Something stronger than Force Quit?

[ravenvii]

iTunes has frozen, and not even Force Quit works. I can't reboot or shut down because of it. I tried to enter a killall iTunes command in Terminal to no avail. Is there anything else I can do other than holding down the power button to do a hard reboot?

 

[dubbz]

Ouch.. 'kill' should be able to take it down. Strange that it didn't.

You could try 'shutdown -r now' in the terminal to reboot.

Or use 'top', get the pid of iTunes and try 'kill -9 pid'. Killall doesn't always do the trick.

 

[tech4all]

Is there anything else I can do other than holding down the power button to do a hard reboot?

Why can't you do that? Did it not work either?

 

[dsharits]

I have this happen every now and then when my iPod is connected. It usually only happens when I wake my G4 from sleep after ejecting my iPod and leaving it in the dock. I fix it by disconnecting the iPod and force-quitting iTunes, if necessary.

 

[ham_man]

Just do a hard shutdown. I have had that happen to a printer app a few times and that is sometimes the only option...

 

[ravenvii]

Bam. Unplugging the iPod did the trick. Thanks dsharits!

Apple really should fix this bug...

 

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says....how many times did you try to force quit? Sometimes I have found that it can take a few tries to get a hung app to quit.....oh yeah!

 

[dsharits]

Duff-Man says....how many times did you try to force quit? Sometimes I have found that it can take a few tries to get a hung app to quit.....oh yeah!

That's a good point. Some stubborn apps take 3 or 4 force quits to finally force quit. At least it's not neraly as bad as 'end task' is in Windows.

 

[neocell]

I find that force quitting from dock (option click on app and choose force quit) doesn't work nearly as well as command + option + escape force quitting. Doesn't make sense but on both my G4 iMac and my 12" PB if I have to force quit something almost always I have to go to the escape method after trying the dock a couple of times.

 

[Linkjeniero]

I find that force quitting from dock (option click on app and choose force quit) doesn't work nearly as well as command + option + escape force quitting. Doesn't make sense but on both my G4 iMac and my 12" PB if I have to force quit something almost always I have to go to the escape method after trying the dock a couple of times.

This probably means that the dock force quit uses kill -15 (default signal for process terminating), while the other way uses kill -9 (the true death penalty; no process can say no to it). kill -9 always works, instantly.

 

[Chaszmyr]

Bam. Unplugging the iPod did the trick. Thanks dsharits!

Apple really should fix this bug...

There are more than a couple bugs caused by leaving the iPod plugged in... I'm really surprised I don't hear more about them.

 

[Sean7512]

Why are there soo many bugs with iPods being left in...I would think that Apple would have them FLAWLESS together. I wonder if these bugs are present with a iPod - Windows environment?

 

[neocell]

This probably means that the dock force quit uses kill -15 (default signal for process terminating), while the other way uses kill -9 (the true death penalty; no process can say no to it). kill -9 always works, instantly.

Is there a way to change the dock kill setting?

 

[ravenvii]

This probably means that the dock force quit uses kill -15 (default signal for process terminating), while the other way uses kill -9 (the true death penalty; no process can say no to it). kill -9 always works, instantly.

Well, not always as this instance shows. Force Quit (from the Force Quit window) didn't work even after several tries, and even a "kill -9 630" command in Terminal didn't work (630 was iTunes' pid).

 

[zakatov]

OSX is surprisingly inflexible with mounted (or not mounted) drives. If it wants to use a drive that it thinks is still attached (physically or over the network), it will lock up the entire system until the problem is "fixed".

 

[iSaint]

I wonder if Quit Process in the Activity Monitor is a stronger method to end a running program?

 

[cleanup]

That's a good point. Some stubborn apps take 3 or 4 force quits to finally force quit. At least it's not neraly as bad as 'end task' is in Windows.

End Task is terrible. But End Process ends the process immediately. You just have to know what the process is called. It's easy to find out. End Process is much better than Force Quit in my opinion.

 

[eva01]

Well, not always as this instance shows. Force Quit (from the Force Quit window) didn't work even after several tries, and even a "kill -9 630" command in Terminal didn't work (630 was iTunes' pid).

did you try "sudo kill" in terminal

 

[PlaceofDis]

another thing to keep in mind with iTunes is that if it locks up is that it can take a few minutes to force quit, at least for me it does depending on the situation.

 

[yoavcs]

Why "force quit" won't always work

Force quit and all the various kill options won't always work. If a process is stuck in kernel mode, usually trying to access a device, no kill will, uh, kill it 🙂

Since the problem was fixed by unplugging the iPod I bet that was the situation. iTunes was stuck in kernel mode inside the iPod driver, with some arcane bug-device sleep interaction going on.

If this happens again, do a ps -aux and look at the iTunes line. If it has a U in the STAT field, it means it is sleeping in device driver code in the kernel.

 

[Makosuke]

... while the other way uses kill -9 (the true death penalty; no process can say no to it). kill -9 always works, instantly.

No process can say no to it, but that doesn't mean that it always works; as yoavcs explains, attached device flakyness can cause programs to stall in a way that even kill -9 won't. This iPod situation may be one, but I've also seen it happen occasionally with mounted network volumes not responding properly. VERY annoying.

 

[Fukui]

OSX is surprisingly inflexible with mounted (or not mounted) drives. If it wants to use a drive that it thinks is still attached (physically or over the network), it will lock up the entire system until the problem is "fixed".

Yep, mounted stuff is really a problem for GUI apps. The Unix stuff underneath though runs fine. I've investigated this, and I think its because all GUI processes for each user is a sub-process of LoginWindow.app. Since login window handles the mounting for each user, if LoginWindow is using a mount like the iPod, and iTunes is associated with that, force quiting iTunes would cause some error in login window, which would then cause problems with its sub-processes (other GUI apps)... I'm not 100% sure, but I think thats why when login window stalls on a lost network mount, a lot of other GUI apps freeze (but web servers etc are fine) up until you click "disconnect" from that warning window...

If you really wanna force quit in that situation without pulling the plug, force quit Loginwindow.

 

[Linkjeniero]

No process can say no to it, but that doesn't mean that it always works; as yoavcs explains, attached device flakyness can cause programs to stall in a way that even kill -9 won't. This iPod situation may be one, but I've also seen it happen occasionally with mounted network volumes not responding properly. VERY annoying.

Every day you learn something new... thank you both 🙂.
I researched a little more on the subject and in appears that when in kernel mode the process won't even get the signal, so it can't be killed :S.

 

[dsharits]

Bam. Unplugging the iPod did the trick. Thanks dsharits!

Apple really should fix this bug...

I thought that problem sounded familiar. Glad it worked for you. I hate it when it happens to me, because it sometimes locks up my iPod when I remove it as well.

 

[mac-er]

Why are there soo many bugs with iPods being left in...I would think that Apple would have them FLAWLESS together. I wonder if these bugs are present with a iPod - Windows environment?

Sometimes leaving the iPod plugged in on a Windows machine will give it the blue screen of death.