MacBook Air :: Constant Unexplained Crashing And Failed Booting
Mar 9, 2010
I'm trying to diagnose problems with a friend's MacBook Air who due to language barriers cannot get help from the Apple Store. He has a Rev. A MacBook Air (with the 1.6GHz and 80GB HDD) and Snow Leopard. My friend is new at computers (this is his first computer) and only goes online to read the news, check the weather, travel research, etc. So the Air is the perfect machine for that. The issue started with a few weeks ago, he called me to ask me how to fix his internet. I wasn't sure where to start, but I suspected the Airport card. After testing the USB-to-Ethernet adapter which did not work, I figured it was something else. He told me everything gave him the "red" dot in Network Preferences (Well he didn't know to check there, as I had to tell him where to go). A PRAM reset fixed that which is good and he was able to go online again. Over the past few days he has called again because his computer would constantly freeze. At first it would be freezing and then it would work again after a few minutes. Sometimes it would just freeze and would require a forced shutdown (power button—5 seconds). Now of late it sometimes does not boot. I have been notified that it does boot past the gray screen, but stop right before when the desktop loads. Here is where it difficult: I do not know how to continue.
I can't have him run hardware tests off the Installation DVDs because he does not have an optical drive and even if he did, he would not be able to relay me the results of any test. I cannot have him take it to the Apple Store because well they wouldn't be able to speak his language). All my family friends come to me for computer help, so that's no good and his neighbors are well not Mac proficient and again call me for computer help. He does not email, text, send MMS, etc. So I can't even get the console files. I would like to suggest a Erase and Install, but again with no optical drive and the difficulty of explaining things over the phone—I don't think I can do it. Any one has suggestions on how to proceed? Maybe even what's wrong? The only thing I can think of is to give him my MacBook Air and have him give me his and then I can figure it out later, but that's a bit inconvenient (but I'm definitely willing to do that if that's the only solution).
Safari keeps crashing on open (it doesn't even start to open - just goes straight to crash report). It seems to be doing this since I upgraded to 5.01. I have posted the crash report below which is always the same - ie it crashes on thread 3 but I am unable to decipher why.
I repaired the permissions a number of times - and rebooted. This worked once and safari was up an running again. But the next time I came to open it it was broken again. I have even tried a reboot into safe mode which I believe rewrites all permissions rather than just repairing them - didn't work!
I have a problem with Mail. it crashed everytime i open the application, and i keep on reporting it to apple, and sometimes ignoring that, and nothing changes.
it happened to me before when i try to open a certain email from my friend. now when i open Mail, it automatically opens the first email on the list, and it's another email which has the same problem.
i don't know how to solve this problem.
My laptop is a Macbook pro 2.16ghz core2duo processor, 2gb ram, 160gb harddisk (80 gb free space), Running Leopard 10.5.1.
I can't figure out why Safari crashes after about a minute after launch. It doesn't crash when I log in as another user. I deleted the plist files, and the cache, but it doesn't help. I uninstalled Safari 4 and it crashed immediately on launch with Safari 3. I reinstalled Safari 4, and it once again crashed after about a minute. I deleted everything in ~/Library/Safari. I repaired permissions. It still crashes. Firefox works flawlessly.
What should I do next? This is the first time in about 10 years that I can't seem to diagnose a problem on my mac. Very frustrating. Does someone have any idea what I should do next?
While trying to download the latest security update I received a message telling me the update failed and it had been sent to the trash. The trash was empty and I now didn't have enough free disk space to retry the download so I decided to reboot my computer to free up some disk space. I haven't been able to reboot it since. While booting it gets stuck on the 'starting mac os' screen. I've reset the pram and I've done disk and permission repairs and have tried to start it in safe mode, but it won't. While holding the shift key to get to safe mode It still gets stuck on the same screen (though it takes a few more minutes to get there). I don't have the right version of the start up disk as apple replaced my computer but didn't give me a new start up disk.
