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The Infamous Finder Crash

C

CoreWeb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 2, 2007
456
0
Edge of reason
Hello All,
Finder has crashed my computer too many times (whether dealing with mounted network drives whose host computerr was suddenly turned off, or external disks which suddenly stopped working) and I've had enough.

I am proposing:
  1. Everyone send a "bug report" on Finder to Apple at http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/.
  2. Everyone post their experiences here
  3. See if we can get Dugg

I got the idea after how, when someone has a very large problem with AppleCare and creates too big a fuss over it, Apple tries to fix it. (Which is a good thing).

Well, this is a very large problem, and it needs to be fixed. So, let us try to create as big of a deal as possible. Let's send a message to Apple that this bug is long overdue for a fix.

And please post about your own Finder crashes here.
 
I'm sure my finder has crashed before, but I was probably asking for it due to all the crap I was trying to do. Anyway, how would I know if Finder literally crashed? I've noticed in recent weeks that my PB is asleep and when I go to wake it, it is locked so I have to shut down and reboot. IS that a finder crash?
 
johnmartin78 said:
Is it a big problem?Of the 4 macs I currently own(2 iMac,2Macbooks) I haven't had it happen ever....
Click to expand...

Connect one Mac to another mac's disk drive. Make the mac you connected to go to sleep. Try doing stuff on the remote drive - or, simply try ejecting it. It is no longer accessible, but Finder doesn't seem to realise this. It will often crash your computer while trying to view the remote drive.

It is very replicatable, I believe.
 
In fact, I'm doing it right now. Finder WILL crash, and SOMETIMES it will take down your computer too.

Right now, only Finder.
 
FF_productions said:
Well when I disconnect a drive, finder will freeze but NEVER will the entire system freeze on me.

I just do option+:apple: ESC and just relaunch Finder.
Click to expand...

It just froze my whole system. Here is the exact chain of events:
  1. Two Computers: Computer A and Computer B
  2. On Computer A's finder, connect to a disk on Computer B
  3. Tell Computer B to go to sleep
  4. Eject the drive on Computer A
  5. Whole system freezes (I try option-command-escape, it doesn't seem to work. Safari freezes, Dock freezes, even. Everything)

This happened to me just now.

Also, it is bad enough that Finder freezes, period. That really, really needs to be fixed, and a fuss should be made over that alone. But that it is even possible to freeze the entire system... that's much, much worse.
 
hoop said:
I constantly get this on my network, too. Finder is miserable at dealing with sudden connection breaks:mad:
Click to expand...

This is probably what I hate most about Finder. Networking, period, is miserable. Copying files can be exceptionally slow. (somtimes it is quick, though) Right now, Finder STINKS.

Networking on Finder is iffy at best. I wish they could do it like iTunes for connecting to other computers, and instantly know when the other computer was disconnected.

And also, Finder should DEFINITELY be multithreaded - so when one window is waiting for a response from another computer, you can still do something else within another window of the program. Right now, if one Finder window is busy attempting to connect to another computer (or doing something else even), you can't do so much as go "File -> Save" in pages.
 
CoreWeb said:
It just froze my whole system. Here is the exact chain of events:
  1. Two Computers: Computer A and Computer B
  2. On Computer A's finder, connect to a disk on Computer B
  3. Tell Computer B to go to sleep
  4. Eject the drive on Computer A
  5. Whole system freezes (I try option-command-escape, it doesn't seem to work. Safari freezes, Dock freezes, even. Everything)

This happened to me just now.

Also, it is bad enough that Finder freezes, period. That really, really needs to be fixed, and a fuss should be made over that alone. But that it is even possible to freeze the entire system... that's much, much worse.
Click to expand...

If you know what causes it, just report it, and then quit doing it. I have a fairly sophisticated network, with many remote volumes mounted. I do not experience your issue, but then I do not put mounted volumes asleep. In fact, I almost never trust sleep mode to work correctly. That includes Windows, OS/2, OSX and Solaris. It never seems to work right.

The issue you are raising hardly warrants a populous movement. It should be fixed (if in fact it happens). But, you can simply unmount the volume BEFORE putting it to sleep, right? So, you have a solution. I develop software. My life is a constant battle with things that do not work, or work as advertised.


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SMM said:
If you know what causes it, just report it, and then quit doing it. I have a fairly sophisticated network, with many remote volumes mounted. I do not experience your issue, but then I do not put mounted volumes asleep. In fact, I almost never trust sleep mode to work correctly. That includes Windows, OS/2, OSX and Solaris. It never seems to work right.

The issue you are raising hardly warrants a populous movement. It should be fixed (if in fact it happens). But, you can simply unmount the volume BEFORE putting it to sleep, right? So, you have a solution. I develop software. My life is a constant battle with things that do not work, or work as advertised.
Click to expand...
What if you turn off, restart a computer, or do something along those lines?

