Powermac G5 "Bluescreen"!

Hi all

Sorry to post this here, but I can't find any help elsewhere regarding this problem:

I have imported around 30 minutes of movie from my miniDV cam into iMovie '05 and after import the "letterboxing" process startet. This takes very long and I thought I'd take a wak and let the Mac do it's work. When I cam back around an hour later the Aqua desktop turned all blue (no dock, no icons nothing, the screen just blue). Nothing worked. I could log in to the Mac with SSH and all seems normal in the console. I rebooted with "sudo reboot". Rebooted fine. Logged in with my username and about 20 seconds later the UI froze again, leaving me in that strange bluescreen again. So that's the status now! Anyone got an idea what the problem is?

OS X 10.4.4
Disk's not full

Thanks for some help.

Ragards,
Tom

Did you recently change or add a login item?

Hi Leo

Thanks for your reply.

No, I didn't add anything specific non-Apple. My setup is very static. What I did was only the upgrade from 10.4.3 to 10.4.4.

Regards,
Tom

I meant a login name to Accounts. Sometimes an incompatible login item can cause a blue screen.

Nope, nothing. It actually also happens even if I don't log in to the Mac. Just start it, leave it at the login screen and wait for 20 sec.

Regards,
Tom

If it was me, I would run Repair Permissions and clean your machine with MacJanitor, Onyx or Cocktail. If that doesn't help, I would reset the PRAM. Which monitor are you using?

I tried the permission repair - still the same effekt.

I'm using the 23' Cinema Display.

How do reset the PRAM? What is stored in the PRAM? Is there anything I lose when resetting it?

Thanks,
Tom

Here's whats in PRAM and NVRAM (from Apple Support docs):

Some Macintosh computers may not have all the settings described below. For Mac OS X information, refer to Mac OS X: What's Stored in PRAM?

Status of AppleTalk
Serial Port Configuration and Port definition
Alarm clock setting
Application font
Serial printer location
Autokey rate
Autokey delay
Speaker volume
Attention (beep) sound
Double-click time
Caret blink time (insertion point rate)
Mouse scaling (mouse speed)
Startup disk
Menu blink count
Monitor depth
32-bit addressing
Virtual memory
RAM disk
Disk cache

Here's how to reset:

This document explains how to reset the parameter random access memory (PRAM) and nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) on Macintosh computers.

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM
1. Shut down the computer.

2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.

4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.

5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Your computer's PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.

I'm using the 23' Cinema Display.

Did you by any chance recently install the Apple Display Software that came with your monitor? If so, this may cause display problems and the blue screen effect.

Thanks again for your help Leo. I'm going to try this.

I have just seen the following: After the mac gets into this state, there are several (amount growing!) "Windowserver -daemon" processes:

" System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/WindowServer -daemon"

You may want to trash the iMovie preference(s) files. Sounds like your computer is "trying" to keep things running. Maybe a preference file is corrupt.

Did you ever, in the recent past, leave your Mac in the immediate vicinity of a Windows PC? With the rate at which Viruses come up in the PC world, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bluescreen of death has finally become contagious, even cross-platform.

Well, I'm a lurker in the Mac forum and am planning to get my first Mac this year. I was hoping for no more Blue screens, no more daily security patching, updating, etc. Is that too much to ask for in the Mac world as well?

Anil

From Applications/Utilities start Console.app. See if there are any error messages there that point you in the right direction.

Try running "fsck"
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Hi all

Thanks for helping in this issue.

It seems that the problem is solved (touch wood...): I found a post on the Apple-forums where someone (so it seems to really be an issue) described the same behaviour and solved it by installing the combined update (found here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosxupdate1044.html ).

So, my box is (still) running after applying the update.

Bottom line: The Mac (OS X) isn't really better than Microsoft OS's.....unfortunately.

Regrads,
Tom

Hi Anil

Sorry to dissapoint you... but I generaly think the Mac isn't really any better than Windows. In fact I even find myself hitting the powerbutton to reboot the frozen machine more often than on Windows XP. I sometimes think it takes me back to the Windows 95 era in terms of stability. This has all to do with the UI, the BSD underpinning (called Darwin) is rocksolid.

Otherwise: The OS X UI is really very nice and the software you get preinstalled on the Mac (e.g. iLife) has far more features than the Windows counterparts (if any).

Regards,
Tom

Hi Tom,

Sorry to hear you have been having problems with your Mac. It sound to me like you have not been repairing permissions with Disk Utility before and after installing new software. This is the most frequent cause of instability in the Mac OS. If you make it a habit to repair permissions on either side of software installations, your Mac will be so stable that you will soon retract your statement that Mac OS is no more stable than Windows. I use XP at work and OSX at home. There is a word of difference between the two and I frequently take my Mac to work to do imaging and video work that is extremely difficult (relatively speaking) in XP. I run my Macs without rebooting for weeks on end, something that is not possible with XP. My Dell XP box goes wacky after running 2-3 days non-stop.

Enjoy your Mac and I look forward to seeing some of your work.
--
Cheers,
RobBobW
http://homepage.mac.com/bworthingham/Photography/PhotoAlbum19.html
http://community.webshots.com/user/worthingham
http://www.worldisround.com/home/robbob/index.html
http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/19484.html
http://www2.photosig.com/go/users/view?id=98593

I sometimes think it takes me back to the Windows 95

ThomasA said:

era in terms of stability. This has all to do with the UI, the BSD
underpinning (called Darwin) is rocksolid.

Click to expand...

Do you leave on your machine so the Cron scripts run?
This is far more likely to be your problem. try Macjanitor or cocktail
http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Also repair your permissions before and after installing software.

For me OS X has been rock solid since moving from XP, my machines are on day and night (put to sleep when not used) I have been using it since 10.2.4 and have yet to see a "blue-screen"

I doubt also your problems are to do with the UI part of the OS as they sound "Kernel" based.
How often do you have these bluescreens? have you added any 3rd party Ram?
Run your hardware test CD that come with your Mac.
Regards
Mark
--
http://www.digitalcamera.netfirms.com

What you found was correct. It has no ryme or reason. You will download the update and then things go funny. You will repair permission, fsck, throw preferences out to no avail. The last resort is to download the "combo file" and that usually solves the problem.

Glad all is well.
Ciao,
Lou Cioccio

Hallo Mark

Thank's a lot for the tipp on MacJanitor - I'll give it a try. I in fact put my Mac to sleep at night

I'm very shure it wasn't a kernel issue: I was always able to SSH to my Mac from an other box. All generaly looks fine (ps, top, (fsck), du,...). When I had this "Bluescreen" thing I did notice that the process " System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/WindowServer -daemon" was present many times (growing minute by minute) with successive PID's. I saw this in my terminal session (ps).

Defective HW normaly would cause a kernel panic - I got that with my eyeTV USB adapter but since that's trashed I haven't seen that scary black message again

Regards,
Tom