General OS X and Apple App Unstability

[XIII]

This is really starting to suck.

So much for OS X's great stability. So many things are going wrong right now.

Ok, number 1. I'm just playing iTunes, and then when the next song starts, the track stutters for 2 seconds. Like a skipping CD. Every bloody time.

Number 2. Weather widgets keep crashing. If I try add them, they just disappear. The two I already had just disappeared, all on their own.

Number 3. Safari/QuickTime keep crashing. Like, 1/2 times a day "Unexpectedly quit". ****s me off.

Number 4. I'm sitting here, in bed, no iPod attatched, with iTunes closed. Every 2 minutes iTunes opens up again, behind my Safari window. I quit it, it does it again in 2 mins.

I repair permissions every 2 days, and I take good care of my iBook. Why should I have to reinstall the OS? This is really annoying. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[paddy]

Ya some of those things (itunes skipping) are happening to me to. In my case sometimes Safari wont even open. Its probably a RAM issue for me. Have you tried phoning Apple support?

 

[mad jew]

That sucks.

Ok, number 1. I'm just playing iTunes, and then when the next song starts, the track stutters for 2 seconds. Like a skipping CD. Every bloody time.

Is it the same song(s) every time? Do CDs play normally through iTunes? Is there a lot of CPU activity when things start skipping (check with Activity Monitor), particularly from iTunes?

Number 2. Weather widgets keep crashing. If I try add them, they just disappear. The two I already had just disappeared, all on their own.

Have you tried deleting widget-com.apple.widget.weather.plist?

Number 3. Safari/QuickTime keep crashing. Like, 1/2 times a day "Unexpectedly quit". ****s me off.

Is it seemingly random? Maybe try the PLIST method for these two also. Try resetting Safari from the Safari menu first and if that doesn't help then try removing com.apple.Safari.plist. For QuickTime, is it the actual player or the plugin in Safari?

Number 4. I'm sitting here, in bed, no iPod attatched, with iTunes closed. Every 2 minutes iTunes opens up again, behind my Safari window. I quit it, it does it again in 2 mins.

Do you have the iTunes Widget open?

I repair permissions every 2 days, and I take good care of my iBook. Why should I have to reinstall the OS? This is really annoying. Any ideas?

Repairing permissions that often is unnecessary. As a slack rule of thumb, permissions can only get corrupted after you've put your password in.

Do you have any system hacks or strange theme changers installed? Do you have at least 8GB of free hard drive space? Did you install any third party RAM?

 

[Applespider]

So far as QT crashing, have you got Flip4Mac installed? It can make your system unstable (particularly if you installed the recent free Microsoft link to it rather than the newer updated version direct from Flip4Mac)

Try madjew's suggestions. If not, why not try doing an Archive & Install. It will take 45 minutes plus a download of 10.4.4.

Sure beats spending several hours troubleshooting. And if it's still doing it after that, you can start looking at RAM/hardware problems further.

 

[mad jew]

If not, why not try doing an Archive & Install. It will take 45 minutes plus a download of 10.4.4.

Sure beats spending several hours troubleshooting. And if it's still doing it after that, you can start looking at RAM/hardware problems further.

Good advice that. If you're not confident with an archive and install (for whatever reason) or you can't find your OSX disks then maybe create a new account through System Preferences and see if the problems carry over.

 

[XIII]

Thanks very much for your help. Its 20 past midnight here, so I will try some stuff in the morning, but I can answer a few questions.

Not the same songs in iTunes, any song I'm playing. I don't play CDs, but I'll try tommorow. I have deleted the iTunes .plist to no avail.

I've just deleted the .plist for weather widget. Exactly the same thing just happened. It starts showing the weather, then quits. Lame.

Safari/QT - For Safari at least, seemingly random. With QT, it seems to be I ask it to quit, and then it shuts down, very slowly and unstably, then says it crashed.

I have just installed Flip4Macs WMV Player - however, I got the one from Flip4Mac, not MS. I've had a paid WMV Player for about 6 months.. maybe this 2.0 is unstable.

iTunes widget open, yes. Does that open iTunes in the background, even if you don't ask it to? That seems to be the problem. Thanks.

I repair permissions because its all the troubleshooting I can do. I have ~2GB of space free.. I can burn some stuff to DVD and get to about 6GB I guess. For this reason, archive/install wouldn't be practical.

No system hacks or anything. Third party RAM yes.. but I've had that since day 1. This is only in the last month or so. (some of them are more recent).

Apple Store time?

Thanks for all the help, really appreciated.

 

[Applespider]

I repair permissions because its all the troubleshooting I can do. I have ~2GB of space free..

That might be the problem. OS X likes to have around 6GB free so it can run virtual memory effectively. With Safari and QT both being VM hungry, that could explain a lot.

Try clearing out some stuff and archiving it. Run Delocalizer and get rid of extra languages, get rid of any printer drivers you don't need, get the space up to about 6GB and see if things improve.

 

[mad jew]

I think the sun will shine brighter once you get 6GB free, 8GB if possible. I have a feeling that freeing up space will solve practically all of your problems. Here's hoping, fingers crossed.