It is not ONLY sleep. It is also if the network gets disconnected at all, in any way. If the computer I am acessing belongs to someone else, and they turn it off/make it go to sleep/unplug the ethernet cable/disconnect AirPort, then if I try to disconnect the drive, the entire computer crashes. Thus, it is not a solution to unmount before sleep!

Also, I develop plenty of software as well. I know perfectly well the hassles of writing software. But to me, one of the priorities is making sure that no matter what the user does, it doesn't crash (Within reason). The circumstances making this bug occur are not rare, and it can and has made me LOSE DATA, which is unacceptable. For instance, I had an external drive which crashed, and not only did I lose the data on that drive, I lost all data from other programs as well as the entire computer crashed!

This behavior is obviously unnacceptable - especially the fact that the ENTIRE machine crashes. If just Finder crashed, it wouldn't be quite as big of a deal. But the entire machine crashes, which is something that should not ever occur. It is also very reproduceable (look above. Follow the steps. Watch your computer crash.)
 
I'm sure Apple is well aware of this issue... it's been an issue for years. But honestly, there is a sort of solution ("doctor it hurts when I hit my head" "well, don't do that"). So I can't sweat it too much.

What I'd sweat much more is that the whole Finder app is a sick animal. It should be shot and thrown into a ditch. Did you know that as OS X was developed the head architecture designer (A. Tervanian) got rid of Finder? But the outcry from the users who were used to it was so great that they stuck it back in, and we've had this sick limp dying animal ever since. There's a million apps out there that try to deal with the dissatisfaction of Finder (f.ex. PathFinder, XFolder etc.), the need is so great. And there's even a saying so common that it goes by abbreviation: FTFF (Fix The F****** Finder) you constantly hear. Articles are written and so on. But we're stuck with it, because of the conservatism of a portion of Apple users, and until they die out, we're stuck with this pig on life support.

Now, if we could get a petition going to wholesale replace the Finder, I'd be the first to sign up. Really, it's been what, 20 years of this dying pig? C'mon Apple, blow my mind with how great you can make a file system app! I know you guys can do it! Surprise me, delight me, astonish me! Leave the Finder for those who crave it as the familiar app (like the battered wife who can't leave her abusive husband), and liberate the rest of us!
 
I get this all the time too, and it's pretty frustrating. Usually it's 'cause I reboot a computer on the network and forget to eject it from the computer it's mounted on. It's inconvenient, especially if I'm processing something and don't want to have to reboot for a while.

I've also found that if my MacBook is connected to my router through Airport and an ethernet cable, if I disconnect either one of the two (turn off airport, unplug the cable) while it's transferring files between computers, it'll crash Finder.

Ah well... I've just learned to be more careful. Hopefully they'll fix this issue.
 
OldCorpse said:
there is a sort of solution ("doctor it hurts when I hit my head" "well, don't do that")
Click to expand...
As I said above, there is not a solution if you can't make sure the other computer stays on. If I am connected to another computer, and don't even KNOW it has been turned off, my computer crashes.

Though I agree that Finder needs to be replaced (and might well be in Leopard) I am saying, if Apple does not replace Finder, these kind of crashes are probably its #1 or 2 problem. Sure it looks ugly, and is somewhat slow, but I can deal with that. I can't deal with it crashing so often. After crashing, I'd say its biggest problem is that it is not multi-threaded.

What I would actually like is that new Spotlight application we've been seeing to BECOME the new Finder. No folders. Just files, and metadata. It can be done, but is somewhat hard to comprehend at first. But it is done, all the time, in iTunes. (I know navigating files is a bit different from navigating songs. However, I am still certain it could be pulled off. In fact, folders could be implemented like "Playlists" are in iTunes, and could work like folders do in a normal file system, to allow people to transition (Apple loves transitions) to the new method of managing files)

But I don't think Apple is going to do this. And I only give Apple a 50/50 chance or less of revamping the Finder at all. At the very least, all of the networking bugs need fixing.

OldCorpse said:
Now, if we could get a petition going to wholesale replace the Finder, I'd be the first to sign up. Really, it's been what, 20 years of this dying pig? C'mon Apple, blow my mind with how great you can make a file system app! I know you guys can do it! Surprise me, delight me, astonish me! Leave the Finder for those who crave it as the familiar app (like the battered wife who can't leave her abusive husband), and liberate the rest of us!
Click to expand...
We could try to argue for a wholesale replace as well. I just don't give Apple a very high probability of doing it, as it has been argued for for years. Of course, they could just be trying to punish those who resisted getting rid of the Finder...

