Constant crash problem - any ideas please..

Hi, I was wondering if anyone out there could help me please. I am having constant complete crashes requiring complete computer restart - only ever happens using SL and is becoming so frequent now that I am going bananas!
I have a brand new 24 inch flatscreen IMac 6.1, Intel Core 2 Duo with 2.16 Ghz. Decent graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT.
I have only had it a week. Transferred all my date from previous IMac - 2 yr old new model - and logged in, can play fine with my account and inventory etc all correct and present. Just constant crashing. Used to crash now and again with my other machine but this is just ridiculous. Also worrying me that it is crashing my entire system which can’t be healthy! Grey screen rolls down from the top with standard restart command..

Any ideas? Is it SL, my settings or something more sinister?? Many Thanks in advance

After a crash like that, you should run Disk Utility and verify there are no hard drive errors. If there are, you'll need to boot with your OS X install disc and run Disk Utility again to fix the errors.

thankyou for your reply Flash. Have done, nothing reported. Still crashing away, still reporting crashes - 2 crashes in last 15 mins! Both times crashing entire system. Very frustrating!
I use my computer all day long using heavy software programmes and the only time I crash is in SL.
Is there no settings within SL itself that might be causing this problem or is it just incompatibility with my Mac I wonder? I also get constant spinning wheel and freezes even in areas of low lag...sigh. Any further advice very gratefully received

Others seem to have good success with this model iMac.

But I noticed you said this,


Try this:
Make a new Userid Account on your iMac (in Systems Preferences, Accounts). Add nothing to it except the SL viewer. Then see if it still crashes.

Reasoning:
the PREFS you carry over from your old mac may be screwing things up. Most stuff is transferable...but not everything. And your 2 year old one was probably not Intel based.

Eliminating the old prefs this way, and not running all those startup plugins we all collect may solve your problem. If it does, then to get back to one iMac account, you'll just have to start looking for the old, incompatible thingee that got transfered.


ALSO:
There's a free program called AppleJack which will do a better job of drive repairs than Disk Utility. AppleJack can look intimidating, but its really straightforward if you just print out and follow the instructions.

Thanks Sterling - appreciate the time you put into answering my question, very helpful I will give your suggestions a go.

Well I am not on a mac, but for a week I have been havng constant crash problems too; Cant stayonline. Have done everything that I know to do from my end. It only happens when running Sl. No other problems with internet or my computer.

If SL was crashing by itself that would be one thing, but to have the whole system come down could indicate a memory problem as SL is so memory intensive. Check your console log at the time of the crash and see if you have a reported memory error.

I know this because the same thing happened to me and it was some new memory that i had added to the system. For regular stuff it was fine, but SL found the flaw in the memory real quick . I got new memory from a different vendor and have been fine since.

I tend to agree with Gator Bock. Usually application can't cause a new operating system like OSX to crash. Because of Application isolation only the application should crash but leaves the Operating system running. The only thing in software that can cause a system crash from a application perspective is drivers. Device Drivers being a lower level module in the operating system itself can cause a whole system crash. The only device driver that SL should be using is the Graphic card device driver. Another way SL can crash the system is by overheating the CPU or Graphics processing unit. SL is very graphics intensive and can cause the CPU to get very hot which could cause the OS to become erratic. And lastly is hardware failure such as a bad area of memory. Couple things you might what to do.
1). If it's within warranty - take it back and have the techs run diagnostics on it. Tell them you run a graphics intense program and the whole system crashes.
2). Get a CPU monitor like iPulse ( http://iconfactory.com/software/ipulse/ ) and check to see if the unit crashes at the same temperature.
3). Try something like Techtool pro ( http://www.micromat.com/ ) which test your hardware and memory. Do a couple different types of memory checks.

Just a couple suggestions.

thank you so much for your advice - I am overwhelmed again that some of you have been so generous with your time and experience to help. I have read through very carefully and am very interested in the idea that the memory might be an issue as it is graphics heavy. My previous machine was a 2 yr old Mac - one of the new flatscreens with a known flaw with overheating (they extended the warranty on all of those models when the fault came to light)... interesting that it died once and for all soon after I joined SL!! I wonder if the graphics were just too much for it as it was a definite overheating issue and is now in Mac Hospital to fix up and sell on.
I will run the tests as suggested and if all failswill take it back to the shop. Many many thanks again. You are all great

Wanna bet that SL can't bring the OS down? It's unusual because of OS X's protected memory design, but trust me it does happen every so often. I have the beta viewer and first look viewer on my MacBook Pro and they've both killed OS X at various times...anyway...

The key here is that you used the Setup Assistant wizard to transfer your data from your old system to the new. I work with Macs for a living and I NEVER use Setup Assistant because it frequently transfers old corrupt preference files which leads to crashes/freezes, etc.

My advice is to delete the SL application along with all of its preference files. SL's prefs are found in Users/your name/Library/Application Support. Just dump the SL folder in Application Support and reinstall SL. When you start SL after the install you will be working with a clean sheet of paper and you'll have to re enter your account name and password.

Deej and I agree on this. See Post #4 above.
The utility that Apple provides to move stuff from your old mac to a new one is a very cool utility...BUT, it will also move over copies of old drivers,etc. INCLUDING drivers from old hardware. The result could be crashes whose cause is VERY hard to isolate. That's why I recommend you just try a brand new User Account...no old prefs/drivers, etc.