Daily hard freeze, sometimes when booting up, sometimes after working for hours. Console offers no clue that I can decifer. Thought at first it was Thunderbolt running my second monitor. Now I think it is Firewire 800 connected to my WD MyBook 2T external drive. I use this drive with Time Capsule exclusively. Nothing else lives on the drive, so it is only hit once an hour. Never crashes while backing up.
Tech info: 10.7.4 8 gig Ram MBP 17 quad core i7
Has been problematic since new, as soon as I installed Lion.
Lately, my MacBook's been popping-up window after boot that says, "Connection failed. The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time." I don't know what server my Mac is trying to connect to. How/where can I look to see what's trying to connect, and to shut it off from trying at boot?
I have a 10.4 iMac. Recently when using it the screen starts to pixelate with large random squares and effectively makes the computer useless. Either that or I get moving multicoloured flashing squares (very psychodelic)Also on booting up the grey screen with the apple logo has dark grey sqaures and then when it goes to the blue screen has a series of smaller squares top and bootom. The booting up stops at this point.
I have ran the disk doctor, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.
I apologize if I missed a similar problem, but i think this is an unusual thing. Ok, so occasionally after my uMBP has been on a while (say, 1.5+ days?) sometimes when doing little more than doing a little web browsing, I'll see in both Activity Monitor and iStats that i'm using about 60-70% of my processor, but there is no visible process that is taking up the CPU. the issue is temporarily resolved by logging out or restarting. Does anyone have any ideas? I've tried running what available malware scanners there are for the mac, but nothing has come up.
I've got a G5 iMac which is 5 years old now, it's got 2Gb RAM and 75Gb HD In the past couple of weeks it really slowed down and then it started having panic attacks and random freezes. It also crashed with a what appeared to be a wierd zig-zag pattern [see attached jpeg - this happens even when the log-inscreen is on] I hadn't installed any new applications or anything and it had been fine upto then. I've ran the hardware test a few times, which has said everything is fine: video, memory, logic board all passed. So I backed everything up, scrubbed the HD, installed a fresh system 10.4, which Software Upgrade then took upto 10.4.11; Installed some of the apps and put some data back on - but leaving about half of the HD empty The random crashes are happening more and more frequently, crashing, panic attacks and i am forced to do a hard restart every time Is there anyway out of this or is it a case of old machine, on its last legs and needing a new one?
I'm running 10.5.8 on a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. The machine often slows down dramatically and i can hear the internal drive going like crazy. When I look in Activity Monitor however there's nothing chewing up much CPU. I can see that there's a lot of disk activity going on however. Unfortunately I don't see anyway in activity monitor to see what processes are accessing the hard drive. Does anyone know of a way to track down what processes are accessing the disk?
almost everytime I use airtunes, somewhere in the middle of a song, the music will quit unexpectedly. sometimes the music will resume in a three-count, sometimes longer, sometimes not at all. When i look at itunes, it looks like the song is just paused - meaning the little diamond that shows where you are in the song in the display along the top isn't inching along anymore, however the actual PAUSE button on the upper left has not been selected (meaning there is not a PLAY arrow displayed. the double bar PAUSE button is still showing). I have tried:
stopping the song (clicking the PAUSE button) and then starting it again quitting itunes and restarting restarting my ibook (G4) unplugging my airport express and plugging it back in to reboot using the airport admin aplication completely unplugging EVERYTHING (modem, airport base station, airport extreme) and then slowly rebooting them all in order upgrading itunes to the current version
at first, I thought it was a problem with airtunes, like the signal got lost or something, but after looking at itunes and realizing the song isn't *going* anymore, i thought the problem was with the application. but I don't know. I've never experienced this if i use the computer speakers, but then again, I hardly ever use them so I really don't know that for sure. oh, and I bought my airport base station *after* the airport express, and I'm pretty sure this problem was happening when my "network" was just my ibook and the express. (my experience level: I'm a former PC'er. I'm fairly knowlegable, but more on the software end. I know *nothing* when it comes to mac hardware.
