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Resolved Macbook Pro 2015 with OSX El Capitan 10.11.4 system wide freeze (Read the details)
- Thread starter Antonnn
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Keep in mind this issue has it's own specifics, "freezing computer" is very easy to misinterpret, and there are tons and tons of freezing issues. It is partially my fault because I didn't phrase this better but I was in the same boat as you when I posted and I thought I'm the only one
For detailed info about this specific issue go to the first post in this thread and watch the videos as well.
Everyone that still has freezing issues not solved in this update reinstall a fresh copy of OS X (without restoring from a backup, a fresh copy with the bare minimum as this is exactly what apple support will tell you to do at one point). If that doesn't fix it, contact apple support, make a genius bar appointment, or start your own thread(or keep posting here although this only dilutes this thread further and no one is able to keep track of stuff anymore since a lot of you have different issues, this wouldn't even be allowed on other forums as the mods would consider that as thread hijack or offtopic).
For everyone that has the macbooks with this specific issue, especially the rMBP 13 2015, update to 10.11.5 (don't forget to make backups first)
This should fix the issue as it was fixed for me in 10.11.5 beta 4, the subsequent public release of 10.11.5 has to include everything from the beta, unless my macbook is a unicorn and healed itself.
Good luck and post the results, unfortunately apple decided to stay quiet on the issue, I don't see any notes pertaining to the fix in the changelog, sucks for them.
For the more sensitive people, I'm not selfish and care for only my fix, I would have long ditched this thread as soon as my issue was fixed, I'm just trying to help out so you don't waste your time as we all did here, some of us for 3 months.
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I can agree that 10.11.5 Beta4 has solved freezing issue (and hope 10.11.5 does too)
When I purchased the first generation of MacBook Pro with force touch I had one freeze (random one at that) but other than that it was rock solid but when 10.11.4 came out the freeze came down to HTML5 video or Flash being used which went back to the hardware acceleration framework (the same freezing would occur on Chrome when playing a Flash video but it could be avoided by going into Flash settings and disable hardware acceleration). The biggest issue for me isn't the fact that there was a bug given that we're talking about fallible beings maintaining a large and complex code base but the complete lack of ownership of the problem by Apple when this issue was widely reported over various websites not to mention the media blackout by Macrumors and the editors failure to cover the issue up until recently - reporting on Apple news shouldn't just be about celebrating achievements but also calling out when Apple does slip up and fails to live up to its own high standards.
I'm on a Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina and had the freezing issue since I've updated to El Capitan. I've only noticed it freezing when I'm on a video website like YouTube and I try to switch tabs or closing out the tab with the video in it. I don't have flash installed so I'm sure it's not flash.. The mouse can move but it's a frozen screen.
In today's changelog (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206567), there are a lot of things referring to changes in the graphics memory management. Perhaps some of those changes fixes things?
Specifically:
Intel Graphics Driver
Available for: OS X El Capitan v10.11 and later
Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: A buffer overflow was addressed through improved bounds checking.
CVE-ID
CVE-2016-1812 : Juwei Lin of TrendMicro
AppleGraphicsControl
Available for: OS X El Capitan v10.11 and later
Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: A null pointer dereference was addressed through improved validation.
CVE-ID
CVE-2016-1793 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero
CVE-2016-1794 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero
Specifically:
Intel Graphics Driver
Available for: OS X El Capitan v10.11 and later
Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: A buffer overflow was addressed through improved bounds checking.
CVE-ID
CVE-2016-1812 : Juwei Lin of TrendMicro
AppleGraphicsControl
Available for: OS X El Capitan v10.11 and later
Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: A null pointer dereference was addressed through improved validation.
CVE-ID
CVE-2016-1793 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero
CVE-2016-1794 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero
Yeah I think a lot of people have misunderstood the original issue. I've gotten a lot of flack on youtube for not understand that "computers sometimes freeze and that's part of life". Well I hope this update fixes it so we can all move on.
Yeah, I only glanced at the stabilty fixes posted here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206230
I haven't looked at the security fixes, doubt it was a security fix although some of those under Graphics are interesting.
I was having the Safari freezing problem on my early 2015 Retina Macbook Pro 13" too. Since updating to 10.11.5, so far I've had no more freezes. Will keep monitoring, but fingers crossed!
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I had troubles on two of my iMacs.
One actually needed a new logic board and I used it for a week after it was replaced with 10.11.4 with no freezes. After upgrading to 10.11.5 the second it came out and using my computer non-stop since, no issues.
My lab computer was not crashing as bad as my other computer above, but still froze occasionally and seemed to be having the problem most people here described. After upgrading to 10.11.5 this morning and using my computer in situations where it previously froze (iTunes, Terminal, X11, Photoshop, and Safari at the same time), no issues.
I think Apple fixed it.
One actually needed a new logic board and I used it for a week after it was replaced with 10.11.4 with no freezes. After upgrading to 10.11.5 the second it came out and using my computer non-stop since, no issues.
My lab computer was not crashing as bad as my other computer above, but still froze occasionally and seemed to be having the problem most people here described. After upgrading to 10.11.5 this morning and using my computer in situations where it previously froze (iTunes, Terminal, X11, Photoshop, and Safari at the same time), no issues.
I think Apple fixed it.
As I noted before (in the post above yours), it has nothing to do with Flash per se but the underlying hardware acceleration frame work used for decoding with both the HTML5 video and Flash both tap into when decoding video. The one saving grace with Flash, if there is any, is the fact that you can at least disable hardware acceleration and you don't end up having issues but when it comes to HTML5 video there is no way to disable hardware acceleration.
I tried it didn't help. The problem was with the graphic's drivers getting stuck in a wake-up loop, not a particular web browser. I think 10.11.5 fixed it, I haven't had any crashes so far.
Right, I know it wasn't specific to a browser, it was a graphics driver/framework bug, which is something that tends to get stressed by the hardware acceleration routines in ALL browsers. In other words, the point was to not "poke the bear", by turning off hardware acceleration.
But anyway, glad that it's fixed for you.