OS 10.2.1 finder freeze

karavite

Registered
Well, I ran the 10.2.1 upgrade, restarted and everything was fine. Put my Mac to sleep, woke it up and there it was - "spinning wheel of death," the same thing I had happen in 10.2 (finder freezes) when the machine sat around for a while, but never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever had happen in the same exact machine running 10.0 - 10.1.5.

Apple says, "Gee, we have no complaints about 10.2 freezing - it must be your third party mouse, keyboard or maybe your memory. Good luck figuring out which one." People on this forum have told me they have freezing issues, Have you told Apple? Please do. Even though it only happens once a day (no freezes in 10.2 yestderday though - I was surprised) I am really bummed about this - I miss my rock solid Mac of the past year.

P.S. My 10.2 install was as clean as you could get. Freshly reformatted partition, the whole bit.
 
I can relate! I have a total freeze about 8 times a day. Sometimes I can go an hour -- yesterday I was using Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Fireworks all together (I was testing it) and it was fine. Closed them all and was just moving the mouse in the finder with nothing open and it freezes -- no kernel panics -- just dead. I've reinstalled a zillion times and the machine is as pared down as possible. No weird shareware programs -- I've unplugged my USB hub and all external things. I've tried EVERY suggestion I've read, checked the memory, etc. I've had these problems since about 10.1 but not to this extreme. I have 10.2.1 on my machine at work and it works like a dream. I can't remember my last crash there -- months ago. I have to think it's an iMac thing. I have a G3 DV SE 500 mhz here and a 450 G4 at work. Also, I have DSL here at home and I'm on a big network at work with all PCs (samba is working great!). Can I be getting weird surges from my ISP that screw things up? I haven't tried unplugging it yet but I guess I will -- may be my router? I also read about the 128 ATI card in my iMac that may not be able to handle the bigger graphic load -- or something like that, but I think I have the same one on the G4.

I'm gonna call Apple, but I'm not too optimistic. Doesn't seem like anyone gets any satisfaction from them -- they tend to blame it on 3rd party stuff. But, I don't have any left anymore!

I'll let you know if I get any worthwhile answers from them. The only weird "bug" I've had is that I can't get the automatic login to work. It's set in the prefs but I keep getting the screen where I have to choose a user and type my password. It wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't restarting every hour. Haven't seen anyone else with this problem yet.

Thanks for letting me vent!
 
snowgurl - there is one thing left, they will blame it on your memory! But in your case, they may be on to something - maybe. You see my G4 450 never had any freezing problems whatsoever until 10.2 - this machine has been on almost all day, every day since 10.0 shipped and it has never ever frozen - in my case it may be USB stuff with 10.2, but I am too lazy to check right now. They suggested it could be my memory, but I have had that for some time and the crashing/freezing did not start until the day after I installed 10.2.

What do you think?
 
I've heard that OSX is getting more and more picky about ram with every release. Installs that have gone wonderfuly on previous installs have gone wacko on 10.2, all because of the ram. I remember someone with a Wallstreet powerbook having that same issue. I'd yank the ram and see how it ran.
 
my 10.2.1 boxes have been pretty stable until yesterday when I disconnected my laptop from the network while it's drive was mounted to my desktop...the desktop flipped out looking for the laptop and I had to reset it. :( It should have timed out and automatically unmounted...
 
Here's a little update ... I called Apple (for free, thank God) and told them the whole problem He was helpful and nice but didn't fix it. So, I called the Apple guy in town (I didn't think we had one anymore -- small town). He suggested I do the zero format thing. So, I did it -- it took a couple tries cuz the drive format program kept crashing. So, I slowly put 9.2 and then 10.2 on (separate partitions). They worked for about 1 minute and I got the same freeze -- just dragging a window. I hadn't even loaded any software on yet and no apps were even open.

So, I called the Apple guy again and he said to check my memory. I said I did, of course, a few times. But, I kept thinking it was the extra ram I put in that was the problem and I kept pulling that. I never thought to check the 128 (Apple) that came with the machine. So, I pulled the 128 and kept the 256 and, wouldn't you know, it's working! I could shoot myself for not thinking of that sooner -- duh. It's slower, but running. I have had some kernel panics (the "restart" window), so I'm wondering just how much ram you need for 10.2 -- will not enough ram cause that? They say you only need 128 but I'd imagine if you have more than one app open it'll crash. I hope that's it -- I'm gonna get a 512 anyway! But any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

One more question -- what's a "pageout"? I keep seeing people use this term around the forum. Anyway, thanks for all the help. All of the advice here did help me to narrow down the problem.:)
 
Good old Apple RAM!

I would say it is probably a safe bet that 128 is not enough and could be contributing to your current problems. Fortunately RAM (other than DDR RAM for the new machines) is pretty cheap these days. Give it a shot!
 
I still have 256 -- the ValueRAM -- but it sure does make a difference even from 384. Things just crawl! I got 512 from MacMall for $119 -- the best price I could find. Thought I'd go for it since I have a little cash right now. My machine's been up since last night now and no freezes! I've been trying to freeze it -- dragging windows around all over really fast and it's solid. Whew!:p
 
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