I you review this: [URL:...] you can see I have been dealing with this for a while. I am just about to run the apple hardware test again but I am hoping someone might have a new idea.
So I have a macbook pro old model.Recent Problems:graphics card failedsystem crashed had to reinstall system crashed again and would be stuck on apple logo now after i reinstalled SL after the stuck on logo problem my mac was fine.3 weeks later which is now it started to lag,slow,unresponsive.So i tried repairing disk utility and FAILED then i tried reinstalling osx FAILEDthen i had to delete my whole harddrive :*( and reformated the harddrive.FAILED AGAIN.calling apple is a no because i already called alot before so now they want to charge.So did i reformat wrong? something?
I recently received an iMac as a "gift"... turns out it has some problems. I am unable to reinstall the default OS (Mountain Lion) because I have yet to be able to partition the HDD correctly. The error I keep getting is:Â Partition failed with the error: Wiping volume data to prevent future accidental probing failed.At this point, the default Macintosh HD isn't showing, so it must of been erased/deleted.Â
I find 90% of the time I watch a YouTube video (standard def, normal sized) my MacBook gets hot and the fans spin up. Most of the time they'll go to ~4200rpm. Yet the other 10% of videos, I stay at 1800rpm and 50C. How is this possible? Both times I've just had Firefox open.
Whenever i open an application both of the fans go to 6000+ rpm in a couple minutes give or take.Strangely web browsing doesn't cause this speed but if a youtube video is played it gets up there fast.Applications such as quicktime and logic gets up there no matter what is played.I have fan control and smcfancontrol, 40GB free, software updated, tried the reset thing (turn off, hold power button, boot), cleared printing operations.The only thing smcfancontrol does for me is it slows down the fans quicker whenever i close all my applications.
I got out the shower n pressed the pause button to stop the music. While that i notice couple of spot of water around my return button just a little. Nothing happened to the computer after using it for about 1 hours. So i left and came home around 7 hours later, got on the macbook air n then it kept prompting the shutdown menu option screen. From there it would just go to constant reboot. Is this due to water damage at all? or is it just a coincidence. Because my black macbook has had way more water on it before n its perfectly fine.
I'm using my Mac on an external monitor with a USB keyboard/mouse and the lid closed. When I put it to sleep using the remote, it switches off but then re-awakens about 5 seconds later. It's really annoying as it's usually when I'm in bed after watching a video and am too tired to get up and switch it off manually. How to make it sleep? Could it be the USB peripherals making it act this way? If so, how can I stop my Mac from waking on USB?
I have had my MBA for almost a week, and I've had no issues so far. Until now. This is the case: The fan operates as it should. It stays on 2500 rpm at light use, and increases with heavier use. At 2500 rpm I was not able to hear it without putting my ear next to the keyboard. That was yesterday. Today the fan produces a new noise. It isn't very loud, but clearly audible at 2500 rpm in a quiet environment. It's a low, constant, buzzing kind of noise. It also increases with fan speed.
I have a previous generation 13" macbook with the aluminum case but no graphics card. Anyways, it recently started not going past the grey screen and it wont stop thinking. I tried booting from the CD drive, and once selected, it just restarts rather than booting into the CD drive. I did all of the resetting of the Pram, holding down the power button for 10 seconds, etc. So, I tried removing the hard drive and putting it into an external enclosure, then with my Macbook Pro, loaded Leopard OSX onto it after erasing the drive.
The method I used for loading the OS was simply putting the Leopard CD into my MBP drive, and then going through the normal install process after restarting but selecting the external drive rather than my MBP to install it on. It appeared that it went well, and even restarted, booting into the external drive. It wanted me to go through the setup process. However, when I put it back in the Macbook, it now just constantly restarts before you see the apple logo, and refuses to even give me the option of booting from CD.
