PowerMac G5 "freezing"?

[RedCroissant]

Hello all,

I recently acquired a PowerMac G5 Quad and for the past couple of days I have noticed some strange behavior. Sometimes when I am browsing the interwebs (especially noticeable on MacRumors) Safari and TFF freeze occasionally to the point where links are not recognized unless I slide the scroll bar to the bottom of the app, or if I refresh the page or even to the point where I reset Safari.

At first I thought that it was just my mouse doing this, but it has been happening with my white Apple pro mouse, a generic microsoft mouse, and a Razer Taipan gaming mouse.

I know that the Razer isn't fully supported except as a normal mouse, but all 3 of them should not be failing at the same time. I also tried using the 2 USB ports on the back of my 20" ACD and also the USB port on my aluminum keyboard (the one that works with PPC Macs of course).

Does anyone have an idea as to what could be causing this? Thanks in advance.

 

[eyoungren]

Have you tried any system maintenance? Repairing permissions, disk utility to repair the disk, the purge command, etc?

MainMenu, Disk Utility, Cocktail and/or Onyx for those things.

 

[RedCroissant]

Have you tried any system maintenance? Repairing permissions, disk utility to repair the disk, the purge command, etc?

MainMenu, Disk Utility, Cocktail and/or Onyx for those things.

I have actually which is why I am not sure what's going on. I tried TFF again, Safari (and both of these browsers are acting weird). I used DU to verify and repair disk permissions, used the purge command, reset Safari, tried ONYX, and I even ran ClamXav to see if there was something wrong software-wise and nothing at all seems to be wrong.

What I did instead was install Stainless (which is the browser that I'm using now) and it's working perfectly. Macrumors on both Safari and TFF are rendering incorrectly but it looks normal in Stainless.

In Safari, some links don't work and the only way to make them work is to scroll down past the links to make them "active" I guess and then I can click on them.

 

[RedCroissant]

The first image is MacRumors in Safari and the second is MacRumors in Stainless.

 

[eyoungren]

Ahhhhh!!!

In both Safari and TenFourFox go into Preferences and for Content (where you would choose fonts) make sure the option to allow webpages to choose their own fonts is checked.

The new MR uses it's own fonts and the missing icons are what those fonts are for. I had a devil of a time solving this myself (I was getting missing icons).

 

[RedCroissant]

Ahhhhh!!!

In both Safari and TenFourFox go into Preferences and for Content (where you would choose fonts) make sure the option to allow webpages to choose their own fonts is checked.

The new MR uses it's own fonts and the missing icons are what those fonts are for. I had a devil of a time solving this myself (I was getting missing icons).

This might seem crazy but I don't see that option to allow websites to choose their own font in Safari.

I found it in TFF but that box is already checked so I don't know why that's still happening.

 

[eyoungren]

Hmmm…you're right. What happens if you switch to a different font in Safari?

 

[RedCroissant]

Hmmm…you're right. What happens if you switch to a different font in Safari?

Nothing, actually. I changed it to times, TNR, courier , and helvetica.

 

[eyoungren]

OK. Well, so much for my guessing.

What's the Console log saying when the app freezes?

 

[RedCroissant]

That's the thing though, it doesn't actually register as it actually "freezing." At first I thought it twas the mouse that I was using (a Razer Taipan gaming mouse) or the Microsoft mouse or the Apple Pro mouse, but it was none of those as far as I could tell. What if I delete and then reinstall Safari?

Well before I consider that I'll reset it again. Luckily all of my websites are easy to remember.

 

[RedCroissant]

So as an update I can say that Safari and TFF are both giving me problems with properly displaying content on websites and I can't seem to figure out hat the problem is. I deleted Safari and then downloaded and installed it again and have the same problems.

As of right now I am using Stainless and I have to say that I am a really big fan of the browser and wish that it was still in development. So far there have been no issues with it displaying everything properly.

 

[Dronecatcher]

When I first got my current G5 it had a glitch in Garageband & Logic where processor activity would rocket and fans go crazy as soon as I hit play - even if the file was empty and had no audio. In every other respect things were fine - it made no sense whatsoever. After trying every logical step (much like you) I decided to reinstall Leopard and that cured it.
I'd suggest that as a last resort and maybe zero the drive first and/or use a utility to check for disk damage before another installation.

