stevenfromyokohama
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Q: 3 years, 6 crashes -- why is this happening and how to stop it?

I had my iMac 27 2013 made with 32gb, 3tb, and a fusion drive. Six months after the fusion drive became separated from the logic drive (if that's correct term). Sometime after that repair, it crashed hard core so that even with Apple telephone support they had to pick it up to reinstall the software. About six months later the familiar rainbow ball came, it started slowing down and crashed again. I reinstalled from TM and about half a year later it crashed again -- and so on. When the rainbow ball appeared before the last crash I ran every diagnostic I could find on line and then went over them again with Apple rep on the phone. They picked it up for the third time and kept it for a week sending it back saying they could find nothing wrong. Now it's crashed again.  Why? 

 

I knew to put a version of Yosemite on an external HDD, so I can run the computer from that. I can connect the 2013 to my Macbook and Thunderbolt cable, too. I called Apple and asked them to have the Engineering team look at the OS/logs for me. They'll get back to me next week. So, I have this bum computer on my desk and I'm trying to make sense of what's wrong with it. 

 

It won't start in SafeMode. Of course I've run disk repair both through the Macbook (thunderwire), Terminal (while connected through Yosemite on that external HDD I mentioned), and through Recovery Mode. That got me thinking perhaps I could split the drive and put a new OS on one half. Nope. I tried with both diskutl, fdisk, and (out of frustration) gpt though Airmac, Yosemite, and Recovery Mode. In every case the drive was unable to be mounted and/or busy. I even tried unmounting the disk from terminal to initiate a partition and also split the partition but nothing works.

 

Based on the information I've given, does anyone have any idea what's going on with my OS? It's like there a part within the program that deteriorates over time. What makes this really frustrating is that I still have my 2009 iMac with the exact same programs and I work through the same data (by sharing the data through my network). If it were something pertaining to my data, it should affect my other computers, right?

 

Any ideas or thoughts you have are appreciated.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), Mac OS X (10.7.5), 32GB memory , 3TB fusion drive

Posted on Jan 15, 2016 10:23 PM

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stevenfromyokohama

Q: 3 years, 6 crashes -- why is this happening and how to stop it?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Jan 16, 2016 4:49 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 8 (49,846 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 16, 2016 4:49 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    Can explain how it "crashed" in more detail?

  • by stevenfromyokohama,

    stevenfromyokohama stevenfromyokohama Jan 16, 2016 8:21 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 8:21 AM in response to Barney-15E

    Sure.

     

    It always starts with the rainbow ball. My system would start to slow down and that ball just stayed longer and longer though I was doing nothing differently than before. If I'm working with Photoshop during this phase, PS will crash -- a very rare thing, I'm told. Eventually, over a couple of weeks, the rainbow ball won't go away and I'll have no option but to turn off the power button to restart it. It will work fine during the first phase, but eventually even after the restart it will go directly to the rainbow ball. I now know when this is coming because the time for the computer to boot gets longer and longer. Eventually it just won't boot, even in safe mode. Twice it's happened that the screen turned to something like the screen in Matrix, just a bunch of random numbers running up endlessly. Both times there was nothing I could do to fix it and Apple sent someone out to pick up my computer for repair. The first time they replaced the RAM, the second time they offered no explanation and the last time was to do a check of the hardware -- no problems.

     

    I'd like to stress that all the programs are the same across the three computers and the data I use is also the same. 

     

    Right now I'm perplexed because although I can't boot the system from El Captain installed on the iMac, I can view movies, play music and access the photos through Photoshop that are on that internal iMac HD by booting to that external drive. I'm curious if I run the computer from the HD if it will eventually become corrupted as well -- that would definitely be proof that I'm doing something wrong, but it takes about half a year for it to crash.

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Jan 16, 2016 4:18 PM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 8 (49,846 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 16, 2016 4:18 PM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    It could be something wrong with your hard drive. There really isn't a way to test it, so they wouldn't have identified a problem unless the SMART status indicated anything.

