Late 2009 iMac Freeze - mouse still moves. Safari?

[1-tabbycat-1]

Is anybody else seeing an issue with Sierra and Late 2009 iMacs?

With mine, the machine will freeze up but iTunes will keep playing and the mouse continues to move, However no mouse clicks are registered so can't drag, select menu items, move windows, etc.

The one thing that seems to be consistent in all freezes is that Safari is running.

The only way I know to gain control of the machine is a hard shutdown (hold down power button). SSH-ing into the machine shows that Windowserver is stuck.

Anybody seen this or have any suggestions on how to resolve?

 

[TitanTiger]

I have had this issue in the past (pre-Sierra), but it's a conflict with a web content filter program and Yahoo sites (Mail, etc). Same symptoms though. Mouse can be moved but clicks stop registering after a few seconds and nothing fixes it but a hard shutdown.

Tell me about the SSH procedure you used to find out what is stuck though. I'd like to know that trick for diagnosis in the future.

 

[filchermcurr]

I have this issue when my monitors go to sleep. There's a 50/50 chance that they will show a cursor on a black screen and do nothing else when it comes time to wake up. As with you, I SSH in and see that everything is running normally except WindowServer, which is at 100% CPU usage and can't be restarted or killed. Rebooting and shutting down don't work. As you said, only a hard reset will do anything.

I don't think it has to do with Safari, though. I don't use Safari at all. Of course it could be two entirely separate issues with similar end results. It's one of several issues I have with Sierra on multiple machines.

The only solution I found was to go back to El Capitan. Maybe Sierra will be usable around 10.12.5.

 

[Rus Shackleford]

Is anybody else seeing an issue with Sierra and Late 2009 iMacs?

With mine, the machine will freeze up but iTunes will keep playing and the mouse continues to move, However no mouse clicks are registered so can't drag, select menu items, move windows, etc.

The one thing that seems to be consistent in all freezes is that Safari is running.

The only way I know to gain control of the machine is a hard shutdown (hold down power button). SSH-ing into the machine shows that Windowserver is stuck.

Anybody seen this or have any suggestions on how to resolve?

I'm having this issue as well - hadn't noticed if it was Safari-related but after reading a few posts on this, i'll keep an eye out if it happens at other times.

 

[1-tabbycat-1]

Tell me about the SSH procedure you used to find out what is stuck though. I'd like to know that trick for diagnosis in the future.

If on a remote computer, open an SSH connection to your machine (note: This requires SSH access to be enabled on the iMac in System Prefs > Sharing > Remote Login) from the Terminal.

I type in "top -u" and press enter. You'll see what is stuck

In theory the command "sudo shutdown -r now" will shut down the Mac but it dowsn't work for me. Still requires a hard reboot.