Unplugging firewire often fixes freezes in the Finder.

[steffi]

I'm wondering if anybody knows why that often when your machine appears to have frozen and appears to be non responsive unplugging the firewire connector results in the machine becoming unfrozen and responsive again. Albeit now reminding you that a volume has been prematurely ejected.

 

[rockstarjoe]

Are you using a western digital MyBook by any chance?

 

[steffi]

Are you using a western digital MyBook by any chance?

I have seen this behaviour with many drives not just the current MyBook Studio Edition II that I have here now.

 

[the-ep]

I have had that problem many times as well with a My Passport Studio I have (usually when playing video files in VLC or transferring a large number of files). Strangely this does not even occur when it's plugged into USB instead.

Interestingly, my My Book Studio II has not frozen by itself yet via FW connection (but it has when the Passport Studio was daisy-chained).

I usually get around this problem by manually ejecting the drive as well, but I quickly reconnect it afterwards so that Finder doesn't recognize the premature ejection. What I do not recommend, though, is force-quitting Finder, as it almost always results in the dreaded 10810 error and a hard reset.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Because Apple's firewire drivers are crap. I think it may also have something to do with the chipset that Apple uses... there's a small but vocal minority on these boards that have been bitching about Firewire ever since Apple switched to a cheaper chipset years ago.

This is all speculation.

 

[LoganT]

I had the same problem with a Western Digital drive and a Macally enclosure. When I would restart my computer it would just stay on a grey screen until I unplugged the FireWire. It would even do this if the drive wasn't turned on.