Mac Mini server (late 2012) Frequent crashes

Have you added 3rd party RAM? If so, remove one chip and test the machine. Does it crash? If yes, restore the RAM chip and remove the other. Test again. If you only have the stock Apple RAM, test the same way.

Are you on wifi or ethernet? If one, disable it and test the other.

If you disable the DHCP server, do the crashes stop? What router are you using for your home network?

Enter the following in the Terminal.app and then post the results here:
kextstat | grep -v apple

Robsoho said:

Hi I look after a mac mini server for a customer and just can't track down what is causing a frequent crash on this machine. The machine is running 10.9.5 and server.app 3.2.2. It is configured with 2x1TB drives and 8GB ram.

It has had this crash since received from the apple store. But when we sent it in for testing it was returned to us saying nothing is wrong with the device.

The was the crash manifests is the device stays on but all services become unresponsive, requiring a hard reset. During the crash it writes nothing to logs so the only useful piece of information I have is what it was doing before it crashed.

Which in every case was DHCP, except for when it was crashing before installing server.app. It is currently in use but having to restart it 2-3 times a week is becoming frustrating.

So if anyone has experienced a similar problem or knows of any tools that could help me diagnose what is going on that would be helpful

Thank you for your time,
Robert

Click to expand...

reset pram
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14222?viewlocale=en_US


reset smc
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

run Apple hardware test and click on extended test
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

apple hardware test / or the genius bar diags might spit out an error code simply if you do not have it
plugged into the charger. so make sure its plugged in

when shutting down, uncheck reopen windows when logging on once in a while

reinstall os x and slowly add stuff back to it to see if its a software thing?


take the hard disks out and run hdd regenerator on them or maybe hold them to your ear and see if you can hear it clicking. check for a blown smart sensor. freezing could be caused by a hard disk getting stuck on thermal recalibration / retries.. hdd regenerator will test every single sector over and over to make sure the hard disks are good... hard disk errors are INVISIBLE to the operating system, because the hard disk corrects them on the fly. at some point , this fails. and it will actually say your smart status is bad. as long as it says smart status verified, the drive thinks its still okay! but it could cause problems to the o/s like stalling


back up to time machine

erase entire hard disk

reisntall os x.

run boinc. run seti@home, run folding@home. those projects will use every bit of cpu power your computer has. if it has a problem with it freezing , it will freeze with boinc running full blast with 4 or whatever projects running at once. if it won't freeze with boinc using up 100 % of all 4 cores you have, for like 48 hours or longer then it has to be something in your software. if you have 4 cores or 8 cores , or whatever, you should see 4 or 8 set@home processes running at the same time. that is what you want to see.

theres even boinc processes. like milky way @ home, that will use up 100 % of your video card
join that one too , if its available for your video card.

if it crashes on a clean os x install with boinc running then you know its something wrong with the hardware.
maybe the heatsinks on the cpu or video cards are not good

Talk to a manager ...

But when we sent it in for testing it was returned to us saying nothing is wrong with the device.

"Geniuses" at Apple Store couldn't see a problem I had with power supply on my Mac Pro despite video I took. Everything tested "OK". I demanded to speak with a manager on my third trip and he said "it's the power supply". Duh.

Keep pushing.

Robsoho said:

kextstat | grep -v apple

Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) <Linked Against>

not sure if that is the result you were looking for. Let me know if I missed something

Click to expand...

That command will reveal whether you have any 3rd-party kexts installed. I'm a bit surprised that you don't have any. You must run a clean, minimal system. This is what I get if I enter that command in the Terminal:

$ kextstat | grep -v apple
Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) <Linked Against>
47 0 0x41ffd000 0x3000 0x2000 com.rogueamoeba.InstantOn (6.0.2) <5 4 3 1>
77 0 0x4821d000 0x3000 0x2000 com.makemkv.kext.daspi (1) <54 50 5 4 3>
107 0 0x41a76000 0x21000 0x20000 com.rogueamoeba.InstantOnCore (6.0.2) <96 5 4 3 1>
113 0 0x48592000 0x15000 0x14000 com.iospirit.driver.rbiokithelper (1.24) <71 36 29 5 4 3 1>
114 0 0x41a3d000 0x5000 0x4000 com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.6.5) <96 5 4 3>
126 0 0x487a7000 0x3000 0x2000 com.regularrateandrhythm.driver.RowmoteIREmu (1.0) <36 29 5 4 3>
128 0 0x486cd000 0x6000 0x5000 com.viscosityvpn.Viscosity.tap (1.0) <7 5 4 1>
129 0 0x489b5000 0x6000 0x5000 com.viscosityvpn.Viscosity.tun (1.0) <7 5 4 1>

Click to expand...

Robsoho said:

Yeah its just a fresh install running server.app. As a hardware isolation I ran it off the same hdd different machine, so I can say that the crash is software/configuration related. Or HDD related...

But have checked the hdd smart stats permissions and file system. all ok.

Is there anywhere in other logs I should start hunting for the cause of the lockup.

I'm going to throw in a second machine to do dns and dhcp, I can't move the active directory or shares right now though as their in the middle of writing reports.

Click to expand...

What services are running on this machine? I was having problems with com.apple.IconServicesAgent starting up for many users with networked home folders on the server, and eventually apparently using up all the RAM and causing the server to go into a state like yours. I seem to have resolved it by turning off Spotlight entirely on the server.