Forums | MacLife

wellfleation · 2003-11-18 12:41 pm

I had Word, a loan calculating program, acqlite (file sharing program), OS X calculator, Safari and Quicktime opened up. I was using the loan-calculating program and then switched to Word when all of a sudden neither it nor any other programs would respond. I forced quit all opened programs and even re-launched the finder. Yet every time my cursor was moved to my Dock I got the spinning beach ball and nothing would work. I waited several minutes until my patience ran out and ended up having to unplug my 12" PB and take the battery out and then power back up. It took me back to those OS 9 days (yuck!). What's the deal?

Specs: 12" PowerBook/867MHz/640MB/SuperDrive

Halbie · 2003-11-18 1:02 pm

They enabled the "system crashing functionality" to make Word seem more Windows-like for new switchers.

wellfleation · 2003-11-18 1:04 pm

Bastards! I'm no switcher!

wellfleation · 2003-11-18 1:14 pm

BTW, I'm running Panther and have recently run DiskWorrior/repaired permissions/optimized system as I do on a weekly basis.

This never happened in Jag. . .

ViralDoctor · 2003-11-18 1:18 pm

Next time that happens, try launching the terminal and executing this command:

Code:

top -u

That'll let you see what's using up your resources. You could try killing it, but if it's a system thing (WindowServer, SystemUIServer, etc.) it either will not let you or log you out.

You could also launch Activity Monitor, it does the same thing as top -u.

pottymouth · 2003-11-18 1:30 pm

Next time that happens, try launching the terminal and executing this command:
Code:
top -u
That'll let you see what's using up your resources. You could try killing it, but if it's a system thing (WindowServer, SystemUIServer, etc.) it either will not let you or log you out.

You could also launch Activity Monitor, it does the same thing as top -u.

When my Macs do that there's no way to launch the terminal. It will just beachball forever and won't ever let me do anything.

wellfleation · 2003-11-18 1:39 pm

So much for being, "Solid as a rock Panther improves the open-standard, industrial-strength, UNIX-based. . ."

luigi · 2003-11-18 1:40 pm

I have never seen X crash entirely. Safari unexpectadly quits occassionally and Excel goes bye bye a lot, but other than that no problems. The little things I keep hearing scare me away from panther.

wellfleation · 2003-11-18 1:45 pm

Oh, one other thing I forgot to add was I was using Expose quite extensively toggling between different windows.

pcguy · 2003-11-18 1:47 pm

Unplug? remove battery?
Wouldn't holding down on/off switch for 3 second do the trick?

wellfleation · 2003-11-18 2:28 pm

Unplug? remove battery?
Wouldn't holding down on/off switch for 3 second do the trick?

Don't know, didn't know about that one. This causes a PB to auto-shut-down even if other users are logged in, etc?

yelowpunk · 2003-11-18 2:31 pm

It doesn't shut down - it shuts off. The difference being that shutting down would log out, save, end procceses, etc. and shutting off just cuts the power.

-Tima

ctopfel · 2003-11-18 2:33 pm

Oh, one other thing I forgot to add was I was using Expose quite extensively toggling between different windows.

It often happened to me that any OSX version crashed:

reason 1: i did to many system updates instead of archive and install, and i screwed up to many system parts (via CLI etc..), gave me one kernel panic after another. finally solved it by installing panher from scratch.
reason 2: before panther, the beachball appeared every time you disconnected the lan without removing the file ervers from the desktop.. spinning ball... with a chance of 50% you could kill finder, and everythng was fine, in the other 50% you ha dto hard-reboot (don't remove your battery, just push the powerbutton 5 secs)

just look if the error can be reproduced, if no, it was just bad luck, if yes, see if one of the reasons above match, and if no, buy a dell pc big_smile hehe

in conclusion i have to say that OS X is of course not rock-solid, but this is mostly because of bad programmmed drivers (e.g. hpp printer drivers, nah) or software compatibikity issues. if you're using only tipical UNIX-programs, OS X won't probably ever crash.

ctopfel

wschart · 2003-11-18 2:50 pm

I've had this happen a few times. Eventually I found out that most of them were caused by me connecting to my other computer at home over Airport and forgetting to disconnect when I went to work in the morning. I learned that, if this happened, I'd wait a few minutes, get the message about unexpected disconnect (or whatever it says), dismiss that and I'm back in business.

I've also had this a few times when accessing files over Airport; eventually things stabilize and I can go on. Usually, if it is some finder activity, I can get to other apps and use them.

I suspect that there is some rogue process running in the background eating up resources. Since you can't launch terminal when this happens, why don't you have terminal up with top running proactively? Have the window somewhere you can see it even if you can hid/minimize/move your windows. Then you would have a better idea what is happening.

MuckSavage · 2003-11-18 3:14 pm

It's happened to me a few times in jag, and once now in panther.

I think it's a deal with electricity. You never know how it's going to act. There is no such thing as a "crash-proof" computer. Computers are complex machines. Sometimes they put a 0 where a 1 should have gone.

KolobsWarrior · 2003-11-18 4:26 pm

Unplug? remove battery?
Wouldn't holding down on/off switch for 3 second do the trick?

Yeah, holding down the power button shuts off your mac, no matter which one it is. You have to hold it for a little while though. I've had to do that on my 12" PowerBook before.

-KW

titus02906 · 2003-11-18 7:39 pm

The only time I get beach-balled is when I forget to disconnect my iBook from the server. I imagine it's like blinking and finding your best friend, the only one you can talk to and who understands you, is missing.

Forums | MacLife

#1 2003-11-18 12:41 pm

I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#2 2003-11-18 1:02 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#3 2003-11-18 1:04 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#4 2003-11-18 1:14 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#5 2003-11-18 1:18 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

Code:

#6 2003-11-18 1:30 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

Code:

#7 2003-11-18 1:39 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#8 2003-11-18 1:40 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#9 2003-11-18 1:45 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#10 2003-11-18 1:47 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#11 2003-11-18 2:28 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#12 2003-11-18 2:31 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#13 2003-11-18 2:33 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#14 2003-11-18 2:50 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#15 2003-11-18 3:14 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#16 2003-11-18 4:26 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

#17 2003-11-18 7:39 pm

Re: I thought a crash was not supposed to bring down system?

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