Spinning Beachball of Death

[bella]

Here's the problem...
I can be working away on my G5, running 10.3.3, and when I mouse over the dock to switch apps I get the spinning beachball of death and my dock won't work. I can't get menus to work from the menu bar unless I hold the mouse over them for like 5 mins. And then I'm lucky if they work.

I can switch between applications if I choose them manually through finder windows but its slow. The only way I found to correct the spinning beachball of death is to hard restart the machine by holding in the power button untill it shuts down.

Then I can continue working once I start up again. It appears at any given time. Sometimes more than once a day. I've tried running Norton, resetting PR, verifying permissions and fixing any problems either may find but the spinning beachball of death keeps returning. HELP!!!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Here's the problem...
I can be working away on my G5, running 10.3.3, and when I mouse over the dock to switch apps I get the spinning beachball of death and my dock won't work. I can't get menus to work from the menu bar unless I hold the mouse over them for like 5 mins. And then I'm lucky if they work.

I can switch between applications if I choose them manually through finder windows but its slow. The only way I found to correct the spinning beachball of death is to hard restart the machine by holding in the power button untill it shuts down.

Then I can continue working once I start up again. It appears at any given time. Sometimes more than once a day. I've tried running Norton, resetting PR, verifying permissions and fixing any problems either may find but the spinning beachball of death keeps returning. HELP!!!

Do you have an iDisk with local synchronization turned on? I got this problem when I had local iDisk synch enabled (random beachballs). If you hear the hard drive grinding while you are getting the beachball, it could be a sign that local iDisk synchronization is getting stuck and causing the whole Mac to beachball. I also had this happen when I tried to run the most recent iPod software update. iTunes launched, froze, and gave me the beachball of death. Restarting cured the problem on that occasion - it didn't recur.

 

[bella]

No iDisk or iPod....

 

[wrldwzrd89]

If that's the case, you most likely have some process running in the background that repeatedly freezes and is somehow tying up your Mac's resources. Try running the top command in the background in batch mode so it logs its output to a file - look in that log for the name of the offending process.

 

[bella]

Ummm - say Whaa!!! Batch in the who with the what where?? I'm sorry I'm not real good with the technical stuff. I know a little but I need some (read- a lot) further clarification on how I'm supposed to do what you suggested.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Ummm - say Whaa!!! Batch in the who with the what where?? I'm sorry I'm not real good with the technical stuff. I know a little but I need some (read- a lot) further clarification on how I'm supposed to do what you suggested.

Okay - you need to use Terminal for this. It's located in your Utilities folder, inside your Applications folder. Once the Terminal is launched, type

top -b >~/processlog.txt

and hide the Terminal; just let it run in the background, logging. Once you get the beachball and have to restart, open up the processlog.txt log file (which may be rather large, and will be in the root of your home directory), scroll to the end, and look for a process that is using a large portion of the memory/CPU. That process is most likely the one freezing your system.

 

[bella]

So I just type Code: and that's it?? How do I know it's working??

 

[wrldwzrd89]

So I just type Code: and that's it?? How do I know it's working??

No, not Code:, what's IN the Code: area.
You'll know it's working if you see a file in your home directory called processlog.txt and its size grows every time you Get Info on it.

 

[tomf87]

So I just type Code: and that's it?? How do I know it's working??

From Terminal:

To see the process running:

ps -auxw | grep top

Or to view the log file in real-time:

tail -f ~/processlog.txt

Hit CTRL-C to quit the tail program.

 

[mkrishnan]

Then I can continue working once I start up again. It appears at any given time. Sometimes more than once a day. I've tried running Norton, resetting PR, verifying permissions and fixing any problems either may find but the spinning beachball of death keeps returning. HELP!!!

I think you mean Norton Commander and not AV, but anyway, when I first installed Norton AV, I noticed a lot of funny-business when I had the menu-bar directory enabled (Norton puts up some kind of yellow disc or something, and you can launch the pieces of NAV from it). I got some beachball action and also strange things would happen like the NAV icon disappearing after I tried using it, etc. When I turned this off, the problem went away....

