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OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
- adamfeldman 12y agoMy external display just started going to rainbow static and back over and over again. Didn't think to blame the update till now. Also just had my first kernel panic in about a year.
- ctide 12y agoI've seen that happen with Macbooks for years (the rainbow static), with both my mid 2012 retina MBP and the pre-retina one it replaced. Happens occasionally with my Dell monitor at home, and would happen with one of those knockoff IPS' that I used at my previous job pretty frequently. Unplugging and replugging the monitor will eventually fix it, but yeah, it's obnoxious.
- _rs 12y agoSince installing 10.9.3, every time I wake my rMBP (mid-2012) up from sleep in the morning I get a full screen of static for 4-5 seconds. Subsequent attempts to reproduce fail, but the next morning it happens again. http://i.imgur.com/5dHFgN6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/5dHFgN6.jpg I also hadn't thought to blame the update for this until now (as I just have lost all faith in this particular model) but the timeline matches up well. Edit: after re-reading, I think I know what you're referring to about the random static on the external display, which I've experienced over HDMI and Apple hasn't been able to debug (support case open for more than a few months now).
- protomyth 12y agoWell, the 10.9.x Finder is super buggy since the start, perhaps 10.9.3 just made it worse.
- sk_ 12y agoJust checked my logs... not a single panic since 10.9.3
- lolo_ 12y agoI've had issues with freezes for a while pre 10.9.3 too. These obviously don't generate panic files so are more of a pain to try to debug. Also I recently installed refind (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) to dual-boot linux and have experienced a lot of issues as a result of that (separate to the aforementioned freezing issues.) At least this guy has actual kernel panics :)
- radicalbyte 12y agoI've been a Mac user for 6 months (MBP), I hardly tax the machine but it has crashed a dozen times. Twice today, and five times this week in total. Not since Windows 98 have I seen such an unstable OS. I've seen less BSOD in the last 15 years than I've seen kernel panics in the last week.
- vemy 12y agoMy Windows PC never crashed like my Macbook does.
- Goopplesoft 12y agoThis is all anecdotal. Mac user for years and never had a crash. These types of comment provide very little to these threads.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoIts data. The existence of crashes is evidence of something.
- wlesieutre 12y agoIt may be data, but it is not a statistically significant amount of data. And there's an awful lot of selection bias in product complaints.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoCrashes are not statistics. Code crashes or it doesn't. So something smells in Denmark.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoCmon. There's no such thing as a 'false positive' in code crashes. Its a binary thing - correct code doesn't do it. So something is wrong with an OS that crashes for somebody. Its got nothing to do with selection bias. And if it crashes for certain people chronically, then there's a syndrome that's reproducible. Meaning it is likely to affect a lot of people in similar circumstances.
- sxates 12y agoInteresting to hear people are having such problems. I'm on 10.9.3 and haven't had any crashes. Sometimes my cursor disappears for a few seconds or on top of certain windows, but nothing major.
- cstross 12y agoI've had no kernel panics on 10.9.3 ... but this Haswell rMBP 13" periodically froze after password entry when screen locked. And froze so badly that switching user was no way out: I had to hard-reboot. Since disabling the screen lock on inactivity it's been okay, but that's not a terribly secure or reassuring solution.
- bshimmin 12y agoRandom useless data point - my colleague on 10.9.3 plugged in a projector yesterday and had a kernel panic shortly thereafter.
- bkurtz13 12y agoIn an attempt to balance the discussion, I'm on 10.9.3 and I've had absolutely zero issues so far.
- tachion 12y agoSame here, on iMac and MBA, both 10.9.3 as soon as it was out.
- RexRollman 12y agoIt's been rock solid on my four week old Macbook Air.
- rickyc091 12y agoMBPR 2014. Had a few issues (crashing, slow wake/boot, etc.) with 10.9 + 10.9.1, but most of these problems were resolved by 10.9.2. Haven't had a crash with 10.9.3 as of yet. What I also realized was constantly upgrading from one version to another kept around some legacy files that messed up my OS a bit. A clean install might do the trick for those having issues.
- DominikR 12y agoThat's the kind of advice that I constantly see in the Apple community boards for all kinds of issues. Why is such a solution even acceptable? I had no issues before 10.9.3, but if I have to go through a clean install just to fix the issues, there's no way that Apple is going to keep me as their customer.