All very good posts and sugestions (especially by the reptiles!).

Just wanted to add that I used a memory test application approprately called MEMTEST to confirm that I did indeed have a memory problem.

** http://www.memtestosx.org/

I had a similar problem after I switched from a dual G5 Power Mac to the 24" iMac. The SL viewer would crash and occasionally OSX would crash too. I now know that there is a memory leak in the current viewer but strangely, whilst the viewer still crashes occasionally, OSX is now rock-steady. I'm beginning to wonder whether this might have been a soak-in issue as the OSX problems only occurred in the first day of use and have now gone away - maybe after running hot for a while things have "bedded in".

I did however have an issue with movie DVDs not playing in the OSX DVD player app too (although they would play fine with VLC) and that was cured completely using Tiger Cache Cleaner (Northern Softworks) to do a complete system and user cache clean. Whether this has also cured the issues I was having with SL I don't know but they seem to have gone for good!

I'm currently using the first look viewer and aside from a few visual glitches the performance is very good. One minor fix I can vouch for though is reducung the RAM use on the graphics card. I had my iMac configured with the 256Meg 7600GT and I've found that if I let SL use the full 256 Meg the movement is sometimes jerky - if I reduce this to 128 Meg everything runs smoothly. I think nVidia drivers are to blame here!!!

I also just got the 24" iMac, and had crashing problems until I turned the graphics card usage down to 128mb. Even when SL crashed, I never had a full system crash though, so I'm not sure that's too helpful.

I'm having the same problem. I believe the overheating may be the issue, as the fan is one CONSTANTLY. What can be done about this? Is it damaging my computer?

Just have the same issues in my brandnew 20" Imac, do have 2 GB RAM built in. But the most strange thing is: Until Yesterday everything went just wonderful! Ok, there were about a 30.000 people online then. But when I tried again today (with only about 12.000 online then)...I experienced lots of failures and crashs

Please help.

And by the way: Did anyone notice the downloads do not function properly? I tried to dowmload SL for Mac anew.....with ridicoulous loading time about 5 days or more!!!!

Buy a new fan like I had too and replace it is a possibility. When your computer is totally apart and you are replacing the fan if need be, blow all of the dirt out. Mine was only six months old when I had to do this. Could not believe how dirty the thing was. You would think I had found it in a garbage can. Now every day before I use it, I turn it upside down and shake it. Crud always comes falling out and I have not had anything near it. I think the fan just sucks stuff in. Canned air does not really do the trick, your computer repair store has pressurized air in a hose. Much better for this.

It will eventually damage your computer if it keeps heating up. Can burn up your mother board. Oh no, where is my SL when my computer is gone. Make sure the fan intake is not blocked for sure. Is this a PC or a laptop.

Laptop.

I actaully had to return the first of this model. It was ok until I loaded Adobe CS2 on it. then after a week, it overheated whenever I used CS2. Eventually, after about a week, it wouldn't run anymore. I was told it was defective, but apparently it's just a common problem. I've been ok with CS2 on this one though.

Yeah, can't afford to kill this one. I tripped over the cord to the last one I was replacing when I bought the "defective" one . . . and killed my hard drive. When the fan starts running high, I quit SL or shutting down all together until it cools. I guess that's all that can be done if our systems can't handle the power SL requires long term.

i just bought a new puter that keeps crashing with restarts with SL, i have an NVIDIA 7300gs i think
could be SL interferes with the graphics card for some reason, i hear they are going to fix some sort of nvidia bug in SL , hope that fixes the crashes.

I also get occasional crashes, and sometimes can't login any more after that (instant crash). System is Intel iMac Core Duo 2 20''.
It seems to be a cache and/or preferences problem.

I found that usually some combination of the following helps:

1) Delete the cache, ie delete the whole directory
Library/Application\ Support/SecondLife/

2) Delete the preferences file:
Library/Preferences/com.secondlife.indra.viewer.plist

3) reinstall SL (delete application and reinstall from .dmg)

Sometimes the problem seems to be related to grid being down or slow, and works after some while without any ado. Thus, there may be a couple of different problems behind the crashes.

Yoyo - I had VERY similar symptoms when I bought my 24" iMac barely a week after they came out (sept / October time). 24" iMac, 2.16ghz, 2GB RAM, 256GB graphics card.

SL would crash every few minutes taking my entire system with it. Sometimes I couldn't reboot for a while. Getting lots of rolling grey screens. Whole system became unstable even when not playing SL. But SL was the first to show there was a problem - probably because of the strain it puts on the system.

It wasn't the memory, as I tried swapping them out (unless there were two bad sets - that would be unlucky!). I think it was either overheating of the processsor or a faulty graphics card.

Anyway, after a week or so, the machine wouldn't reboot at all - not even from the install CD. So I had it declared "dead on arrival" and was sent a replacement. This has worked perfectly ever since. Now SL can crash, of course, but it doesn't take down the system. Before, the problem was my machine. Now, I'm fairly sure that I only crash when they are having problems. I've gone weeks, even months without crashing since getting the replacement. Until recently, of course, but that's probably the load on the servers at the moment.

So - if the problems persist, don't be shy about contacting Apple and maybe asking for a replacement. You could try playing other graphics intensive games if you have access to any, to see what happens. I tried playing Rome Total War (PC only) using Bootcamp - and this crashed the machine the same way SL did, which confirmed to me that it was a hardware isssue.