Help needed troubleshooting unstable Mac-mini

tomdkat

tomdkat

Registered
So, we have a PowerPC-based Mac-mini with 512MB of RAM and a 60GB (I think) HDD. It's running OS X Tiger (the latest updated version).

Overall, it's been a stable machine except for recently (the last couple of weeks). The machine will hang and we were unable to force quit a hung application today. So, we've been having to manually power the machine off, wait for a bit, and then power it back on in order to try to use it.

There is plenty of disc space (less than 20% of it is being used) but I don't know if there is a RAM issue since I'm not around to see how the primary users of the machine use it. When I use the machine, it runs just fine. However, I'll get phone calls about it being hung days after I've touched it.

There has been more than one occasion where I've noticed several apps were left running (the window for the app was closed but in the dock, there is a upward pointing black arrow under the icon for the app) after everyone had left the office and I'm always terminating these apps when I'm there to work on whatever.

So, I'm looking for troubleshooting ideas. Is there a log I can look at that might describe crashes or application issues? Is there a way to determine why any given app can't be terminated using the force quit key sequence? We don't have an Apple keyboard connected to it but a USB US 101-key keyboard connected and Control-Alt-ESC doesn't seem to work (I got that key sequence from this site[/url) nor did Control-Alt-Shift-ESC.

The problem is, I'm not able to be there when the primary users of the machine use it so I can't see the specific things they are doing that they are not aware of that could be contributing to the problems we're having.

Thanks!

Peace...
 
Next time you are there, run "repair permissions" from Disk Utility (better yet, by booting from your system disk). Run the free Applejack that is available from usual sources.

Best paid app to use is DiskWarrior!

Strongly encourage your co-workers to quit apps when they are through with them; some apps quit upon closing the window, but most do not.
 
Also use a cattle prod on them.

It may not help fix their computers, but it will amuse you.

--J.D.

P.S. You can also add the freeware Onyx for general maintenance. Cocktail is good but is a shareware. The "advantage" to the later is you can "grade" what sort of maintenance you wish to run--"daily," "weekly," "monthly." Unfortunately, neither of them can run on a schedule you can set as far as I know.

Repairing permissions takes a long time on 10.5 and you probably do not need to do that as frequently as other maintenance; though I defer to a Guru on that point.

DiskWarrior is great particularly for "finding" things when someone decides to destroy their volume/OS--like . . . me! There is also TechTools which is more expensive--they come out with updates, but you often have to purchase a DVD for the update to work on your Mac. DW was one price for 4.0--with a discount if you had previous--and their two updates have been free--save your original disk!
 
Thanks, I'll look into repairing permissions and running Applejack and DiskWarrior when I can.

Here is some additional info. The machine is VERY SLUGGISH when it wasn't always this way. Here is system memory information from the Activity monitor:

Wired: 54.87
Active: 106.99
Inactive: 186.48
Used: 348.30
Free: 163.70
VM Size: 4.29GB
Page ins/outs: 200076/0

This was with four applications running, a specialized app called "MacPractice", Safari 3.2 (I believe), Finder, and the Activity Monitor itself.

When we tried to open Safari, we got the spinning color wheel. Then when Safari loaded, it took a while for the home page to appear. Then, when we tried to open Finder, we got the spinning color wheel again and it took a while (a few seconds) for the Finder window to open.

From what little I understand about interpreting the Activity Monitor numbers above, it doesn't seem as though the system is really low on RAM or anything as the amount of free RAM is good and the Inactive RAM will be used as needed.

Is my understanding of the info reported by Activity Monitor correct?

Thanks!

Peace...
 
With 512 MB RAM, I'm surprised it didn't feel sluggish or slow before. Is simply getting more RAM an option for you?

What shows in Console when the beachball happens? (Applications/Utilities/Console)
Something should generate for what is happening in the system at that moment.
 
Which MacMini is it? Assuming it is--from Mactracker--the "Q88, Twiggy" or the "Late 2005"--with a G4 PowerPC (1.25-1.42 GHz); (1.33-1.5 GHz) respectfully-you can max the RAM to 1.0 Gig.

That might help in general.

--J.D.
 