The iTunes widget is notorious for opening iTunes FWIW.

 

[XIII]

Thanks applespider and mad jew. Today I'll clear some space up, and see how it goes. I'll let you know.

EDIT: I do hope your right. I can't read any emails.. everytime I open mail, and select and email, it crashes. Eyyy.

 

[Counterfit]

As a rule of thumb*, you should keep around 10% of your boot volume free for VM use.










*bonus points for whoever knows the rant to go along with that from a certain movie.

 

[XIII]

Ok, I have 5.5GB free now. I can't read my bloody Mail (Mail.app crashes whenever I try to read an email), Weather widget still crashes, and QT Player still crashes. Safari has been stable, and I haven't really used iTunes to see about the skipping.

Big meh.

Apple Store time?

 

[Applespider]

Ok, I have 5.5GB free now. I can't read my bloody Mail (Mail.app crashes whenever I try to read an email), Weather widget still crashes, and QT Player still crashes. Safari has been stable, and I haven't really used iTunes to see about the skipping.

What size is your VM in Activity Monitor? If it's anywhere close to 5GB, you need to keep cleaning.

I still stand by the A&I rather than the Apple Store. You'll wait longer waiting to see a genius that it will take you to do it. And once they've tried the usual suspects of dumping preferences, zapping PRAM and repairing permissions, they often tell you to do an A&I anyhow.

 

[XIII]

VM - 7.56GB

Keep cleaning?

 

[Applespider]

Yup... if your usage pattern of applications means you have a VM of 7.5GB, you're going to make sure you've got at least that free.

Alternatively, get used to having fewer apps open at any one time so that you're not putting so much of a load on it. If you don't use Garageband or iDVD, getting rid of their themes will save you a fair amount, iDVD themes add up to about 2GB and Garageband is 3GB of loops etc

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

VM - 7.56GB

Keep cleaning?

Oh, yes...

Maybe cut down a bit on the Dashboard widgets, too...

 

[XIII]

Yup... if your usage pattern of applications means you have a VM of 7.5GB, you're going to make sure you've got at least that free.

Alternatively, get used to having fewer apps open at any one time so that you're not putting so much of a load on it. If you don't use Garageband or iDVD, getting rid of their themes will save you a fair amount, iDVD themes add up to about 2GB and Garageband is 3GB of loops etc

Ok, I'll make another 4GB dvd

What takes up WM?

Mitthrawnuruodo, I have 1.25GB of RAM - I didn't see Dashboard as a problem. Right now I have 6 widgets running.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

What takes up WM?

Mitthrawnuruodo, I have 1.25GB of RAM - I didn't see Dashboard as a problem. Right now I have 6 widgets running.

The widgets occupy much more HD space (through the use of Virtual Memory) than RAM (through Real Memory). Check your Activity monitor...

 

[Applespider]

Go take a screenshot of your Activity Monitor with the list sorted by VM size and you'll see what the problems are. If you can avoid having some of the heaviest culprits open at the same time, then things might improve but more HD space is better.

 

[XIII]

Shut a couple of apps - got VM down to 6.5..

Here we go..

http://www.applesplash.com/jack/Activity Monitor.jpg

Screenshot.

 

[DZ/015]

Check your Flip4Mac version. I installed 2.0 and had all kinds of problems. Upgraded to 2.0.1 and that cured my Safari/QuickTime issues.

I noticed you have Azureus/SWT active. If this is not running, try quitting the processes. I have had some system slowdowns related to this hog.

 

[Eidorian]

Azureus should be a cause of slow down but not application crashes. I have some speed issues with it on my iMac G5 with 1.5 GB. It seems to be a lot less resoruce intensive on Windows.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Check your Flip4Mac version. I installed 2.0 and had all kinds of problems. Upgraded to 2.0.1 and that cured my Safari/QuickTime issues.

Where did you find that update? Did you just redownload and install? My flip4mac prefpane says I'm up-to-date, and I'm only running 2.0...

Edit: To answer myself: I just downloaded 2.0.1, and that did indeed upgrade my 2.0... and now QT player no longer crashes on Quit...

I noticed you have Azureus/SWT active. If this is not running, try quitting the processes. I have had some system slowdowns related to this hog.

Torrent apps are notorious resource hogs, and you cannot really complain about a slow machine with anything like that running...

 

[Eidorian]

Torrent apps are notorious resource hogs, and you cannot really complain about a slow machine with anything like that running...

Well I haven't had many issues with Bits on Wheels. It's made in Objective-C and Cocoa. I believe the file priority is a features that's to be added in the next version. The message boards are full of suggestions to make it more like Azurues. It's a lot less resource hogging than Azureus though.

http://www.bitsonwheels.com/

 

[Applespider]

Where did you find that update? Did you just redownload and install? My flip4mac prefpane says I'm up-to-date, and I'm only running 2.0...

It's here on the flip4mac site

 

[XIII]

Thanks all. QT and Safari are sorted with 2.0.1.

I've got my VM to under what my HD space is (quitting apps, I will clear more space when I can), but Mail is STILL crashing.