More of this Macbookpro crashing thing..

Hi folks, so I just bought a MBP 2.4GHZ Intel Core duo, with the best graphics card I could get for it (GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB) and what do I find? In SL it runs fine for a short time, then suddenly the fan starts spinning like crazy, the machine heats up like an oven and bam its time to crash or burn!

What the hell is going on? I've read the threads here and am no clearer. Is this a hardware issue, a Mac OS X issue an SL issue, a graphics driver issue or both? It's really frustrating whatever it is.

Hoping for a solution really soon.

Any thoughts?

Not that this will help for certain but have you updated Mac OS to the latest version using software update? Though I'm using the previous generation MBP with ATI X1600, SL rarely crashes.

Micah,
I just got the same macbook pro as you today and so far no problems with SL, the longest I have been logged in is about a half hour, can,t even hear my fan. I will report back if any problems turn up. P.S. SL is the only sofware loaded on my machine right now.

Thanks guys. I downloaded the firmware update. That seems to have tamed the insane fan action. It hasn't changed the crashing issue at all though. Not sure if it's an OS incompatibility (?) I've heard bad news about 10.4.10 from all corners. I wish I could stay logged in in SL tho..

Well I downgraded the OS today. Same issue. The screen freezes, reboot etc. Still haven't found the cause, still looking for answers.

Micha,
what type of internet connection are you using, cable? dsl?, wired or wireless? Had another Mac user on the forum a few months ago with constent crashes and it was caused by his dsl line, he tried his Mac on a good cable connection and all was well,( well as good as it gets with SL ).

10.4.10 is the version I am running without a problem.
SL is v 1.18.0(6)
Maybe you could try to create another user. I don't know what else to suggest.
Keep submitting the bug reports if you can get that far, I'm glad your fans are no longer crazy

I had the same issues (just not with the fan)... crashes a lot. I'm going to try FirstLook and see if it maybe fixes the crashing.

But either way, performance of SL when I'm booted into OS X is like *HALF* what it is when I run SL under Vista on the same machine (2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA 8600M GT). Under Vista it is smooth as butter.

Something is borked in there somewhere. I suspect SL has not been rewritten to take advantage of the Open Shader Architecture of the new NVIDIA, at least, not on the Mac client. I notice Avatar Vertex is also grayed out on the Mac side, which it is not on the PC side.

Maybe LL is short on developers.

Hi, Micah--
In RL I work as an Apple/Mac OS technician and support specialist. I have Second Life v.1.18.0.6 on my MacBook running Mac OS 10.4.10. I will often stay logged in for up to 6 hours with no crashes, but my fans are typically running high. I get a brief spinning rainbow wheel once in a while, probably due to a network timeout. Rarely I may get the SL Crash Reporter and relauching SL normalizes it.
*Do you have problems in any other processor/RAM intensive apps?
*Problems in any other video intensive/3D games?
I would recommend removing any third party fonts you have installed and running a cache deleting utility like Font Nuke or Onyx.

Lots, and lots of people are having problems with the *new* Mac;s with the nVidia 8600 card.

Thanks for the replies so far folks. It's reassuring to know I'm not alone with this problem, doesn't ease frustration though.

Does anybody know, or can anyone make an educated guess as to how resolvable this will likely prove to be? Is this a temporary issue or a fatal flaw - one unlikely to go away anytime soon? I can live with temporary, not with a longer term problem...

I have a lovely shiny MBP/10.4.10/2.4dp/4Gb/Nvidia8600.
My fan sounds like a jet engine, gets really hot too. I crash of course, spinning beachball, reboot lalala.
Seems random though, sometimes I can stay online for an hour or more, sometimes only 5 mins.
I don't have any problem with other graphics / video apps or games just good old dodgy SL.
I am peeved, naturally. This is of no help to anyone but I'd just like to share my pain.
Thanks.

FYI - Another new MBP with same System freezing problem
Just received my new MacBook Pro 17" Create a new user (with Admin Rights) and installed only SL on it. After about 20 to 30 minutes inworld the whole computer freezes (mouse and all). Can't get any crash log as system just hangs, have to do a power shutdown. The only thing I know that can cause a full system hang is device drivers problem or major memory leaks. I've deleting and recreating user and reinstalling SL client. Same problem. All other apps seem to be working find. I have no major graphics intensive programs. Laptop is on a Griffin Laptop stand and is cooled by a desktop fan (this is not a heat related issue). Also put in a bug report #4051-4224634..

System: MBP, 2.4Ghz, 2 Gigs memory, 160HD, Hi-Res screen, second 20" Apple display, 250 Ext HD. OS 10.4.10
Connection: Cable, using Airport Extreme, getting about 6 megs down and 180k up.