Giaguara said:
With 512 MB RAM, I'm surprised it didn't feel sluggish or slow before. Is simply getting more RAM an option for you?
Click to expand...
Adding RAM certainly could be an option. Previously, apps like Safari wouldn 't load instantly but the "beachball" :) wouldn't appear either.

What shows in Console when the beachball happens? (Applications/Utilities/Console)
Something should generate for what is happening in the system at that moment.
Click to expand...
I'll see if I can find out.

Doctor X said:
Which MacMini is it? Assuming it is--from Mactracker--the "Q88, Twiggy" or the "Late 2005"--with a G4 PowerPC (1.25-1.42 GHz); (1.33-1.5 GHz) respectfully-you can max the RAM to 1.0 Gig.

That might help in general.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking it's the G4 PowePC one running at 1.25GHz, but I'm not 100% sure.

Can I add RAM to this system myself or is the Mac-mini really designed to be serviced by a Mac tech? I'm definitely savvy with PC hardware but I've never opened up a Mac-mini before. I have added RAM and performed a HDD upgrade on a G4-based PowerMac they also have but that was in a tower case with "room" for me to work. :)

Thanks!

Peace...
 
A metal kitchen spatula works fine for opening the Mac mini - it basically does the same thing than the tool that they sell for servicing it. So yes you can add the RAM yourself.
 
Ok, I'm at the Mac-mini now and the machine is running like an absolute dog. It took three login attempts before I could even login! I managed to get the console open before I got the last "beachball" which is currently still spinning. I'm writing this on another machine.

The console contained this message:

diskarbitrationd[40]: SystemUIServer [278]:21555 not responding

Then, while I was trying to start Safari to login here to post the above message, this message appeared in the console window:

crashdump[366]: coreservicesd crashed
crashdump[366]: crash report written to: /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/coreservicesd.crash.log

At this point the system shows the spinning "beachball" and even though the mouse moves, I can't click on anything.

I'll power off the machine manually, reboot, and will see if I can run the disk utility somehow.

Peace...
 
Someone else from the forum reported similar problems to yours, tomdkat. She has around 700 something MB RAM in her G4, and gets the spinning beach balls and inability to force quit.

Now, I have a ten year old iMac with only 512 MB and it runs Tiger okay. Not fast mind you, but I don't get spinning beach balls all the time.

So although more RAM in general does help a system run faster, I don't think that memory is the issue with your mini.

If trashing the .plist or repairing through DU can't solve your problem, you might consider re-installing Tiger.

BTW, FunKeys X is a great little piece of shareware for PPC which allows you to program your function keys and more. One of its features lets you Force Quit the front most application easily, without having to use escape.

Hope you get the mini back to speed.
 
Giaguara said:
Excellent - so we know at least two of the guilty bits there, corseservicesd and systemui.

Let's try some of these:

Try trashing your SystemUIServer preferences and caches.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2003101415481414
http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-system-mac-software/50600-systemuiserver-not-responding.html
Click to expand...
Ok, I'll give this a try. :)

I did the "repair permissions" using the Disk Utility run from the install DVD I booted the system from. It repaired some things. Then I verified the permissions and the disk and both checked out fine. Then, when I booted normally things improve a little bit but the system is still too sluggish.

I'm almost at the point of taking the system in to an Apple store so they can look at it.

And what does /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/coreservicesd.crash.log say?
Click to expand...
I haven't been able to look at that log file since I can barely get a terminal window open without the system hanging. By the time I finished the permissions repair, it was close to midnight and I really needed to get to bed since I'm still fighting an illness. :(

So, I'll post what's in the crash log if/when I can.

andychrist said:
Someone else from the forum reported similar problems to yours, tomdkat. She has around 700 something MB RAM in her G4, and gets the spinning beach balls and inability to force quit.

Now, I have a ten year old iMac with only 512 MB and it runs Tiger okay. Not fast mind you, but I don't get spinning beach balls all the time.

So although more RAM in general does help a system run faster, I don't think that memory is the issue with your mini.
Click to expand...
After seeing those crash messages, I'm thinking along these lines as well. We'll see if I can use the spatula to open up the box and I'll see what the Apple store would charge to add RAM to the system. If nothing else, adding more RAM should give the OS more breathing room even though I'm thinking it should have plenty, given the Activity Monitor numbers I posted previously.

