OK - prior to running the combo update I thought I’d run a couple more tests:
1) I ran the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) in extended mode and it did report a problem (on pass 1): 4MEM/9/4000000 0xb740bf98 which I understand indicates a RAM problem. 2) I then ran Etrecheck which reported no problem except Last shutdown cause - 128- unknown However the time of this shutdown would match me hitting the shutdown button in Apple Hardware test - so not really a problem. So, my current thinking is: AHT is finding a RAM problem The RAM passes the normal bootup RAM check Etrecheck shows all RAM modules check out OK The problem could be a (few) bad sector(s) on one RAM module Everything works fine until something tries to access the bad RAM sector(s) I guess I now need to isolate the bad RAM module. Given I have 24GB RAM in 4 modules then, assuming there is just one problem module, the iMac should continue to work fine on either 20GB or 16GB (depending on the size of the faulty RAM) while I get the bad RAM replaced. I may or may not need to run the combo update - depending on whether the various hard shutdowns have caused any corruptions problems. I will keep you informed on progress. Cheers Neil From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Neil Houghton <[email protected]> Reply-To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, 12 March 2019 at 17:20 To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Strange iMac freezes OK - further update - another freeze: This time only MS Outlook was running and I was previewing attachments to an email (using the Outlook preview all button when the spinning beachball appeared. At first I could see both Outlook and Finder using the command-tab switcher and checking the fast user switching drop-down menu worked OK - showing my user account logged in. Then more strangeness happened: All my desktop items “disappeared” though the desktop picture was still visible (if this had happened at the last freeze when using Firefox I would not have noticed since the desktop was obscured by the 2 Firefox windows) Command-tab now only showed Outlook and NOT Finder - as if Finder had somehow quit and not relaunched. I normally have the dock hidden but the cursor revealed it normally - showing no dot under the finder to show it was running. I clicked the finder icon in the dock (hoping to relaunch finder) and the desktop picture immediately disappeared leaving a black background. Currently: Desktop is black but menubar and Outlook window are still showing. Mousing over the hidden dock no longer reveals it. The cursor shows the spinning beachball over the outlook window and menu items The Outlook window can be moved but not resized The cursor currently show the normal pointer over the right-hand Apple menu icons and the 1Password menu icon The cursor shows the spinning beachball over the Onedrive and Dropbox menu icons When the cursor is moused over the Malwarebytes menu icon it says “Background service is offline” When the cursor is moved over the black desktop, it does not change state - ie it stays as ether the normal pointer or as the beachball depending what the state was just prior to moving onto the “black” Continuing: With the cursor over the Spotlight icon, it changed to the beachball and then the icon disappeared. Picking on an Apple menu icon to click - this time the wireless status icon - resulted in the cursor now showing the spinning ball over all the Apple menu icons Clicking on the 1Password and Malwarebytes menu icons also resulted in the cursor changing to showing the spinning ball over these menu icons This time the other Apple menu icons did not actually disappear from the menu bar. The problem has now occurred both with Outlook only running and with Firefox only running and It now seems to me that the problem is not with either app but with some basic OSX functionality at the finder/dock level (or the processes running these functions). I think Ronni’s suggestion for the combo update is my best bet at this point. I will report back with my progress - or lack thereof ;o) Cheers Neil From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Neil Houghton <[email protected]> Reply-To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, 12 March 2019 at 16:02 To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: Strange iMac freezes Writing this from the laptop as my iMac has started playing up with strange ‘freezes’ the likes of which I’ve never seen before – and I’ve had my share of crashes, freezes & hangs over the years!! First my setup/hardware – which has been “enhanced” since purchase: 27” iMac 2.8GHz i7 - late 2009 - running OSX 10.11.6 24GB RAM - 2x8GB + 2x4GB Internal Drive 1 - Mercury Electra 250GB SSD - boot drive containing OSX, applications and a bare “admin” user account Internal Drive 2 - 3TB Toshiba partitioned as: · 1.5TB volume - containing main user folder plus other data folders · 1.0TB volume - currently empty (earmarked for media files) · 500GB volume - containing my previous SL boot volume This has all been working fine since the rebuild to replace the HDs and boost the RAM. I have been out of town for a couple of weeks but shut down the compute and UPS and removed the plugs from the wall - so no chance of “power glitches” while we were away. On return everything fired up OK (from memory) but pretty soon I had a freeze - I don’t remember the exact sequence but, pretty soon I ended up with just a black screen with a cursor. The cursor continued to respond to the mouse but I could not “wake up” anything else. Command option escape would not open a force quit window and I had no means of knowing if any apps were still running. All I could do was power down using the power button on the back of the iMac. All booted up OK but fairly soon I ran into problems - again I don’t remember the exact sequence but I do remember the desktop going black whilst some open window remained visible but soon I was back at the black screen & cursor. Again, all I could do was power down using the power button on the back of the iMac. At this point, I was worried that I might have some drive problem so I rebooted from my backup clone and used disk utility to run first aid on all drives/partitions. I ran top level on both internal drives and then volume level on all four volumes - in all cases the repair went fine with no issues noted. Back to booting normally and again all seemed fine - for awhile - until another freeze - I just remember I was using Outlook this time. Sometime (I don’t remember when) during all this I remember Acrobat reader opening - unprompted - a couple of times. The first time barely registered - I just quit it - the second time made me think “why did it do that?” I was also trying to research OSX black screen problems - I found plenty of references to this problem but generally associated with incomplete system updates and none with similar circumstances to mine. One common thread on a numbers of these threads seemed to be down to some login problem which made me go the user preference pane where I noticed two new Adobe items in the login items list - which, I guess could explain the unexpected opening of Adobe reader. I have now removed the Adobe items from the login items list but my freeze problems persist and so this was probably non-related. The latest freeze is now ongoing – around 1 hour and I know that only a switch-off at the power button will get me out of it. In this case the only app open was Firefox with two multi-tab windows on screen and one multi-tab window minimised in the dock. It froze with the spinning beach ball cursor – which still tracks the mouse movements. Command-tab would not cycle me back to Finder. Option-Command-Escape would not bring up the force-quit menu. Mousing the cursor over the menu bar showed the spinning ball over all the Firefox menu items but the normal pointer over the right-hand Apple & 3rd party menu items. I have the “fast user switching” menu item on so I clicked my user name to open the drop-down switching menu (I wanted to check if this looked “normal”) however, at that point most of the Apple menu items disappeared from the menu-bar. The Spotlight icon was still showing but clicking that turned the pointer to the beachball and, after a moment, the Spotlight icon also disappeared. At present, both Firefox windows are still showing and I can switch between windows by clicking each window – but not between tabs within the window. The menu bar still shows the left-hand Apple icon but the beachball cursor when over it. The full Firefox menu also shows – but again with the beachball. The Dropbox, 1Password, Malwarebytes and Onedrive menu icons are still showing – but now with the beachball (although originally the shoed the normal pointer cursor). Screen sleep initiated normally and the screen awoke from sleep normally with a keyboard input. UPDATE: I have just shut down using the power button and rebooted and quit the only reopened app (Firefox) and, for the moment, all looks fine. For the moment, I will leave it running while I have lunch and see if runs into any problems just sitting quietly doing nothing (from a user perspective!) UPDATE: Well, it has been running fine for a couple of hours now (but doing nothing) including screen sleep and rewake and system sleep and rewake/login - so I guess I will go back to using it and see if I can find any sort off pattern to the problem. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions gratefully received. Cheers Neil
-- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