Yikes. I'll run back to the only answer I've ever needed for my Macs-- you've repaired permissions recently?

I dont do a power shutdown anymore...I just close the display lid and wait till the comp falls into sleepmode...then I open up the lid again and close SL via the finder. Works in most cases...

Unable to connect to Second Lofe.
DNS could not resolve the host name.
Please verfiy that you can connect to the www.secondlife.com
web site. If you can, but continue to recieve this error,
please go to the support section and report this problem.


appears since 12 hours!

Hello and greetings from another *new* macbook pro user. I have the 2.4 ghz 17" with 2 gigs of ram. Freeze and crash after some time. in my case, I noticed that sometimes, FPS gets slower and slower... to finally freeze. Only way to fix it is a power reset.

I am having freezes and crashes maybe about one every ninety minutes, it was a lot worse before i cleared the cache.

Thank Bing for the suggestion. I'll try it the next time it crashes. Found if I sit in one place and don't touch the keyboard I can last for over 40 minutes. Would have gone longer but was bored to death. Also cleared my Cache, will see if it helps.

BTW - Linden Labs cancelled my bug report because I'm a basic user - bummer. Will try again later with the new instructions.
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Ticket Information:
Ticket #: 4051-4224634

In low population sims I am getting less crashes if I reboot every time before launching SL.

I was about to tear all of my hair out...crashing on log in, bootcamp/Vista no help....then another thread in the forum suggested "eliminating" the "SecondLife" folder in Home/Library/Application Support. Miracle of miracles..I was able to get on and not crash for an hour. So far, still working. Next time I run into this, I will again delete that folder (automatically reinstalls of course). It must get to a certain content level and then somehow interferes with SL...no explanation..but it works.

That said, some very weird things going on with iMAC and SL.....and it is the hardware...since I had the same problem when I used bootcamp to switch to Windows.

Anyhow, try this....

SL Has opened a new Jira on the MBP problems and upgraded the priority on on it to "showstopper"!

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1978[URL]Please go there and VOTE to have this issue fixed. (you need to log in to vote)

Posted by Poppy Linden on 8/28/07 in the Jira above:

PJIRA message:

Hi everyone,

I have been in contact with Apple regarding this issue. This is what we know:

* There are driver issues specific to the nVidia 8600M GT on MacBook Pros.
* Apple knows about this.
* nVidia knows about this.
* Other graphics-intensive apps are seeing similar issues.
* There is no date for a fix right now.
* I am having regular follow up calls with our Apple Partnership Manager.
* This is high priority for Second Life, but there is not much we can do at Linden Lab.

I am sorry for the lack of updates. I'm not convinced this is anything more than a summary of what we knew before, but I'm hearing that's better than silence.

Another workaround (aside from relogging) is to toggle fullscreen modes. This deletes and re-creates your GL context. Thanks to Runitai Linden for that insight, and other debugging help.

Yes - please vote on the jira issue - though I'm not sure LL can resolve the isse.

Notwithstanding overall crappy performance of the Mac client compared to the Windows client, the new MBPs with the Nvidia 8600 has an issue with the OS X driver and Open Gl support.

Many games and SL have decreased perfromance and major stability issues running under OS X with the new MBPs. I have spend hours on the phone with various support teams all to no avail - though the concensus seems to be that there is a driver issue that must be corrected by Apple / Nvidia.

Interesting that the same hardware works much better using Boot Camp / Windows / Windows applications and clients - though there are other issues with Windows (like no support for external display resolutions above 1024x76.

Little did I know that purchasing a new Mac meant I had to get Windows to actually use the system with any kind of stability. Thank you Steve Jobs and the Apple team.

After reading this forum, I started compulsively deleting the cache. Not by clicking the clear cache button, but by going into my Home folder, then Application Support to the SL folder and dragging the whole cache folder to the trash. This works well. I can stay online for a couple hours at a time. Some days, though, things get worse and I'm crashing a LOT. In those instances, I drag the whole SL folder under Application Support to the trash and delete it. It cures a lot of ills and I can get back to my 2 hr or so period between crashes.

This is a real pain. Every other program I have runs great on my new MacBook Pro.

Jira issue: see my post #22 above:

To add to the information on this problem, the following was posted on the Apple MBP support site:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=987270&tstart=90[URL]Just to let people know, Blizzard representatives have made the following statements in a forum thread here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=942814498

This is purely a GPU driver issue and Apple and NVIDIA are actively working on it. They have a pretty good understanding of the problem at hand, the trick is finding a solution that returns the smoothness to WoW without impacting other applications that also use OpenGL.

I don't expect an update to take that long, and it is a key topic of discussion between us and the Apple graphics team. Our obvious desire would be to have this issue resolved prior to 10.5 and Apple is well aware of that.