iMovie crashes and system doesn't even notice

[Witty lama]

Every now and then a programme will crash but OSX always comes up with a little dialogue saying that it "closed unexpectedly" and asks if I want to reopen the app.

Over the last couple of weeks my programmes (on MacBook) have been doing this more frequently - especially Safari and iPhoto - but today iMovie decided that it would crash and not even inform me - twice!

There wasn't even a freze in the system. One second I was typing to add a title and when I looked up I was staring at the desktop. Poof! gone... I had been so confident in my mac that I hadn't yet saved the project either so it was completely lost.

Is there something wrong with my MacBook, with iMovie or is it just bad luck? I've got all the system updates and the lastest software... what's up with my MacBook

 

[mad jew]

How much RAM do you have? If you open a new user account in System Preferences, does everything seem to be crashing there too? What sort of non-Apple apps and system modifiers are you running at the same time?

 

[Witty lama]

I've doubled the RAM when I bought it so I have 1Gb.
I've not got had any non-apple apps running when the crashed happened except Skype and MSN messenger. The only possibly dodgy software I have is iAlertU and VirtueDesktop-SmackBook but neither was running at the time.

I've not tried the different account trick, I'll give that a go. But, what will it prove if I do/don't get crashes in another user name??

 

[mad jew]

It'll prove that the problem is within your current account's Home folder, assuming everything's fine in the new account. Is the memory from Apple?

 

[Witty lama]

Wow! Just after I posed that message Safari crashed.
WTF is going on?!

 

[mad jew]

Dunno. If it's just as bad in the new account, then I'd recommend testing your RAM by taking a stick out at a time and running on 512MB for a while. If one of the sticks of RAM is bad, it could well be causing these issues.

 

[Witty lama]

The RAM comes from apple...
I'll try using another account for a couple of days.

 

[Witty lama]

Well,
I just tried using another account and within one hour Safari had shut down on my twice. What does this mean and why is it just affecting me now? Surely if the RAM was bad it would have been like this from the beginning?

 

[mad jew]

Not necessarily. Failing RAM can suddenly go at pretty much any time it likes, although it generally corresponds with intensive work or OS upgrades. Since it's Apple RAM, I'd take the machine back to the shop. It might not even be the problem but it's under warranty and you don't have third party RAM so they sorta just have to fix it.