Freezes in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Discussion user "accolon" reports:
It seems to me that Spotlight is the cause for the problem, at least it's heavily involved. When I use Spotlight to start an application (by pressing Cmd+Space and entering something), the hard disk remains constantly active even after the search box has disappeared. If I simply ignore this, it takes a couple of minutes until the spinning beach ball begins to appear. At first it's only there for a couple of seconds, freezing just the application I'm currently using (e.g. Safari, no scrolling possible). After some time, the whole system freezes, and I can't do anything besides moving the mouse. Even my keyboard is dead while the beach ball is spinning for 30 seconds or more.Attempting to solve the issue by rebuilding the Spotlight index offered no relief for the freezing. Other users report their freezes clearing if they wait--sometimes upwards of five minutes. Other programs that users find freeze include Skype, Safari, or when using music discs with iTunes.
Apple recently released Performance Update 1.0 which was designed to solve hard drive issues on qualifying machines. Users in this forum with those machines report that it seems to have cleared the freezing issues, however not all users experiencing the freezes are eligible for the update. Try using Disk Utility and running Verify (and subsequently Repair, if necessary) Disk on your hard drive. You should also be sure any third-party software you have running (especially applications that run in the background) are completely up-to-date and Snow Leopard compatible. Many believe the issue to be related to Apple's WebKit standard which drives applications like Safari and Mail. The ominous "INSERT-HANG-DETECTED" error message is the most common thread in Console logs from reporting users, suggesting some sort of network issue.
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Check to see if you have an older version of "Dashboard Kickstart" installed (or other older dashboard widgets). Also experiment with some of your automatic login items, particularly iChat. I've noticed some freezing upon logging in with 10.6 (have only had it happen once with 10.6.1 so far) where the screen goes dim just before the OS begins loading some automatic login program (e.g., iChat, Dashboard Kickstart, Mail, etc.). it may have to do with the "timing" of when the automatic login program is launched before some process in the OS has finished loading.
indexing events usually trigger them -- as do cancelled TimeMachine backups. Both types
of actions usually result in long delays or hangs.
I was able to get around it by disabling the screensaver altogether, but this seems like a poor solution to something that should 'just work' on the computer.
In conjunction with the freeze, the fans will speed up, noticeable heat increase from the tower. Force quit. Upon restarting, the fans will are at high speed and the screen(30"Cinema) stays dark. After a second forced shutdown and restart normal operation is restored for a day or so.
Your selfless sacrifice is appreciated.
I had an unprinted job on a Brother Printer. The printer would be on another network after traveling. The Brother Printer driver, apparently, will try to print the job by looking for the non-existent printer. There apparently is a bug in the printer driver in that the search for the printer would end up taking almost all of the CPU cycles. The CPU temperature would rise to 218 degrees, at which point, the Mac freezes.
I solved the problem by eliminating that particular Brother printer driver (the 2140 driver, which is used for the 2170 network printer).
Now, I don't have any more freezes.
Thus, perhaps some freezes are due to rogue printer drivers that end up taking all of the CPU time.
The first indication of this was when I looked at Activity Monitor to find out why my MacBook Pro was overheating in an iChat session - when it never did before.
I was ready to blame Adobe and Flash but found the printer driver, instead, acting up. In the past, if there was an unprinted job, the printer driver would not act up this way.
I can't remember that I had these effects in Leopard.
everytime I try to use them. Is it possible I have download a strange file to Word which may be
causing it? I am not too smart computer wise, but have had Macs for 13 years and never had a problem
so bad. I have lost ability to use my mail also. Just use it on the net.
everytime I try to use them. Is it possible I have download a strange file to Word which may be
causing it? I am not too smart computer wise, but have had Macs for 13 years and never had a problem
so bad. I have lost ability to use my mail also. Just use it on the net.
so my advise - backup NOW! ( my timemachine did not help at all) - so im manually copying some stuff
delete all - reinstall a clean version - update to 10.6.2
that helped
ps. now i cant double click on a browser window to hide in the dock or get a smalll running screen preview of a movie on my desktop
so.. im getting tired of this microsoft-intel crap...
Doesn't matter what is happening- wake from sleep, switch wireless networks, move between apps, I'll get 5-8 grey boxes for hard restart a week.
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by Epsilon519
October 20, 2009 11:48 AM PDT
- I've had Finder lock up and cash so many times that i decided to do a fresh install and it still didn't fix it. After installing the performance update last night it seems a bit better but now my MacBook Pro has an ever so subtle electronic hiss. It wont do it in the Apple Hardware Test be as soon as it loads into Snow Leopard its there. Its not the speakers because i connected head phones to the jack. I wish Apple would do more testing of their software before releasing it. Will try another fresh install and see if it goes away.
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