Mac randomly segfaulting and logging out

For the past six months or so I've been having an issue where I'll be working on my Mac Pro (details below) and I'll do something (click a button, close a window, copy some text- it's not consistent) and the Mac will freeze for a few seconds and then I'll be logged out (immediately taken back to the login screen). I can then log back in and most of the apps that I had running when I was logged out will be running, although I'll need to restart a few of them. These events will often occur in clusters- I won't have an issue for a week or so, and then it will happen multiple times over a day or two, and then will stop occurring for another week or more. In the last few days it's happened about five times. I always check the system.log and there doesn't seem to be anything of interest preceding the logout, and when it happens I always get the following lines:


Mar 31 11:41:40 BradsMacPro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer[260]): Service exited due to signal: Segmentation fault: 11 sent by exc handler[0]

Mar 31 11:41:40 BradsMacPro sessionlogoutd[39398]: DEAD_PROCESS: 117 console


Sometimes these lines are in reverse order. Other than those two lines, there doesn't appear to be anything consistent in the logs after the sessionlogoutd lines. I can provide more complete system.log lines for each of the events that have occurred if that would be help. I also save all of the WindowServer DiagnosticReports- here is the one from the most recent logout:

https://pastebin.com/UeU9EzrF


I also ran EtreCheck, although it didn't find anything that seemed relevant:

https://pastebin.com/pPbzh5T4


I don't know if it's related, but in the DiagnosticReports folder I also have a number of WindowServer files for wakeups_resource which occur during the same periods of time when I'm having the logout issues. These reports have a line like this in them:

Wakeups: 45001 wakeups over the last 206 seconds (218 wakeups per second average), exceeding limit of 150 wakeups per second over 300 seconds


Here is a complete wakeups_resource file:

https://pastebin.com/AXLn0ZG3


I've searched around to try and find a solution and here are some similar reports of people having issues like this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6850739

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/314657/macos-freezes-for-a-few-seconds -then-logout

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/188255/yosemite-regularly-crashes-retu rns-to-login-screen


Hardware setup:

Mac Pro (Mid 2010)

Mac Pro Model: MacPro5,1

2 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (Xeon(R)) CPU: 8-core

32GB RAM

macOS 10.3.3

Video Information (two cards driving three monitors):

  • ATI Radeon HD 5770 - VRAM: 1 GB
    • MPCP28UHD 2560 x 1440 @ 59 Hz
    • DELL 2001FP 1200 x 1600 @ 60 Hz
  • NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 - VRAM: 512 MB

    DELL U2412M 1200 x 1920


Other than these logout issues, the Mac seems to be running very well. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Mac Pro, iOS 11.3, null

Posted on Mar 31, 2018 10:03 AM

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2 replies

Mar 31, 2018 10:35 AM in response to bindaburg

A segmentation fault is usually caused by defective memory, including RAM that does not meet (or no longer meets) its published specifications. Usually, that problem only becomes evident upon macOS upgrades or updates. There isn't any good way to confirm or dismiss that suspicion other than replacing RAM modules. You could run Apple Hardware Test all day long but if it continues to pass its extended memory tests, you won't be any more knowledgeable than you are now. A report of a specific failure would be conclusive though.


The spontaneous freezing and logout events probably occur too rarely to use Safe Mode, though it would certainly be instructive to determine if it occurs or not while using your Mac in that mode. If it does though, a hardware fault (most likely RAM) is almost certainly the cause.


The Samsung "EVO" series SSDs don't enjoy a good reputation among Mac users, so it complicates things also.


The Apple Support and Stack Exchange results you found are not likely to be applicable to your particular circumstances. One of them appears to involve an ill-conceived "memory management" product (always a bad idea) and the others are old or complicated by the presence of equally ill-conceived "anti-virus" junk. None of them concerns a Mac Pro. Constrain your searches to the Mac Pro, but lacking additional detail RAM appears to be the most likely culprit.

Apr 2, 2018 6:08 AM in response to John Galt

Thanks for the detailed response. Since running a Apple Hardware Test seemed like a low-risk thing to do (even if it might be fruitless), I ran one (in extended testing mode). After 3.5 hours, it came back with just the following alert/error:


4VDC/1/40000003: VideoController


Do you think this could be contributing to my Segmentation faults? I searched around a bunch and it seems like some people are saying that error is related to the video card, others say it's an issue with the logic board, and other say it's a false positive and it's just because of a firmware update. Do you have any insight into this? Are there any other tests that I could perform to try and narrow down where my issue is originating? Does the crash log (DiagnosticReports) show any issue that points to an issue with the video card (versus an issue with memory)? Thanks again for your assistance.

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Mac randomly segfaulting and logging out

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