Powerbook hanging

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John Chambers - 27 Jul 2005 16:13 GMT

Suddenly, a couple of days ago, my wife's Powerbook developed a problem
that mine had last year (but which fixed itself as mysteriously as it
arose). Several times a day, it simply stops in its tracks. The screen
is still lit, and windows are usually changing, showing that the system
is basically alive. But the keyboard, trackpad and "mouse" button are
all non-functional. I've been able to ssh in from my machine, and all
the CLI stuff seems to work. I can even kill apps, and their windows
evaporate. But the only way to get the keyboard/trackpad/button to
work again seems to be a reboot.

Are there any clues about this, or diagnostic tools that might tell us
what the problem is?

It seems to not be related to the currently-active window or process.
A while ago, it happened while I was playing with Internet Connect
and Airport Admin, trying to figure out why the machine had lost
contact with the airport, while the other PB only a few inches away
got 3 bars of signal. But that's another problem.

Yesterday, it hung once while watching a DVD. That time, the picture
froze, and when she went to figure out why, she found that nothing
worked. Earlier, she was reading email with Mail, and it hung while
scrolling down a message. And so on. No two hangs have been while
doing "the same thing".

I did check with apple.com/support, to no avail. Their first suggestion
is to close apps, but of course you can't do that when the keyboard,
trackpad and button are being ignored. Their other suggestions are
rebooting, which is a "fix" of course, but then it just happens again a
few hours later.

Anyone have any clues?

(This is with OSX 10.3.9 with all updates applied; we haven't bitten
on the cost of 10.4 yet. Maybe this is Apple's way of convincing us we
had better pay them for fixing the problem. ;-)

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DaveC - 27 Jul 2005 16:32 GMT

Thus spake John Chambers:

> Several times a day, it simply stops in its tracks. The screen
> is still lit, and windows are usually changing, showing that the system
> is basically alive. But the keyboard, trackpad and "mouse" button are
> all non-functional.

Possibly a memory starting to fail?

You don't mention what model PowerBook. Did it come with the Hardware
Troubleshooting CD? If so boot it and let it run the RAM test uninterrupted.

There are other RAM tests. Check Versiontracker.com or other resource.

Good luck,

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John Chambers - 28 Jul 2005 02:00 GMT

> Thus spake John Chambers:
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> You don't mention what model PowerBook. Did it come with the Hardware
> Troubleshooting CD? If so boot it and let it run the RAM test uninterrupted.

15" Powerbook G4, about 2 years old. One of the things it came with (the
Care package) contained a tester called TechTool Extreme, which I ran. It
did some set of tests on the hard drive, memory, video memory, and other
stuff. It declared them all fine. I reran it a couple of times just for kicks, and
it said "Passed" every time.

> There are other RAM tests. Check Versiontracker.com or other resource.

> Good luck,

Hmmm ... I wonder what it means when the Activity Monitor shows a
process called "Finder (Hung)"? It's been that way for a while, and sure
enough, I can't get Finder to wake up. But in this case, everything else
seems to be working. Maybe I'll watch it and see what happens. I know
from trying that you can't kill Finder, not even with a "forced quit" (which
I assume means "kill -9"). So if it doesn't wake up, it probably means yet
another reboot.

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Nigel McMillan - 28 Jul 2005 05:43 GMT

>>> Several times a day, it simply stops in its tracks. The screen
>>> is still lit, and windows are usually changing, showing that the system
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
> I assume means "kill -9"). So if it doesn't wake up, it probably means yet
> another reboot.

Wonder if its looking for a server or network service of some kind that has
disappeared or some such. Does it do this if booted up without networked
connected? What programs are running at the time - anything common with the
freezes? Just some thought to get you started.

Nig

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John Chambers - 28 Jul 2005 14:22 GMT

> Wonder if its looking for a server or network service of some kind that has
> disappeared or some such. Does it do this if booted up without networked
> connected? What programs are running at the time - anything common with the
> freezes? Just some thought to get you started.