- DominikR 12y agoI've experienced a lot of crashes since 10.9.3 on a late 2013 rMBP, mostly when sleeping/waking the device. Also, my WiFi is randomly disconnecting all the time since the update. Before the update I never had any issues. I love the hardware and the OS a lot, but I never had any crashes with my ugly Lenovo, so I'm currently thinking about switching back to Lenovo
- gav 12y ago> Also, my WiFi is randomly disconnecting all the time since the update. I don't get the WiFi disconnects, but 10.9.3 has stopped being able to automatically connect to WiFi. Wake up Macbook from sleep and find WiFi disconnected. Click icon, see only a couple of SSIDs, click the one I want, get the "unable to connect dialog". Click icon again and wait for refresh; now see a much longer list of SSIDs. Click the same one that it couldn't connect to before and it finally connects.
- DominikR 12y agoThat's exactly how my currently Macbook behaves. I could write a short script to turn off/on the WiFi after login, but it's really annoying that you have to do that for such an expensive device.
- burke 12y agoSame here. Oddly, it always connects immediately at work, but fails in this same way at home, where I have an Airport Extreme router. You'd think if one combination was going to fail, it would be the one with two vendors. EDIT: This is on 10.9.2.
- tambourmajor 12y agoI had one crash since 10.9.3 on my MBA 2011, and I have graphic glitches in Safari when displaying images since 10.9.1, I believe.
- dsabanin 12y agoAren't bugs in pre-release software expected? He makes it sound like there are tons of issues, when it looks like this is just same one bug related to external display handling.
- rb2k_ 12y agoNo problems over here at all.
- rb2k_ 12y agoNo problems over here at all.
- dydx 12y agoI've had terrible issues with my rMBP 13" (freezing, kernel panics) until, 1 year after I bought this machine, the SSD finally went out. Got it replaced and no issues so far.
- zokier 12y agoOne kernel panic bug, and the system is "toxic" and "disease"? I'm not saying that this issue is acceptable, but I don't think those adjectives are really appropriate in describing it.
- Codhisattva 12y agoWhat's the Internet for if not hyperbole and over generalization?
- koios 12y agoI suppose since most MAC stuff is described as "beautiful" and "stunning", which is also a somewhat extreme description for an email client or a file manager, then we have to have extreme negatives to match?
- brendangregg 12y agoThis was 16 kernel panics, and was affecting myself and three coworkers who had upgraded to 10.9.3. EDIT: ok, may be 16 panics of the same bug.
- julian_t 12y agoI'm seriously unimpressed with 10.9 in general. I bought a new MBP a few weeks back, and the hardware is awesome... the retina screen, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD make it a joy to use. But... * I enabled Bluetooth, plugged in my Magic Mouse, and the next time it woke from sleep wireless connectivity had disappeared and has only come back sporadically since * the machine occasionally 'loses' USB drives, complaining that I didn't eject them properly when they're still connected * plugging in my Nexus phone via USB, or an HDMI cable, sometimes causes the keyboard to freeze, needing a hard reboot. Rebooting twice within an hour isn't welcome when you're giving a lecture and have already met the student who loudly proclaims that Apple hardware is overpriced crap. I do wonder whether Apple actually test new releases of their OS, or just leave it to us to do it for them. And don't get me started about the usefulness of the "Genuis" Bar at my local Apple store... I am wondering whether a downgrade to Mountain Lion may fix a few problems.
- cr3ative 12y agoThis honestly sounds like hardware failure. Bluetooth is very stable for me with a Magic Mouse. Your USB and HDMI issues seem related. I'd wager a power issue. Make the problem reproducible and they'll swap it over at the Genius Bar, who are extremely helpful if you're polite to them.
- privong 12y ago> the machine occasionally 'loses' USB drives, complaining that I didn't eject them properly when they're still connected FWIW, I've had that issue several times and it's always turned out to be a hard drive which is on the verge of failing.
- garyrob 12y agoSome people have felt that switching graphics modes is the source of Mavericks crashes. I had five crashes in several days last week. I went to the Energy Saver control panel, and turned off Automated Graphics Switching. Haven't had a crash in a week. Could easily be coincidence, but I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else wants to try it. I'd be very interested in hearing whether it helps. By the way, what happens on my machine is that the UI completely freezes. I'm not sure if that's what other commenters experience when they talk about "crashing".
- ja27 12y agoDammit. Finally updated last night. No crashes or kernel panics since then, but I agree that switching graphics modes seems to cause most of my crashes. I get the "rainbow crash" where the UI freezes and garbage appears in stripes and blocks on the screen. I can still ssh into my MacBook and reboot it (or even restart the UI, I think).
- Rudism 12y agoI'm on 10.9.3 and do not see an "Automated Graphics Switching" option anywhere on the Energy Saver control panel... has this been renamed or removed?
- bri3d 12y agoDo you have a discrete GPU? Very few Mac portables have one anymore - obviously, the option doesn't apply if you have only CPU-integrated graphics.