 

[bella]

ok - I am doing something wrong. When I open Terminal I get a little window - see first picture. If I go to File > New Command... I get the second picture. No matter what I do or type in either one it doesn't seem to be doing what it's supposed to do. So please tell me where exactly to go, what to do and what to type......

 

[bella]

 

[bella]

I think you mean Norton Commander and not AV, but anyway, when I first installed Norton AV, I noticed a lot of funny-business when I had the menu-bar directory enabled (Norton puts up some kind of yellow disc or something, and you can launch the pieces of NAV from it). I got some beachball action and also strange things would happen like the NAV icon disappearing after I tried using it, etc. When I turned this off, the problem went away....

I meant Norton Utilities - but thanks. I had other problems with AV too. Switched it off and the problems went away. NOw if I can get this one solved I'll be a happy lady.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

ok - I am doing something wrong. When I open Terminal I get a little window - see first picture. If I go to File > New Command... I get the second picture. No matter what I do or type in either one it doesn't seem to be doing what it's supposed to do. So please tell me where exactly to go, what to do and what to type......

No, no...you need to be typing the command in the Terminal window itself, not the new command prompt. Once the Terminal is open and you get that Welcome to Darwin message, type the command in my earlier post: "top -b >~/processlog.txt" (without the quotes). Terminal should appear to freeze - this means it's working. You can hide the Terminal window. If you want to use tomf87's tip for viewing the log file in real-time, create a new Terminal window by choosing New Terminal (I think - the shortcut is command-N) from the File menu and typing the command in that window.

 

[bella]

OH YEA!!! It worked! For some reason that code didn't show up before when you typed it.... odd. Hopefully this will tell me what the problem is! Thanks!!

 

[bella]

Oh CRAPPY! This doesn't seem to be working... The process log isn't getting bigger..... Did I do something incorrectly???

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Oh CRAPPY! This doesn't seem to be working... The process log isn't getting bigger..... Did I do something incorrectly???

Maybe you've caught it in between sampling intervals. Just check later, when it should have taken another sample. It surprises me that it is sampling so infrequently.

 

[abhishekit]

so many icons on ur desktop!!

wat r u , a windows user ?

and, whenevr u get the beachball..i just open the activity monitor, which is in applications-utilities, and see which process is taking most cpu..and generally its safari
but i never get any freezes, even if the ball comes, its fr some seconds..
n may be its norton thats being the hog..

 

[bella]

it didn't work.... I don't get any information on what my computer is doing... Any other advice?

 

[bella]

ok so the whole terminal thing didn't go so well for me. I did find a folder of system logs.... here's part of one from today... make sense to anyone??

May 5 09:31:56 localhost crontab[356]: (root) LIST (mbehnke)
May 5 09:32:21 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Microsoft Entourage: *** Warning: Line option kATSLineIsDisplayOnly has been deprecated. ***
May 5 09:32:21 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Microsoft Entourage: *** Warning: ATSUMeasureText has been deprecated. Use ATSUGetUnjustifiedBounds instead. ***
May 5 09:33:13 localhost /usr/libexec/fix_prebinding: fix_prebinding quitting for now.
May 5 09:33:54 localhost /Applications/Adobe Illustrator 10.0.3/Adobe Illustrator 10.0.3/Contents/MacOSClassic/Adobe Illustrator 10: LaunchApplication(/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Web/AOM)
May 5 10:48:56 localhost kernel: ipv4_control: in_pcb_letgo_port retval=2 so=34fcb84
May 5 10:48:56 localhost kernel: sip_control: ipv4_control returns error=2 for so=34fcb84 kp=3ded2c4
May 5 10:49:12 localhost kernel: AFP_VFS afpfs_mount: /Volumes/Graphics, pid 376
May 5 10:54:15 localhost kernel: ipv4_control: in_pcb_letgo_port retval=2 so=34fcb84
May 5 10:54:15 localhost kernel: sip_control: ipv4_control returns error=2 for so=34fcb84 kp=3ded2c4
May 5 11:38:32 localhost crashdump: Started writing crash report to: /Users/mbehnke/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Microsoft Entourage.crash.log
May 5 11:38:33 localhost crashdump: Finished writing crash report to: /Users/mbehnke/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Microsoft Entourage.crash.log
May 5 11:38:46 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Microsoft Entourage: *** Warning: Line option kATSLineIsDisplayOnly has been deprecated. ***
May 5 11:38:46 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Microsoft Entourage: *** Warning: ATSUMeasureText has been deprecated. Use ATSUGetUnjustifiedBounds instead. ***
May 5 11:51:09 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Microsoft Entourage: *** Warning: Line option kATSLineIsDisplayOnly has been deprecated. ***
May 5 11:51:09 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Microsoft Entourage: *** Warning: ATSUMeasureText has been deprecated. Use ATSUGetUnjustifiedBounds instead. ***
May 5 12:04:10 localhost kernel: resize: max chain len 37, new table size 8192
May 5 12:22:47 localhost syslogd: restart
May 5 12:22:47 localhost syslogd: kernel boot file is /mach_kernel

