Did OS X just crash? (please see msg inside)

[reubs]

After getting in from a flight in which my Macbook was a carry-on (I didn't use it during the flight...I just had it in "sleep" mode) I opened it up to check my mail at home, and the screen grayed out with a message "You need to restart your computer. To do this...." and it gave me restart instructions in about four or five different languages.

I'm guessing this was a crash of some sort, but is there any way that I can find out what caused this to happen through checking terminal or anything like that?

Thanks for any info.

 

[EricNau]

Yes, its very similar to a "crash."

It is called a Kernel Panic.


Also see Mac OS X: How to Log a Kernel Panic.

 

[jng]

It was a Kernel Panic

As long as it doesn't appear again, you should be fine.
In the future, however, turn the notebook off when you're flying.

 

[Zwhaler]

Yeah I got a KP once when I disconnected my iPod without telling the computer, but I've been fine since. Which means usually (and hopefully) it means nothing.

 

[reubs]

Alright, thanks, everyone. Never had one, and I hope it doesn't mean my RAM is about to crash. I've never had the problem while flying before, but it was obviously enough to bring me here.

Thanks again, and I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[bankshot]

You may find some useful info in the panic log, though don't expect it to look like much more than gibberish if you're not a kernel programmer.

Open up Console in Applications/Utilities, click on Logs, expand /Library/Logs, and click on panic.log.

In the future, however, turn the notebook off when you're flying.

I can't see why you'd want to do this. I've always flown with my laptops in sleep mode, never had a problem. I usually use them on the plane, so it's especially silly to turn them off in that case. At any rate, this was probably a random thing and almost certainly unrelated to flying.

 

[anti-microsoft]

Thats happend to me once but something else thats happend to me, and this has happend about 3 times now, is that I open the lid of my MacBook and insted of hearing the drive noise and then seeing the screen nothing happens I
plug it into a power source, still nothing happens. Then I hold down the power button and it turns off I push the power button again and it boots up perfectly.
I see my desktop as normal, but only one thing had changed, there was an error message that read:

! Mac OS X quit unexpectedly.
bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,
bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,
bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,bla,
Quit Reopen Restart​

 

[synth3tik]

kernal panic= bad chicken at KFC.