 

[eyoungren]

Before that, have you tried deleting prefs and cache files?

I would go here: Macintosh HD>Users>Library>Application Support>Firefox and Safari folders and drag them to your desktop.

That will force an entirely new profile in Firefox and start clean with Safari. If the apps still freeze then it's beyond the app level.

 

[RedCroissant]

When I first got my current G5 it had a glitch in Garageband & Logic where processor activity would rocket and fans go crazy as soon as I hit play - even if the file was empty and had no audio. In every other respect things were fine - it made no sense whatsoever. After trying every logical step (much like you) I decided to reinstall Leopard and that cured it.
I'd suggest that as a last resort and maybe zero the drive first and/or use a utility to check for disk damage before another installation.

Well I really do not want to reinstall the OS. I hate doing that just for what seems to be a simple fix but isn't. But if it comes down to it then I definitely will.

Before that, have you tried deleting prefs and cache files?

I would go here: Macintosh HD>Users>Library>Application Support>Firefox and Safari folders and drag them to your desktop.

That will force an entirely new profile in Firefox and start clean with Safari. If the apps still freeze then it's beyond the app level.

I actually haven't tried deleting the prefs yet! I'll try that once my kids are asleep and see if that fixes the issue. I guess it makes sense that since I only deleted the app and not the support files that the issue wouldn't have gone away.

 

[eyoungren]

Red, for Safari, it's here…Macintosh HD>Users~username>Library>Safari

 

[RedCroissant]

Red, for Safari, it's here…Macintosh HD>Users~username>Library>Safari

Hello!!!!! Yeah, I found that but that wasn't all that had to be removed in order for it to work. I'm using Safari now and it worked! I also had to delete the Metadata folder for Safari, the prefs file for it, and pretty much anything to do with Safari. Then I reinstalled it and restarted and, voila, it worked! So I'm happy now.

The funny thing is that I will probably keep using Stainless. I like the unified address/search bar, the bookmarks on the side, and it all loads faster and allows for each individual tab to be its own process. If someone wanted to take over support of that browser it would be a good thing because I think it performs really well.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Hello!!!!! Yeah, I found that but that wasn't all that had to be removed in order for it to work. I'm using Safari now and it worked! I also had to delete the Metadata folder for Safari, the prefs file for it, and pretty much anything to do with Safari. Then I reinstalled it and restarted and, voila, it worked!

Me and my impatience, "just re-install!" again

You'll find loads of reference files left behind by Safari, even after a reset, also look in:

~Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/
~Library/Caches/Cookies
~Library/Safari/Databases
~Library/Safari/LocalStorage

And then when you've got that clear, put this is in Terminal and see all the junk still floating around:

dscacheutil -cachedump -entries Host

To flush that, type:

dscacheutil -flushcache

There's probably more stuff lurking somewhere - why can't "Reset" mean just that!

 

[eyoungren]

Hello!!!!! Yeah, I found that but that wasn't all that had to be removed in order for it to work. I'm using Safari now and it worked! I also had to delete the Metadata folder for Safari, the prefs file for it, and pretty much anything to do with Safari. Then I reinstalled it and restarted and, voila, it worked! So I'm happy now.

The funny thing is that I will probably keep using Stainless. I like the unified address/search bar, the bookmarks on the side, and it all loads faster and allows for each individual tab to be its own process. If someone wanted to take over support of that browser it would be a good thing because I think it performs really well.

Glad it worked Red. That points to corruption in the preferences file and if it works for TenFourFox then it points to a corrupt T4Fx profile.

In regards to Stainless, it's one of the fastest webkit browsers out there. Demeter is my fav, but Stainless is my go to when I need something quick. Unfortunately, it's a pretty simple browser with absolutely zero allowance for customization so hence I stick with TenFourFox.

But as far as speed and useability, Stainless is great!

 

[Altemose]

@RedCroissant I would install the Leopard WebKit frameworks so that Stainless is a bit more secure and compatible.

 

[RedCroissant]

@RedCroissant I would install the Leopard WebKit frameworks so that Stainless is a bit more secure and compatible.

Good call. I did that! Done and done!