro16

Do you mean that monitor frequency set to 50 Hz would help ?

I get 2 monitors with my Mac Pro with 2 D300, 2 years old.

First is a true graphic one, Eizo CG275W with Apple TB to TB cable, its frequency is not alterable, set to 63 Hz.

The other is Nec multisync EA224 in vertical position with TB to TB cable, I just changed it's frequency to 50 Hz (it was on 60 Hz).

Maybe freezings will disappear ?

I get that issues 1 time a day for a while and it also never happens for 1 month… ! Always suddenly, during banal works.

At this time, it runs fine under new Sierra MacOS (which Y test for several weeks with my MacBook Air 11" before applying to the MacPro)…

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 5, 2016 11:27 AM in response to g4hd

In my experience it seems it helps, but if I install adobe flash (you know some internet sites require it) i have the freezings all the same. I also tried with chrome browser, which more or less has flash within itself and doesn't require to install flash, but i had the freezings all the same. I 'discovered' the thing of 50 hz because I first used my monitor on hdmi, there 50 Hz is the default and this reduced the frequence of the freezings. I then tried 50 Hz with TB connection and it run 17 days with no freezings (this never happened before). But it's also difficult to be 100% sure, as you point out the freezings are a bit unpredictable. One time i was running the monitor at 60 hz and i had no freezings for 13 days, but at the end of the 13-th day the freezing came

Oct 5, 2016 11:38 AM in response to shashin'ka

I just can’t believe that in almost two years Apple hasn’t answered, considering that this machine has been created essentially for a professional use and aimed at video editing and graphic in general. The Repair Extension Program Apple unofficially launched in february is meant for just some D500 and D700 graphic cards: why, since the issue concern the D300 too?!

This is a User-to-User forum. Apple makes no promise of reading items posted here, and rarely responds except to give their support people practice with routine complaints.

Just because the D300 is not mentioned in the service bulletin is no reason to stay away. If you have an Apple-owned store, your visit to the genius bar for an evaluation is FREE, regardless of your warranty status. The diagnostics and the ability to do troubleshooting in these Macs is improving.

Even if you have to pay a diagnosis fee at an Apple Authorized Service Provider, it is worth a visit.

Oct 10, 2016 1:09 AM in response to Paul Rutherford1

I am on MacOS 10.12, two external 4k displays, have the same issue. The displays will not wake up after sleep mode. The power lights come on, but the screens remain black. Sigh. Hence the problem is not fixed, but I will also display screens from sleeping.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 22, 2016 2:48 PM in response to mauro16

update: installed sierra 8 days ago, i just had the first freezing (actually a gpu restart). It has been different than with el capitan and yosemite, the screen has become black with light dots, then the login page has been shown with a red bar preventing to insert the password, so i had to force the shutdown with the physical button.

Nov 2, 2016 8:55 AM in response to mauro16

I have the same problem! Mac 2013 late quad core

Here are my console results

10/29/16 5:42:51.000 PM

kernel[0]

[6:0:0] GPU HangState 0x00000000, HangFlags 0x00000004: IndividualEngineHang 0, NonEngineBlockHang 0, FenceNotRetired 1, PerEngineReset 0, FullAsicReset 1

10/29/16 5:42:51.000 PM

kernel[0]

** GPU ASIC Log Start **

10/29/16 5:42:51.000 PM

kernel[0]

: 0x00006810 : 0x000000e3 : 0x00000001 : 0x00000018 : 0x0000a060 : 0x00000001 : 0x00000001 : 0x00006810

more lines like this one

10/29/16 5:42:53.000 PM	kernel[0]	: GPU Debug Info End
10/29/16 5:42:53.000 PM	kernel[0]	------------------------
10/29/16 5:42:53.000 PM	kernel[0]	GPURestartReportEnd
10/29/16 5:42:53.000 PM	kernel[0]	Trying restart GPU ...
10/29/16 5:42:53.149 PM	Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015[784]	NSAlert is being used from a background thread, which is not safe. This is probably going to crash sometimes. Break on void _NSAlertWarnUnsafeBackgroundThreadUsage() to debug. This will be logged only once. This may break in the future.
10/29/16 5:42:53.234 PM	WindowServer[161]	Surface testing disallowed updates for 10 sequential attempts...
10/29/16 5:42:53.372 PM	DumpGPURestart[804]	Saved gpuRestart report for kernel to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2016-10-29-174253_Brians-Mac-Pro.gpuRest art

