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OS X acting no different than Windows

B

buckuxc

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 28, 2003
207
0
hey all,

Ok, I've been a fan of my Powerbook and of OS X most of the time since I bought the 12" back in January. Every so often though, the thing freezes up uncontrollably or other such Windows-like situations, and, unlike Windows, I don't know any options like CTRL-ALT-DEL that will help at least some circumstances. At that point I am left to simply pressing the power button, as much as I don't like to. Just a few minutes ago was one of the situations: I came back to my computer, plugged in my iPod, sending iTunes into motion "updating" it, and then turned to Mail to see the 2 new messages in my Inbox. When it brought Mail up onto the screen, everything but the mouse froze completely: no BBoD, no magnifying of Dock icons, nothing but the moving mouse. I waited 5 minutes and still nothing. At this point I turned off the computer...

When it came on, it recognized the iPod was connected and started up iTunes right away. But this failed: I got a warning that said "The iTunes Music Library file cannot be read because it does not appear to be a valid library file." and only an "ok" button. What the hell is going on here? I didn't do anything to my iTunes Music Library file. Yes the iPod was connected, and yes it might have been in the middle of updating...but there was no other option because the computer was entirely frozen. I correctly disconnected my iPod and restarted the computer again. Without reconnecting the iPod, I started up iTunes and the same warning came up.

What is going on here? What happened to my "stable" OS X and "it just works" Mac? I'm not a computer idiot, but at the same time I've come expect a little more from this computer. Oh, and by the way, I have 512MB of ram...that should be enough to run the thing and keep it from freezing, shouldn't it? I had Safari, Mail, Adium, iTunes, iCal, and Word open when the whole thing froze.

What do I do about my iTunes Music Library file and what do I do when the computer freezes like this???

sps
 
buckuxc said:
hey all,
I don't know any options like CTRL-ALT-DEL that will help at least some circumstances.
Click to expand...

i think apple - option - escape (force quit) is what you are looking for in such situaitons but i dont think it tells you that a programme is not responding like in windows
 
which version of adium are you using? i am using the alpha version now, and i suspect it is at the root of a few problems i have been experiencing recently. just something to think about.

::edit::
i'm dumb
::edit::
 
When EVERYTHING freezes like that, and stays that way for more than 20 or 20 seconds, your only choice is o force a restart/shutdown. If an app freezes, and shows the Spinning Ball of Death, but other apps respond, you can hit Option-Command-Escape and it will bring up a window where you can force the app to quit (or relaunch if it's the Finder). You could also go through Activity Monitor, or even do it remotely via ssh.

As for your iTunes Library file, it's b0rked, so I hope you have a backup. I think there might be some apps around on VersionTracker or MacUpdate that can get it from the iPod, but I'm not sure.
 
Can someone point me to an app that can obtain the iTunes Library file from my iPod? And if this kind of thing (total freeze) happens during somehting like an iPod update, how can one protect files??? I think I have a back up, but it's at least 2 months old at this point. Unless I update the backup everyday, I lose a pretty good amount of information...
 
If the mouse still moves sometimes it's just processing something so if you give it time it will ussually come back.

have you ever repaired your disk permissions? i would do that after you have to force a restart with the power button
 
buckuxc said:
hey all,

Ok, I've been a fan of my Powerbook and of OS X most of the time since I bought the 12" back in January. Every so often though, the thing freezes up uncontrollably or other such Windows-like situations, and, unlike Windows, I don't know any options like CTRL-ALT-DEL that will help at least some circumstances. At that point I am left to simply pressing the power button, as much as I don't like to. Just a few minutes ago was one of the situations: I came back to my computer, plugged in my iPod, sending iTunes into motion "updating" it, and then turned to Mail to see the 2 new messages in my Inbox. When it brought Mail up onto the screen, everything but the mouse froze completely: no BBoD, no magnifying of Dock icons, nothing but the moving mouse. I waited 5 minutes and still nothing. At this point I turned off the computer...

When it came on, it recognized the iPod was connected and started up iTunes right away. But this failed: I got a warning that said "The iTunes Music Library file cannot be read because it does not appear to be a valid library file." and only an "ok" button. What the hell is going on here? I didn't do anything to my iTunes Music Library file. Yes the iPod was connected, and yes it might have been in the middle of updating...but there was no other option because the computer was entirely frozen. I correctly disconnected my iPod and restarted the computer again. Without reconnecting the iPod, I started up iTunes and the same warning came up.

What is going on here? What happened to my "stable" OS X and "it just works" Mac? I'm not a computer idiot, but at the same time I've come expect a little more from this computer. Oh, and by the way, I have 512MB of ram...that should be enough to run the thing and keep it from freezing, shouldn't it? I had Safari, Mail, Adium, iTunes, iCal, and Word open when the whole thing froze.

What do I do about my iTunes Music Library file and what do I do when the computer freezes like this???

sps
Click to expand...