How about this: we argue for a new Finder, and at the very least fixing the (almost obvious) bugs in the old one.
 
CoreWeb said:
As I said above, there is not a solution if you can't make sure the other computer stays on. If I am connected to another computer, and don't even KNOW it has been turned off, my computer crashes.

Though I agree that Finder needs to be replaced (and might well be in Leopard) I am saying, if Apple does not replace Finder, these kind of crashes are probably its #1 or 2 problem. Sure it looks ugly, and is somewhat slow, but I can deal with that. I can't deal with it crashing so often. After crashing, I'd say its biggest problem is that it is not multi-threaded.

What I would actually like is that new Spotlight application we've been seeing to BECOME the new Finder. No folders. Just files, and metadata. It can be done, but is somewhat hard to comprehend at first. But it is done, all the time, in iTunes. (I know navigating files is a bit different from navigating songs. However, I am still certain it could be pulled off. In fact, folders could be implemented like "Playlists" are in iTunes, and could work like folders do in a normal file system, to allow people to transition (Apple loves transitions) to the new method of managing files)

But I don't think Apple is going to do this. And I only give Apple a 50/50 chance or less of revamping the Finder at all. At the very least, all of the networking bugs need fixing.


We could try to argue for a wholesale replace as well. I just don't give Apple a very high probability of doing it, as it has been argued for for years. Of course, they could just be trying to punish those who resisted getting rid of the Finder...

How about this: we argue for a new Finder, and at the very least fixing the (almost obvious) bugs in the old one.
Click to expand...

I seem to detect another agenda here. You raise one issue, but are now escalating it..ugly, slow, needs to be replaced. If it is causing you so much grief, and you do develop software, write an interface that suits your needs better, or try a knock-off like pathfinder.

I am total agreement with reporting bugs to Apple, even following up on them. But, I sure do not see a need for a 'Finder Jihad'.
 
SMM said:
I seem to detect another agenda here. You raise one issue, but are now escalating it..ugly, slow, needs to be replaced. If it is causing you so much grief, and you do develop software, write an interface that suits your needs better, or try a knock-off like pathfinder.

I am total agreement with reporting bugs to Apple, even following up on them. But, I sure do not see a need for a 'Finder Jihad'.
Click to expand...

No, I'm simply saying that I agree that it should be replaced, but overall, the most important thing to me is that these bugs are fixed. As for slow and ugly, I mean mildly so. Slow - spotlight in it is quite slow compared to spotlight outside of it. Ugly, well, that's just because I think a new UI would be nice. But these are minor things. Multithreading and bug fixing would really make me quite happy.

As for writing my own interface, I don't have time - I'm writing other people's interfaces. I write primarily C++/C command line programs that deal with PDF and AFP (a printer format), and I also write advanced web applications. I have also used Java and .NET to write advanced user interfaces, complete with window managers, button managers, and such (not using Java's native controls.) I'm also not willing to pay money for a program like Pathfinder, when I haven't heard only good reviews about it. Plus, I'm not actually certain that the bug is in Finder itself - it could be in networking, and the innards of the operating system. But it happens in Finder, so I will blame it for the time being. (Especially as Finder's lack of multithreading is one of the things which makes this problem so devastating.)

You, as a supposed software developer, should know that bugs that can crash entire systems should be fixed ASAP. Several years have gone by with this bug, enough is enough.

I want a fuss to be made about the bug, and as many people as possible to submit a bug report about it. The bug is common enough as I've seen it mentioned several other places, but I didn't feel like anything needed to be done about it until it really burned me. As there is no acceptable workaround, it should be a high-priority bug for Apple.

And have you tried replicating those steps? If you have such a big network, wouldn't one computer go down at some point? If, after that, you bothered trying to use or disconnect the drive, well, you would probably say goodbye to any open files. Even worse for me, is that I won't necessarily KNOW that the other computer has gone down. So, my computer may crash for apparently no reason while networking.
 
Has the new upgrade to 10.4.9 made any progress? I've yet to test this out on my MBP.
 
Googa said:
Has the new upgrade to 10.4.9 made any progress? I've yet to test this out on my MBP.
Click to expand...

No progress. Same crashes. I should also note that, should a USB drive be disconnected prematurely or crash, a Finder crash will occur, and (should you press "Eject") will crash the entire system.

I found this out as my external hard drive crashed. The computer had issues with the power supply, I believe, and it was most likely the cause for the drive failure (as I think it also crashed a USB flash drive as well).
 
CoreWeb said:
No progress. Same crashes. I should also note that, should a USB drive be disconnected prematurely or crash, a Finder crash will occur, and (should you press "Eject") will crash the entire system.
Click to expand...