Nov 3, 2016 7:29 AM in response to mauro16

Did you ever figure out if it was the adapter? I have an adapter as well. When my comp freezes, I have seen that unplugging both monitors (I have one through an adapter to TB and one with HDMI) the computer unfreezes but goes really really slow afterwards. I haven't seen a problem when I don´t have the thunderbolt connector plugged in... but I havent been trying it for very long so far

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 3, 2016 12:04 PM in response to MacSiervos

the problem is not caused by the adapter, i tried different adapters and the problem still happened. Now with sierra it seems it's a bit better, i installed sierra on october, 14 and since then i had 'just' two 'critical' events, one was a bad freezing with gpu restart (on october 22) and i had to switch-off the computer with the computer power button. The second time (on october 27) i could just realize that a freezing was happening and suddenly the login page was displayed, i put the password and i could continue to use the mac.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 4, 2016 1:54 PM in response to mauro16

my experience with sierra seems a bit better than with el capitan, but freezings still occur. I installed sierra on october, 14, i had three freezings since then (so on average one per week). The freezing behavior has changed: the os seems able to detect the freezing and logs you off, so you are shown the login page, you can put the pwd and continue to work. But you will find a crash log with this type of information

Process: WindowServer [172]

Path: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Windo wServer

Identifier: WindowServer

Version: 600.00 (13)

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [1]

Responsible: WindowServer [172]

User ID: 88

Date/Time: 2016-11-04 18:56:13.111 +0100

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.12.1 (16B2555)

Report Version: 12

Anonymous UUID: 104B4B8B-1BF7-C820-8C67-6279D226F116

Sleep/Wake UUID: D8D1150F-16F8-4BD9-A650-D5E3E612EE49

Time Awake Since Boot: 19000 seconds

Time Since Wake: 2800 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)

Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:

Assertion failed: (false && "10 seconds of continuous GPU Driver unreadiness, relaunching WindowServer"), function void IMGGraphicsStackReadinessFailure(), file Server/Windows/Updater.cc, line 2860.

and something like this in your system.log

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.WiFiVelocityAgent[

456]): Service exited with abnormal code: 143

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd[396]): Service exited due to signal: Killed: 9 sent by useractivityd[396]

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[759]): Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.ReportCrash.DirectoryService

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.WiFiProxy[392]): Service exited due to signal: Killed: 9 sent by WiFiProxy[392]

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro ReportCrash[759]: assertion failed: 16B2555: libsystem_trace.dylib + 76912 [C029B910-A65F-35F6-B194-B933B454EAB4]: 0x0

Nov 4 18:56:13 --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.Dock.agent[310]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1

Nov 4 18:56:13 Mac-Pro-di-Mauro ReportCrash[759]: assertion failed: 16B2555: libsystem_trace.dylib + 76912 [C029B910-A65F-35F6-B194-B933B454EAB4]: 0x0

Nov 5, 2016 11:32 AM in response to mauro16

Its its funny to read your posts, because I am having exactly the same issues. My machine was repaired, then exchanged for a new one and the issue persists. This is not a defect with the unit, it is a defect with the Mac Pro (Late 2013) line. I am at the end of my wits.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 5, 2016 1:09 PM in response to mauro16

well actually another freezing happened today and it happened in the old bad way, with the aggravating circumstance that i had to use the computer power button to stop the freezing (pulling off the monitor cable is not effective). So two types of freezing with sierra

- the logout type

- the classical type with the need to power off the computer with power off button

The more i speak and post of it the more the errors increase, to show that the situation with sierra is not any better than before.

burraga

Level 1

9 points

Nov 8, 2016 2:19 AM in response to mauro16

Hi mauro16,

I have also been having the same issue for the past few months.

Today (for the first time) I had the "logout type" of freeze.

Typically I get the "classical type" of freeze that you've mentioned above.

My Mac Pro typically freezes everyday day between 5.30pm-7.30pm. My work-around is to schedule the Mac Pro to shutdown everyday at 5pm. After a period of time (could be 10mins to a couple of hours) I restart the Mac and it is left on until it shuts itself off again at 5pm the next day. This has been working for me so far but is less than ideal.

Does you Mac Pro shut down at the same time?

Cheers

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 8, 2016 12:32 PM in response to burraga

I shut down it at about 23.55 every evening and i restart it the morning after between 8.30 and 11.

After installing sierra i had 4 freezings that came at those times

22.03

20.41

18.56

15.22

if the problem is overheating using your workaround i might have had just one of them. But i don't like to shutdown the computer at 5pm, i'd need it to work at least for one day (8.30 to 23.55) without having to restart it.

mac pro late 2013 freezes with spinning wheel