High Sierra freeze

Does anyone have any idea what to do? My powerful Mac Book Pro has turned into something less reliable and performing, than a nettop with Celeron CPU, running Linux.

Only downgrade to previous version (Sierra) solves the problems 100%. You may ease the problem a bit to make the freezes a less frequent with some of the instructions provided in this thread, but to really get rid of the problems 100% the only way is to downgrade.

globalisReal wrote:

• verified disk
• reset NVRAM
• reset SMC

if you're a noob, and there's 28 pages to a thread for an unresolved problem, just dont even think about giving advice without reading the thread first

Hi Davy

i was just on the phone with a senior tech support person about the same thing - and mentioned to him that someone in the forum reported this same problem on a new mac pro - he was certainly surprised- and for some reason this issue is not on apples radar. Please call for support and ask to talk to a senior tech person.

I noticed it after the 10.13.3 upgrade.

The last beta update (v2 17D25b Dec 22, 2017) made no difference. If anything, it made it worse.

Booting up is fairly slow. I can hear the hard drive working hard. After 15 minutes, the drive slows down, becoming quiet (normal).

I had suspected it was any video was causing it until iTunes was pausing.

All activity (pointer, video, audio, etc.) begins where it left off. But, these delays can last for a few minutes; enticing me to restart, but it always comes back to the point it froze, eventually.

I thought it could be Spotlight indexing by the way it sounds.

Siri has been screwy since 10.13.3 was installed; errors on the second Siri access. Slow most other times.

Restarting has no effect.

I didn't notice any Time Machine backup drive activity coinciding with the freezing.

Other than very slow reboots, once booted and the hard drive doesn't sound like a constant muffled popcorn machine, it behaves itself. But, I fully expect it to begin freezing as time goes by. (Usually while watching video, the moment prior to a joke's punch line it'll freeze - yes, I know, not related, just a frustrating very inconvenient consequence. If I wait, I can usually catch it.)

All typing and mouse movements will catch up in a burst of activity. Videos and audio begins where they left off.

(Although, I did notice iTunes not restarting a smart play list.)

I, also, feel it could be heat related as restarting it has little affect, but leaving it powered off over night and its obligatory oddly long reboot in the morning, it behaves... for a while.

A full "Onyx" maintenance had no affect.

In short, my Mac is working, but it's not very smooth later in the day with it's lengthy hiccups.

"It just works." Less and less, update after update.
Good news: Mac still doesn't have viruses.

Bad news: It doesn't matter, Apple is adept at sabotaging itself.

I miss Steve's quality control, too.

That’s related to the website you’re currently on (the discussion forum is using Jive software).

Can you try opening the Console, wait until the hanging behavior repeats itself and then make a note of the time, then look at the Console logs from when it was hanging and see what it says. We’re trying to find out what the system is doing when it’s hanging like you describe.

I find it interesting that for me, the MacBook Pro will crash on battery when running discrete GPU. Within 2 minutes of removing the plug and firing up a graphics program that switches from integrated to discrete GPU it'll abort and power off. Consistently.

Upon upgrading from El Capitan to High Sierra .0, it crashed regularly when plugged into any external monitor and in clamshell mode. Keeping the lid open seemed to help some. Upgrading to 13.2 seems to have mostly removed the clamshell/external monitor crash. But not completely.

When I run the laptop plugged in, it'll stay running for a couple of hours. The moment I unplug and start a graphics intensive program, it crashes. Every single time. If I can avoid apps that cause a GPU switch I am less likely to have the crash. EtreCheck returns:

2018-01-03 08:03:38 Last shutdown cause: -128 - Unknown

Restoring to El Capitan from time machine backup didn't have any impact.

Wiping and a clean install to Sierra didn't have any impact

Wiping and a clean install to High Sierra didn't have any impact.

I think I've restored my 800GB TM backup 2x and started over from scratch 2x over the holidays.... I'm tired of rebuilding!

Thus, my laptop has become a desktop--I'm really looking forward to Apple figuring this out.

I took the time to try a downgrade back to Sierra and that doesn't solve the issue, despite the fact that these issues began the day I upgraded to High Sierra.

After doing a fair amount of research online, it seems fairly clear to me that this is likely caused by firmware updates that also take place during OS upgrades. Reverting to an earlier version of the OS doesn't appear to downgrade the firmware so the issue remains. I've seen experiments online of people even downgrading to Yosemite and earlier yet the problem is now essentially baked into your Mac.

I'll also mention that, at least in my case, there is an element of interaction with the firmware and OS that makes things markedly better or worse. For example, 10.13.3 was bad, but useable for me. Unfortunately, the supplemental update to 10.13.3 is a disaster rendering my computer completely unusable. This may be part of Peter's issue if you have automatic updating turned on. The timing seems to match with the supplemental update. That was actually my trigger for attempting the downgrade path.

Currently I'm using a partition with 10.12.6 and though the issues are still present, they're less severe than any of the High Sierra versions. In most cases, the issue only occurs when the computer comes out of sleep and even then, if I baby things for 5 to 10 minutes (not doing too much window switching, not opening an application that's highly resource intensive), things will gradually settle down and the computer will become stable again.

Just my .02 cents and observations.

Instead of holding the power button you can also force a reboot using Cmd+Opt+Ctrl+Shift+Period. This is supposed to generate a sysdiagnose report but when in this GPU freeze state it crashes and reboots.

As someone who posted about my many troubles many pages back, I can now report that I haven't seen any troubles since 10.13.3. I have a Dell monitor and 2 Apple Thunderbolt displays hanging off my MacPro. I had so many problems before 10.13.3 that I never let my computer go to sleep. But I'm now without fear, they seemed to have fixed it for me. I delayed reporting until I was sure the problem was behind me, but I think it is now (I'm on 10.13.4 currently). YMMV.

Anyone tried this script?

http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/file?d=145

I did a few hours ago. Stress tested and no freeze until now... but isn't conclusive...

Open an issue via bugreport.apple.com

Hey I have had these issues too. I just uninstalled Steam and the issue SEEMS to have gone away. I'll update you if I'm wrong.

Yes, update 10.30.2 is fixing the problem. I updated and freezing is gone so far, even after video content played.

davetking wrote:

Yes, update 10.30.2 is fixing the problem. I updated and freezing is gone so far, even after video content played.

have you tried editing pictures in the Photos app?

So, this time Apple genius bar re-installed Mac OS Sierra (effectively went back to 10.12.6) and it is stable thus far. Downside: all data and applications needed to be wiped and restored.