Hmmm ... If any of these cause the entire system to hang permanently, I'd
think it indicates a major problem in the system. We do have an airport,
so theoretically it's on the Net any time it's at home. But lately, I've been
seeing a lot of cases where one of our PBs will lose contact with the airport,
while the other one even a few inches away will show a strong signal. This
sometimes continues for 5 or 10 minutes, then clears up. I haven't found
any tools to diagnose this problem. I do have MacStumbler installed, and
when this happens, it usually shows a strong signal, while Internet Connect
shows no wireless network at all. Sure wish I could find a fix for this. But
this doesn't seem like an explanation for the current problem. After all,
lost wireless connectivity should be a normal event. If it causes all processes
to hang and the keyboard, trackpad and button to become unusable, there's
a major design flaw in the entire system. Failure to make a network connection
shouldn't turn the whole system into a zombie.

There are lots of processes running when it freezes, of course. The usual
flock when the machine boots. I have no idea what many of them are. I
wonder if there's somewhere a list of what all those "normal" processes
are, and a way to check whether any are having problems?

I feel we're grasping at straws here. You don't usually solve computer
problems by making wild guesses without any way of testing them. I'd
think what is needed is some test tools that can diagnose the problem.
But, of course, if the keyboard, trackpad and button are all dead, you are
somewhat limited in what tools you can run ...

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Tom Harrington - 28 Jul 2005 16:15 GMT

> Hmmm ... I wonder what it means when the Activity Monitor shows a
> process called "Finder (Hung)"? It's been that way for a while, and sure
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> I assume means "kill -9"). So if it doesn't wake up, it probably means yet
> another reboot.

Er, actually you can normally kill the Finder from the force-quite
window. It automatically relaunches, but if it's ground to a halt for
some reason, this is how you'd restart it without logging out or
rebooting.

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Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

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John Chambers - 29 Jul 2005 15:45 GMT

>> ... Maybe I'll watch it and see what happens. I know
>>from trying that you can't kill Finder, not even with a "forced quit" (which
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> some reason, this is how you'd restart it without logging out or
> rebooting.

Well, yes; I've done that. But yesterday it didn't work at all. When I
tried a force-quit on the "Finder (Hung)" process, nothing happened
at all. This isn't the first time I've seen this, either. That "(Hung)"
was a new one; I've never seen Finder hung before. But I've seen it
in an unkillable state. On a couple of occasions, its window was on
top, it couldn't be killed, and no other window could be brought to
the top over it (though others could be made active, they just didn't
appear on top of the Finder window.

Finder does seem to have some special relationship with "the system",
or at least the windowing subsystem. I don't understand it at all. One
of the other symptoms yesterday was that when I used F11 to clear
the Desktop, it was frozen. Clicking on Desktop icons had no effect
at all, nor could they be moved around on the screen or even selected.

This may or may not have something to do with that "Finder (Hung)"
in the Activity Monitor. If not, then there were two unreleated things
hung. I'm guessing that, since nothing else seemed hung at the time,
the hangup(s) in Finder and Desktop were related somehow.

A reboot did "fix" it all, of course. But as usual, we might observe that
the actual problem was almost certainly not fixed, and is lurking there
waiting to wake up again.

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Bill - 27 Jul 2005 16:41 GMT

> Suddenly, a couple of days ago, my wife's Powerbook developed a problem
> that mine had last year (but which fixed itself as mysteriously as it
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
> on the cost of 10.4 yet. Maybe this is Apple's way of convincing us we
> had better pay them for fixing the problem. ;-)

I've had occasional hang-up of my mouse pad, but it seems to correct
itself after a little while (generally no more than a few seconds), and
the keyboard keeps working.

Have you tried hooking up an external USB mouse or keyboard? Thet would
tell you something about the problem.

Beyond that, maybe a call to Apple Tech Support is in order. The call
should be free if the machine is still under warranty or under Extended
Applecare Protection. In may experience, Apple Tech Support is quite
helpful for odd problems like this.

Bill

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vze35xda@verizon.net - 28 Jul 2005 07:30 GMT

I had similar problem on a 12" G4 PowerBook and the problem turned out
to be a failing/failed disk drive. Got the drive replaced (under
warranty, barely...) and problem went away.

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John Chambers - 28 Jul 2005 14:26 GMT

> I had similar problem on a 12" G4 PowerBook and the problem turned out
> to be a failing/failed disk drive. Got the drive replaced (under
> warranty, barely...) and problem went away.

I wonder how one would test this. The PB has the TechTool Deluxe tester
installed, and I ran it. It said the disk (and memory and everything else)
passed its tests. Do you know how you verified that it was a failing disk
drive? Or was it just a case of swapping things out until the problem went
away? (The usual way of diagnosing hardware problems ;-)

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / July 2005

Powerbook hanging