- james33 12y agoI'm really surprised by all of the reports of crashing. I've had 3 different Macs over the last 7 years and I've had just one crash in all that time. I use my Mac anywhere from 8-16 hours per day and tax it pretty well. Before that I couldn't stay away from the BSOD on Windows, one of the reasons I finally made the switch.
- james33 12y agoWhy am I getting down-voted for this?
- romanovcode 12y agoProbably because 99% of people had not seen a single BSOD since Win7.
- koshak 12y agoThe only reason I ever get bsods since windows xp is hardware problems. hence if you see bsod check out your box, do not blame windows. moreover, kernel panics on linux boxes are also most of the times hardware bound or you've broken something yourself.
- ilikejam 12y agoMy MBA locks up about once a week. Seems to be triggered by closing Firefox tabs with Flash content. The only Windows BSOD I've seen since Win7 came out has been from a dodgy stick of RAM. A stick of RAM that then got passed around a few of us at work to ensure timely laptop upgrades.
- thinkcomp 12y agoI've been dealing with Apple for months trying to get them to fix Mail in OS X Mavericks 10.9.2, which crashes on me about every 30 minutes, or sometimes more frequently. Their answer, which they refuse to put in writing, is that engineering is "aware of the problem." Also, Mavericks broke Samba support completely. Apparently 10.9.3 doesn't fix it. http://nelsonslog.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/mavericks-broke-smb/ http://nelsonslog.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/mavericks-broke-s... I agree with the comments about this being the least stable Mac OS ever. I'd put it up there with Windows ME. Multiple times per day I have to interrupt what I'm doing to deal with Apple-related bugs.
- stephen_g 12y agoStrange, I use Samba every day at work, have had absolutely zero issues with it - this is across all versions of Mavericks, and previous versions of Mac OS...
- illumen 12y agoLots of crashes here too. In the graphics driver.
- weitzj 12y agoWe are having problems, when using multiple displays connected to the iMac.
- dman 12y agoExperience a lot of crashes on my Macbook pro retina which is the latest model. Screen gets artifacts everytime the gpu swtiches from nvidia to iris pro or back. Coupled with the crashes that I now see on my Ipad air, I cant help get the feeling that things are starting to bitrot at Apple.
- bluthru 12y agoAnything with an A7 is a bit more understandable due to moving to 64 bit. 7.1 is already significantly better than 7.0 for 64 bit stability.
- demallien 12y agoApple have always had flaky products when it's something new. The first PPC macs, the first Intel Macs, OS X 1.0, and so on. Those of us that have been in the apple universe for a long time remember "don't use rev 1 of a product" was a mantra amongst Apple users since way back. So, problems with the iPad Air are not particularly surprising. The shift to a 64 bit OS is a difficult thing to get perfect on a first go. That said, they really should have nailed the discrete GPU kernel panics on rMBPs by now. That's been going in fir a couple of revs of the hardware and is unusual.
- lvillani 12y agoI've had only one kernel panic so far on my late 2013 rMBP 13. At least that's what I found in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports, and I've been through the 10.9.3 betas as well. On the other hand I experienced random WiFi problems upon wakeup, had to do a couple of hard-reboots, suffered the rainbow static problem and other miscellaneous problems with external displays. Lately I've been experiencing some weird issues with the sound system: I hear music in my headphones but some notification sounds are sent to the speakers. As a first-time Mac user (after a decade with Linux) I must say this is quite a frustrating and "meh" experience. Love the screen and the battery life though. Glad to hear I'm not alone, my colleagues rolls eyes when I rant about the problems I'm having. Side Note: It seems to me that the most problematic models are Retina MacBook Pros.
- ambler0 12y agoNotably absent from the article, but spelled out in the comments, is that the author doesn't have an AppleID because he doesn't want to agree to Apple's terms, and therefore cannot acquire a kernel debug kit.
- ansimionescu 12y agoYou're misquoting the author. He said that he doesn't have the time now to read through all the T&Cs.
- ambler0 12y agoThat's fair. He's saying that he doesn't want to take the time to read the terms and therefore cannot in good conscience agree to them. A rare breed, to be sure, as commenter Dmitry Minkovsky points out.
- nemof 12y agothis doesn't make it sound any better unfortunately. perhaps i might be unpopular in saying this, but he should just click the fuck through. either you want to spend your time getting stuff done, or spend your time prevaricating about the bush.
- dman 12y agoThis is exactly how freedoms are signed away.