     

    When it slows, open Console, select All Messages and clear the display. Then wait until the log fills a couple of pages. Copy and paste the log into a reply here.

    I Guess that won't be anytime soon. However, you can search the log for i/o errors. If you se a lot, the hard drive may be the issue.

  • by stevenfromyokohama,

    stevenfromyokohama stevenfromyokohama Jan 16, 2016 11:38 PM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 11:38 PM in response to Barney-15E

    Since I haven't written over the drive with a new version of the OS do you think they'll be able to find anything if I send it back as it is now? I can only access it though an external HD. Is it possible to access the kind of info you've suggested from an OS on another computer, or from the files on the computer itself?

  • by woodmeister50,Helpful

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Jan 17, 2016 7:03 PM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 5 (5,505 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 17, 2016 7:03 PM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    I deleted post, made mistake.

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Jan 17, 2016 4:09 PM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 8 (49,846 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 17, 2016 4:09 PM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    stevenfromyokohama wrote:

     

    Since I haven't written over the drive with a new version of the OS do you think they'll be able to find anything if I send it back as it is now? I can only access it though an external HD. Is it possible to access the kind of info you've suggested from an OS on another computer, or from the files on the computer itself?

    They could look at the log files from another computer. I don't know if they will do that.

     

    Are you still under AppleCare on the Mac? If so, I would certainly take it in and see what they can do. Try to explain to them what has been done in previous attempts to repair the same problem.

  • by stevenfromyokohama,

    stevenfromyokohama stevenfromyokohama Jan 17, 2016 7:04 PM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 7:04 PM in response to Barney-15E

    Yes. And it's been back several times. Each time they can't find anything wrong with it. It's really frustrating. No one can explain to me why it only affect the 2013 iMac even though the the other computers in my network are sharing the same data and using the same software. 

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Jan 18, 2016 4:19 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 8 (49,846 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 18, 2016 4:19 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    I can't explain it either.

    Does any of the software you use modify the system? That would be just about anything that requires some type of installer.

     

    If you've got a spare external hard drive, try installing the OS on that and boot from that drive. See what happens over time when using that drive. It may be a bit slow, though.

  • by Lexiepex,

    Lexiepex Lexiepex Jan 18, 2016 5:50 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 6 (10,477 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 18, 2016 5:50 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    Personally I have bad dreams about FusionDrive.

    In this case it looks like system caches that grow and grow without the usual cleaning by the system.

    Can you give the disk size of the SSD part?

    You specified iMac late 2013 and OS10.7.5: that is contradictory, because 2013 iMacs were delivered with 10.8, also iMacs 2012 were already delivered with 10.8, so I think that you have a 2011 iMac.

  • by Lexiepex,

    Lexiepex Lexiepex Jan 18, 2016 6:04 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama
    Level 6 (10,477 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 18, 2016 6:04 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama

    Or of course you have 10.8 or later instead of 10.7.....

    The 3TB iMac was available later than 2011, late 2012...

  • by stevenfromyokohama,

    stevenfromyokohama stevenfromyokohama Jan 22, 2016 9:56 PM in response to Lexiepex
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 22, 2016 9:56 PM in response to Lexiepex

    Hi,

     

    I made a mistake somewhere, but I definitely have a late 2013, 27 inch, 3.5GHz intel core i7 32gb 1600 Mhz DDD3.

     

    The version I'm now running is 10.11.3

     

    After speaking with a senior rep, they told me that the Engineering dept is 1.5 months behind schedule, and basically, not to hold my breath. He also suggested I started saving Activity Monitor reports either daily or weekly as a means to help identify the problem. 

     

    I did the wipe and instal, but this time, since the ssd was already unmounted (it always unmounts when it crashes) I partitioned the drive and put the OS on a 500GB partition. I remounted the SSD but it says it's unformatted. Do you think I should unmount it again, format it, or just leave it alone. I was thinking about using it as my scratch disk for Photoshop.