 

[bella]

Found a log of Dock crashes - this was the latest......

Host Name: Michelle-Behnkes-Computer.local
Date/Time: 2004-05-06 12:48:19 -0400
OS Version: 10.3.3 (Build 7F44)
Report Version: 2

Command: Dock
Path: /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock
Version: 1.2 (1.2)
PID: 402
Thread: 0

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000020

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 com.apple.CoreGraphics 0x935dc7f4 _CGSSynchronizeWindow + 0x4c
1 com.apple.CoreGraphics 0x935d7470 _CGSLockWindow + 0x114
2 com.apple.CoreGraphics 0x935efa4c CGSLockWindowRectBits + 0xec
3 com.apple.dock 0x0002fce0 0x1000 + 0x2ece0
4 com.apple.dock 0x0002e8cc 0x1000 + 0x2d8cc
5 com.apple.dock 0x0002fb38 0x1000 + 0x2eb38
6 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901946a8 __CFRunLoopDoTimer + 0xf4
7 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90191a08 __CFRunLoopRun + 0x5c8
8 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90195f1c CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 0x148
9 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901ff374 CFRunLoopRun + 0x34
10 com.apple.dock 0x0000e568 0x1000 + 0xd568
11 com.apple.dock 0x0000e290 0x1000 + 0xd290
12 com.apple.dock 0x0000e104 0x1000 + 0xd104

Thread 1:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90017048 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e890 _pthread_cond_wait + 0x270
2 ColorSync 0x9135c9f0 _Z20pthreadSemaphoreWaitP18t_pthreadSemaphore + 0x38
3 ColorSync 0x9135c6e0 _Z11CMMConvTaskPv + 0x28
4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900247e8 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 2:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90017048 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e890 _pthread_cond_wait + 0x270
2 com.apple.dock 0x0000ab9c 0x1000 + 0x9b9c
3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900247e8 _pthread_body + 0x28

PPC Thread State:
srr0: 0x935dc7f4 srr1: 0x0000d030 vrsave: 0x00000000
cr: 0x48088222 xer: 0x00000000 lr: 0x935dc7b8 ctr: 0x90002140
r0: 0x00000000 r1: 0xbffff220 r2: 0x00000000 r3: 0x0031a190
r4: 0x00318ea0 r5: 0x00000001 r6: 0x003100d0 r7: 0x00000000
r8: 0xbffff578 r9: 0xbffff590 r10: 0xbffff598 r11: 0xa35d13a0
r12: 0x90002140 r13: 0x0031a190 r14: 0x00000000 r15: 0x00000000
r16: 0x00000001 r17: 0x00000000 r18: 0xa0191458 r19: 0x00000006
r20: 0x00004f03 r21: 0x00000000 r22: 0x00319b90 r23: 0x00000001
r24: 0xbffff560 r25: 0xbffff590 r26: 0x0031a190 r27: 0x00000001
r28: 0x00318ea0 r29: 0x00318ea0 r30: 0x00000001 r31: 0x935dc7b8

Binary Images Description:
0x1000 - 0x49fff com.apple.dock 1.2 /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock

There was a bunch more but it won't all fit

 

[Veldek]

Maybe you've caught it in between sampling intervals. Just check later, when it should have taken another sample. It surprises me that it is sampling so infrequently.

top -b doesn't work on my computer neither. b is an unrecognized option. I think the crash report bella posted is of more help - just not for me...