I'm calling B.S. on that one. As a consumer who uses USB thumb drives all the time, and iPods (a.k.a. removable USB hard drives), If you pull them out while they're in use, this huge warning box pops up "you idiot, you need to unmount the drive before ejecting it!" I hit "OK" and that's the end of that.

At least that's how it is in Panther.. but unless Apple's in the practice of downgrading software, I don't think it got any worse
 
I want to see some crashlogs if the Finder is crashing. Why do I suspect that I will see the indications of haxies and APE?

However, the Finders coping with the sudden loss of network with a volume mounted, or the sudden disconnection of a volume truely is terrible. The problem lies in the timeout period. 120 seconds of BBoD until it finally times out is a hard thing to explain to people who aren't technical minded.
 
yellow said:
I want to see some crashlogs if the Finder is crashing. Why do I suspect that I will see the indications of haxies and APE?

However, the Finders coping with the sudden loss of network with a volume mounted, or the sudden disconnection of a volume truely is terrible. The problem lies in the timeout period. 120 seconds of BBoD until it finally times out is a hard thing to explain to people who aren't technical minded.
Click to expand...
You want to see a log? (I have no hacking tools running. This machine is brand new.)
Here:
Mar 21 11:30:49 -computer KernelEventAgent[59]: tid 00000000 received VQ_NOTRESP event (1)
Mar 21 11:31:34 xxx-computer diskarbitrationd[66]: Finder [3975]:21255 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: Safari [3973]:43023 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: mdimportserver [3971]:41559 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: mdimportserver [3971]:44603 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: diskimages-helper [3321]:10915 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: diskimages-helper [3224]:35491 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: coreaudiod [65]:32031 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: DashboardClient [322]:14623 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: System Events [318]:18183 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: Dock [216]:24939 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: UniversalAccess [226]:24323 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: SystemUIServer [217]:15203 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: SystemUIServer [217]:13107 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: loginwindow [150]:17159 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: ATSServer [147]:16131 not responding.
Mar 21 11:31:34 -computer diskarbitrationd[66]: coreservicesd [95]:13571 not responding.
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: hi mem tramps at 0xffe00000
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: PAE enabled
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: 64 bit mode enabled
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: vm_page_bootstrap: 513035 free pages
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: mig_table_max_displ = 71
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: Enabling XMM register save/restore and SSE/SSE2 opcodes
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: 89 prelinked modules
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: ACPI CA 20060421
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement: ready
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: AppleACPICPU: ProcessorApicId=0 LocalApicId=0 Enabled
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: AppleACPICPU: ProcessorApicId=1 LocalApicId=1 Enabled
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
Mar 21 11:34:45 localhost kernel[0]: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Click to expand...
You can see what happened. Everything crashed. I left it running for a few minutes, then forced a shut down. I think you can see what happened above. And it was OVER 120 seconds.

thejadedmonkey said:
I'm calling B.S. on that one. As a consumer who uses USB thumb drives all the time, and iPods (a.k.a. removable USB hard drives), If you pull them out while they're in use, this huge warning box pops up "you idiot, you need to unmount the drive before ejecting it!" I hit "OK" and that's the end of that.

At least that's how it is in Panther.. but unless Apple's in the practice of downgrading software, I don't think it got any worse
Click to expand...

I'm terribly sorry, my mistake. When removing a USB drive, Apple will notice. When the drive CRASHES, finder will often follow.
 
CoreWeb said:
I'm terribly sorry, my mistake. When removing a USB drive, Apple will notice. When the drive CRASHES, finder will often follow.
Click to expand...

I think i've seen the described behavior where my external USB drive loses connection for an instant.. it hangs everything, but I was never sure just what caused everything to hang..
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I think i've seen the described behavior where my external USB drive loses connection for an instant.. it hangs everything, but I was never sure just what caused everything to hang..
Click to expand...

That might have been what happened to my thumb drive. But to my external hard disk - it got completely unusable. Completely. Didn't show up ANYWHERE. (I even tried Windows PCs, and they hardly recognized that it was connected.)

But my thumb drive remained usable, I believe, though I stopped using it as it seemed unstable after my computer crashed.
 
yellow said:
Those aren't crashlogs. That's from the system.log. An actual crash should prduce a crashlog.
Click to expand...

Did I say it was a kernel panic? No, I said it was a hang. A complete, system-wide hang. I don't think it created a crash log. No application "crashed," in the technical sense. Finder "hung", and hanged the rest of my system as well. Perhaps I should have used "Hang" in my post title, but does it really matter?

Are there crash logs when that happens? And yes, that is from system.log. But it shows you in as much detail as possible what happened.

And in addition, the replication steps are listed above. Why don't you just try them? The computer WILL crash (hang if you want to be technical about it).
 
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