My new MBP is constantly either reading or writing to the disk. I had the problem before, reinstalled OS X, everything seemed better until it started again. Disk seems good, smart checked, tried to run diskwarrior but unfortunately not supported by this Mac.
It seems to heat up quite a bit too.
Activity monitor shows no cpu hogger and doesnt give info on the software writing / reading to disk
I bought a new MBP retina last week and each day I am getting an increasing number of crashes back to the login screen..
upon checking the logs it seems to be WindowServer crashing.. I am on the verge of returning my pro - 9 crashes today so far and counting!!
log as follows!Â
Process:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â WindowServer [103] Path:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/WindowServer
On 6/27 I upgraded from 10.8.x (don't remember which version specifically) to 10.9.3. Since then, my 2012 Macbook Pro has been crashing every 20-90 minutes - a complete crash/reboot. The crashes happen regardless of what apps I'm running - there does not seem to be a particular trigger. Upon rebooting, all of the open apps/windows reload and I get the standard "do you want to report this to apple" message. The only time it does NOT crash is if I'm not actively using it - e.g. if I let it go to sleep at night, it will not crash overnight. Â
Everything was fine before I upgraded to 10.9.3, and I have made no other changes to my setup. Â
The first thing I tried was creating a new user so I could see if the problem was isolated to my user account - the crashes persisted even on a completely new user. Next, I tried booting from partition and erasing the hard drive entirely, reinstalling the OS, and then choosing "setup from time capsule" - no dice; still crashes. Finally, I tried creating a new user and then using "migration assistant" to migrate my user info, and while the migration assistant itself worked just fine, it's still crashing.Â
(Unfortunately, my time capsule backup is from right AFTER I upgraded to 10.9.3, so that might be the reason that those "solutions" didn't fix anything)Â
At this point I would even be willing to start completely from scratch (at least I could import all of my documents, music, etc from my hard drive), but there is no way for me to force it to start "fresh" - if I boot from partition so I can erase the hard drive and then reinstall the OS, I can't get past the Disk Utility screen (so my only option is to set up from the time capsule!).
I Have a MacBook Pro mid 2009 13 inch and since yesterday the computer will not start, it simply shows a white screen, then the apple sign and then after several seconds this comes up and then it repeats again and again forever with a message that says " your computer restarted because of a problem wait or press any key to continue" but then after about five or six times it comes up wit. A screen that looks like the startup screen but in the middle of the grey/white page there is a circle with a cross through it where the apple sign should be.Â
This has been a problem with my macbook for some time now, but It's never been enough to get in the way. Lately it's getting even worse.
When playing games, or doing anything remotely graphical (has happened while using iTunes visualizer), my macbook can just freeze. Very rarely I get the kernal panic grey window, but most of the time it just hangs, repeating the last half a second of audio. Using VMware (not playing games, just windows programs) can also freeze it.
I have the 2.3GhZ Model, while my friend has the 2.0GhZ model, and he does not have a problem. I don't think his has ever frozen. Yesterday mine froze twice within an hour, while his just happy kept running.
I've googled this problem and I can't find anything. I want to see if you forumers know something before I call Apple Support as I'd rather know whats going on before that.
I have:
2.33GhZ, 2GB RAM, NVidia 9400M, 250GB Hard Drive (Happened when it was barely full, and close to full). I'm running OSX Leopard 10.5.7, but this has happened on all version since I bought it (10.5.5)
Whenever my MacBook has the charger in, there's constant 'drone' of bass from the subwoofer that my laptop is connected to, but as soon as I take the charger out the noise stops. Is there any way to stop this from happening (ie moving the cables round?) or is it just something I'll have to live with?
I have loved and cherished my MacBook Air for two years now, but last night it went in to a reboot cycle for no apparent reason. Now every time it gets to the apple logo I get the rotating "thinking" ident under the apple logo and it restarts, continually. I did the hardware test (holding down "D".....that was fine.) I also reset the PRAM... so the troubleshooting keystrokes work.