That's weird. I don't have that problem - occasionally apps do need to be force quit. Right click on the dock icon and click "Force Quit." Or hit Cmd-Opt-Esc to bring up the menu.

You can try Escape Pod from htpp://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies. It will let you quit the front most app by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del. I've never tried it.
 
titaniumducky said:
That's weird. I don't have that problem - occasionally apps do need to be force quit. Right click on the dock icon and click "Force Quit." Or hit Cmd-Opt-Esc to bring up the menu.
Click to expand...

The thing is, ctrl clicking (right clicking) on the dock icon and clicking "Force Quit" wasn't an option. Neither was cmd-opt-esc. Neither of these things worked. The computer wasn't "busy" because there was no beachball. It had literally stopped all work. I've had an app freeze by itself. In that situation, I do exactly what you suggest, and the dock still functions like normal (magnifying and such). In this situation, however, the dock wasn't functioning, nothing was functioning...except the mouse. I waited for 5 minutes. After that...there was no other option.
 
Hmm, well you should also like download cocktail or something to run the checkups that OS X does at 2 am (just incase you have it shutdown at that time). Also you can try like the other guy said, and ssh into it via the terminal (with any unix box on your network) then use "top -uw 15" find the program that is hogging all the resources (it will be the top most) and kill it (kill #), and if it says permission denied then "sudo kill #" and enter an admin pswd at prompt.

You don't have like any crappy programs that are screwing up permissions (if that is possibly..) ?

aethier
 
titaniumducky said:
That's weird. I don't have that problem - occasionally apps do need to be force quit. Right click on the dock icon and click "Force Quit." Or hit Cmd-Opt-Esc to bring up the menu.

You can try Escape Pod from htpp://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies. It will let you quit the front most app by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del. I've never tried it.
Click to expand...

except there is no "alt" on a mac
 
jackieonasses said:
except there is no "alt" on a mac
Click to expand...
I have an "alt" with a strange wriggly line under and to the left of a straight line. I do not have a "del" though.
 
buckuxc said:
Can someone point me to an app that can obtain the iTunes Library file from my iPod? And if this kind of thing (total freeze) happens during somehting like an iPod update, how can one protect files??? I think I have a back up, but it's at least 2 months old at this point. Unless I update the backup everyday, I lose a pretty good amount of information...
Click to expand...

Delete your /Users/your_user/Music/iTunes/iTunes 4 Music Library file and re-add your songs to iTunes, they are in /Users/your_user/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/
 
Alt is on the option key, del is two keys below the F13 key on an extended keyboard.
 

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Hmmm ... on second thought ... maybe I should try to be helpful rather than explain what my keyboard looks like.

There may be some clue to what went wrong in the console log and system log. To view those, you use Application->Tools->Console. Maybe you'll find the session when the computer froze by looking for the right date in
/Library/Logs -> Console -> username -> console.log.x

Take a look and tell us what you find. Maybe someone can tell you more on what to look for and how to interpret your findings?

There is also a CrashReporter there, I see, but I don't really know what it's for.
 
Have you recently (just before the problems started occuring) installed anything new, tweaked anything or updated a program? Have you tweaked anything using Terminal or something other than regular preferences, etc.

It is weird and there is some conflict going on or something. I don't have much extra software installed on mine, but it has never hard crashed since I got my iMac last fall. :D

Good luck

Johnny
 
iTunes Library File

it's not like you lost your music, just delete the itunes library files in (home folder)/Music/iTunes/
then, re-add your music to the library; itunes will make a new library file.
the only things i think you would lose from that are equaliser presets and song ratings.

it's quite unusual that these types of "crashes" happen, but i happened to experience a similar one (no spinning beach ball, no click response.) but this was solely due to a single program, Poisoned, a filesharing app.
so i would speculate this was caused by a third-party program, i.e. Adium.
however i don't use the program often, i would check the forums on their site if people have had similar problems.
or for that matter for any program you're running that's in a dev release state (pre 1.0).

good luck, hope it's smooth sailing from now on and enjoy your mac ;)
 
iLinkPod?

hey all,

I'm trying to recover my iTunes Musica Library data file from my iPod (I assume from someone else's post that it is somewhere on the iPod and is recoverable). I downloaded this freeware program that looks like it might work, but if I connect my iPod to my computer, won't iTunes get running again and copy the "new" data file to my iPod, thus erasing all the information I had? Someone suggested I just add all of my songs to my iTunes library again, which is obviously one thing I could do. But in the process of the computer freezing, freaking out, and corrupting my data file, I lost all of my songs count, my ratings, and EVERY SINGLE SMART PLAYLIST OR NORMAL PLAYLIST I had :(

Obviously I might have to start from scratch, but...is there any way to connect my iPod, get that file and copy it to my iTunes folder without the computer deleting it? Would it be possible if I perhaps connected my iPod to a friend's Mac, used iLinkPod to get the file from there, then sent the file to myself and replaced it?

Or is this just a hopeless case?

sps
 
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