If trashing the .plist or repairing through DU can't solve your problem, you might consider re-installing Tiger.
Click to expand...
If trashing the cache and stuff doesn't work, I'll definitely take it into an Apple store.

BTW, FunKeys X is a great little piece of shareware for PPC which allows you to program your function keys and more. One of its features lets you Force Quit the front most application easily, without having to use escape.

Hope you get the mini back to speed.
Click to expand...
Thanks!

Peace...
 
The money you will spend at an Apple Store getting some guy to erase your hard drive and re-install your OS . . . you can buy the RAM for that. You can also install the RAM yourself.

Back up your data.

Do a clean install--erase your HD off your utility disk and reinstall your OS. Download the Core Updates from Apple . . . update System.

Then you can reload your data.

--J.D.
 
Well, the Mac-mini is at the Apple store right now and I spoke with the tech over the phone. He suggested running an "archive install" to see if that solves the problem. It sounded like he suggested that based purely on the "SystemUIServer not responding" and coreservicesd daemon crashing information I told him and not much more than that. I damn near had to beg him to at least look at the system logs to see if there was a history of issues that caused the system to erode over time or anything.

So, would it be worth doing the "archive install"? From what the tech described, this would be preferred since it would just re-install the base OS and leave "user land" and the installed apps alone.

He then suggested doing a clean install if the "archive install" didn't work.

Thanks!

Peace...
 
I agree with the guy from the Apple Store, first perform an Archive and install, etc.

But you might also consider the opportunity, while you're at it, to add a little more RAM and upgrade to Leopard. It will be considerably faster on your G4, I think you'd really appreciate the difference.
 
Well, I did the "archive and install" last night and had mixed results.

When I first fired up the Mac-mini, I was never able to get logged in. I was prompted for my login id and it accepted the password and acted like it tried to log me in but returned me to the login screen. After 3 times of this, I went ahead with the "archive and install".

That went smoothly and after ward, I was able to login and the desktop looked the same as before. I tried to back up e-mail in Thunderbird by copying the Mail folder to our file server but that choked about half way through due to a problem processing a "trash.msf" file. Then I tried to fire up Thunderbird to empty the trash and it wouldn't run. It would start and then hang, with the "beachball" spinning and nothing else. I never saw any of the mail accounts.

Then, after some attempts to force quit Thunderbird, I managed to hang the system to the point where I could move the mouse but couldn't click anything and the "beachball" was the mouse pointer. So, I used the power button to manually power the machine off.

Then, when I tried to reboot I got the gray screen with the Apple logo and the spinning dashes that sat there for 5 or 6 wall-clock minutes. Why Apple chose not to display actual status information, I don't know but I figured something was wrong and I hit the power button again to turn it off. I turned it back on and got the gray screen with the Apple logo and after 2-3 mins (wall-clock), the spinning dashes didn't appear. So, I figured something was hosed and turned it off again using the power button and went home for the night.

So, I'm thinking it's time to nuke the system and do the "erase and install" this time. I still would like to get the e-mail off the machine before I nuke it so I'm thinking of doing the "archive and install" process again to see if I can get the machine to boot again so I can deal with the e-mail in another way (I'll just manually delete the trash files and will copy the mail again).

Can I run the "archive and install" process again?

I also found out this Mac-mini has a 1.5GHz G4 processor in it. So, I'll upgrade it to 1GB of RAM and will install Leopard once we get it running again with Tiger.

Thanks!

Peace...
 
You can run Archive and Install again.

I am thinking you should just copy the mail folders over to another drive/disk and not worry about trashing anything--you will be doing that with Erase and Install. :)

--J.D.
 
Well, I've made some GREAT progress! I did another "archive and install" and this time, the system was far MORE responsive. I was able to get the e-mail and other data backed up just fine.

Then, I did the "erase and install" and they went smoothly. The system now runs much better. This time, I created different user accounts, all of which are "standard" users. I hope this will prevent the "not computer savvy" users from trashing the system. :)

The system has been updated with the latest updates.

I did have ONE issue where logging out of the administrator account didn't take me back to the account selection screen but that happened only once.

Thanks for the help and advice! :)

Peace...
 
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