High Sierra freeze

GeorgeW751 wrote:

I am also having the same issue with my 2014 27-inch iMac. Funny thing is, I have a 2009 21-inch iMac which is also running macOS High Sierra--it has never frozen. One difference is that it's not using the new APFS file system.

APFS seems, I think, to be the issue, maybe not the whole problem, but this is the newest part of OSX. APFS was introduced with High Sierra. It interesting that you have been able to test using the two file systems with High Sierra and that the Mac using the old file system is more stable.Quite why this should be the case is odd as it is affecting different Mac’s to a lesser or greater extent. APFS seems to have escaped this discussion up until now, although I haven’t read every single response.

Having the same problem too since upgrading to High Sierra about 2 months ago!

I noticed it's related to graphics/gpu heavy operations, things like streaming video - youtube, but mainly the FB player causes extreme slowness.

Also, opening Google Maps (in Chrome AND Safari) causes extreme slugishness.

BTW, over time with HS updates (and betas) there seems to be some progress with this issue... the mac is at least mostly usable now, but still much slower than Sierra!

Apple please fix this!!! 😠😠😠

LOTS OFF FREEZE WITH MY MAC PRO 6.1 D700 ( I use multiple screens and switch configuration a lot ).

Reset pram help but ONE TIME A GOT FREEZE DURING A SHOW SO BAD !!

NOW DOWNGRADED TO SIERRA and work fine again.

Thanks APPLE

well for me High Sierra is now only on my CMP 5.1 and works at this time

Well, since I downgrade my mac pro 6.1 D700 to sierra all work back to normal again.

It looks like high sierra will be a freeze osx for ever ! upgrade after upgrade nothing change.

If you're working at home ok to use it but for us using high sierra on show it's like playing with death.

Apple can you fix this!

I have been watching this thread since the beginning, as I too was having these problems. I traced it to an external HDD issue in that they needed reformatting. I posted this some time ago, and a few said that they were not using external HDD's, so the problem continued (for them) But I still believe it has something to do with incompatibility of USB devices, as I have had no trouble with freezing since organising my external HDD's properly. Also I'm running 32GB Ram on late 2015 iMac 5K if it helps.

I used to have that issue, where it would freeze but it could return after a couple minutes, especially if I disconnected and reconnected a monitor. The bug in this thread could be related, but the Mac becomes permanently unresponsive.

Looking through this thread, there are many people that thought they had found the solution until later on when the problem came back or when it couldn't be reproduced by others. In my case, I do have two external HDDs, but I don't think there would be updated firmware for them. The internal volume is Apple's own product. If it is indeed related to disk drives, perhaps it's an issue with extreme write delay. Before I go about disconnecting external drives, how long has it been since you upgraded your firmware?

I can confirm only delays at boot problem as resolved with 100% certainty. It was reproducible and it is not happening anymore. With freezes it is harder to say. As I write before, I did have few freezes (10-20) at working day. Now, it is about 24h (and one working day) after firmware upgrade without single freeze. Even if the SSD firmware upgrade did not fix freeze problems completely it certainly makes it happen less often in my case. I will send status updates to this thread. Of course, as I did not known root cause (or causes) of this problem I can't have universal solution :-(

I find myself in a strange position where I have to ask my employer to purchase a new Mac, despite this $4,000+ MacPro being just a few years old. This is the only known resolution at the time.

Everyone is scrambling to find a solution for Apple. There have been many logical ideas, such as:

- Update your aftermarket SSD (people without an SSD experience this as well)

- Upgrade your RAM (people with 32 GB + experience this as well)

- Have fewer monitors connected to reduce strain on the GPU (is this acceptable though?)

- Clean install or downgrade macOS (doesn't fix. perhaps firmware has permanently ruined these computers until new firmware comes along)

- Reset pvram and smc

- Try various Onyx options

- Disconnect external media (in case delayed writes are causing this)

- Turning off pretty much everything you might find useful (Siri, Spotlight, Time Machine, iCloud)

- Disabling TRIM

- Apple fix memory leaks and bugs in WindowServer and Metal 2

We've noticed that music can keep playing through the freeze. The only apparent option is to power down by the button. Some have pointed out there is a way to shutdown cleanly through SSH, but that is for technical users that have some time on their hands.

In my case, I have a perfectly functional machine (mid-2014 MacBookPro Retina 16GB RAM), were it not for TimeMachine (TM). I did HDD firmware updates on my WesternDigital USBs, and when doing TM backups onto these yesterday and today, the freezes happened. I also did a firmware update on my Apple Airport (wish I hadn't) now I can't back up, and the freezes are even worse when I try. I am now only able to TM backup to a USB Seagate - this is getting scary. And I've reformatted all the USB disks a month ago, and TM seemed to work for a while, but not any more. (The WDs work otherwise if they are not used as TM disks) Interestingly, the APFS reformat option was only available for the Seagate. A week ago, all my external HDDs were happy with TM - now it feels like High Sierra is rotting from within. I'm advising my colleagues to stay away from High Sierra - it is a disgrace.

It won't fix the issues, I did that.

There are firmware updates that take place during major Mac OS upgrades. When you move back to an older OS, these firmware updates are not reversed. This problem appears to be related to one of those types of updates because moving back to Sierra didn't solve the issue.

Not sure how much of this thread you've read. Yes it's related. It's been tracked back by several people to being most likely issues with the video chips. Also, it's been mentioned several times that people have gone back to earlier versions and the problems have not been resolved.

Indeed! when you go on "About this mac" and choose display you can see if yours has a Nvidia card

Coregts wrote:

Did you try with both screen at Max resolution?

It seems that this is critical.

all 4 are always at maximum resolution

Do you have LG 5K external monitor connected to these devices? If yes, do you have issues when connecting/disconnecting/opening clamshell when connected?

What did you do?

I think should downgrade system to sierra