- AnthonyMouse 12y agoI think the problem is in a different place. Ask yourself this: If I post a piece of software on the internet, and on page 57 of the 132 page license agreement there is a provision that says you have to pay me $150,000 every time there is a lunar eclipse, what do you think as a policy matter that a court should do when there is a lunar eclipse and I file a lawsuit for non-payment in breach of contract against a million people who have used my app? Order them all to pay me $150,000 each? If so I think I have a new business model. Attaching license terms to the use of software is problematic. When the terms are minor and unobjectionable then they're meaningless, because pretty much nobody is going to go through the trouble of litigation over the matter of someone lying about their age on a dating website, and what would be the remedy in that case anyway? Any terms significant enough to be worth enforcing in court are almost certain to be shocking or unreasonable, like requirements to pay money under unexpected circumstances or attempts to limit the rights the user has under copyright law. More than that, we all know that 99% of users never read the damn things, and they never will. How can it be reasonable to enforce terms against someone who everybody admits never understood the terms?
- mundanevoice 12y agoI have the OS X 10.9.3 on a Macbook Pro , Mid 2009 and there is absolutely no problem with it. Is it on newer macs?
- tammer 12y agoMy 2008 Mac Pro has been rock stable since 10.9.2 (before that, just the 'mail, are you drunk?' issues). Sounds a lot like the problem is graphics switching - everyone with issues here has two graphics adapters.
- 37prime 12y ago“It happens to me therefore it is toxic!!!!!!"
- pling 12y agoAnything that fucks up your workflow is toxic (very bad, unpleasant, or harmful).
- brendangregg 12y agoNo, it's happening to myself and three other co-workers.
- benguild 12y agoThe only weird problems I’ve had on 10.9 at all have been with the WindowServer locking up when coming back from sleep or lock. This is on a late 2013 MacBook Pro. After a ton of messing around and talking to Apple Support, we found that trashing the WindowServer plists that are stored in multiple locations seemed to sort it out… so far
- dippyskoodlez 12y agoI use both thunderbolt and my HDMI out on my rMBP daily. This guy is a bafoon complaining about being unable to fix a problem by not accepting T&C, but he's using OS X? I'm not denying his problem, but he is certainly cause for it being a lot worse for him than it really is.
- taylodl 12y agoIf we're going to collect anecdotes then I'll note my 2013 MBP has been running continually for over a year without a panic. I have a 2006 MB and 2008 MB (both still running) each having panicked 2-3 times over their lifetime. I'm a developer, my son is a musician and my wife is a graphics design artist so there's been lots of software thrown at these machines.
- unfunco 12y agoAnd here's mine: My first Mac was the G3, I'm now on a 2013 11" Macbook Air (10.9.2) and I have never experienced a kernel panic ever, I couldn't tell you what a kernel panic looks like. The only time I ever have an issue is if I try waking my computer immediately after entering sleep when attached to an external display – it doesn't happen and inevitably requires a restart. Current uptime: 23:05 up 3 days, 8:36, 2 users, load averages: 1.67 1.56 1.67 I have never experienced unreliability, and it's a pleasure to use and carry. I tried Ubuntu on a HP Laptop I had around, and I didn't like it one bit, it felt slow and the UI felt clunky. Even when using SSH to access the machine it took around 5-6 seconds for the bash prompt to appear, compared to an almost instantaneous Debian prompt.
- ChikkaChiChi 12y agoDisabling hibernate and fighting with power napping has solved most of my crashing problems. I think 10.9 is a mess when it comes to trying to save me power. I also still disable noatime, journaling, swap space, and sudden motion sensors on any computer with an SSD; even if its unnecessary.
- astrange 12y agoIf you disabled journaling and swap on your machine, you're quite far on the way to data loss.
- Mister_Snuggles 12y agoNo kernel panics here, but I get weird behaviour with external displays. Sometimes when I hook up my external displays, some of the icons on one of the menu bars will disappear. It's very strange. I can fix it by going into the display settings and changing which one is primary. I've got a recent rMBP with 2 x 1920x1200 monitors attached, one via a MiniDP -> DVI adapter, the other via as MiniDP -> Dual Link DVI adapter.
- general_failure 12y agoMBP 15 inch (mid 2012) gets ultra hot. I have never seen a laptop become this hot. It also has various problems getting back from sleep and low battery. So very annoying. Sadly, I am sort of forced to use it everyday.
- sgeisenh 12y agoI have a late 2013 15 inch MBP that regularly reaches 100 degrees C when running Adobe Flash. The only other time the machine has exceeded 70 is when I tried running Steam games at 2880x1800. The hardware simply shouldn't get that hot, no matter how poorly optimized the software might be.
- trounce 12y agoMy late 2013 MBP 15 (16GB 1TB 2.6) randomly freezes 2-3 times per week, sometimes more. It seems to happen more frequently when under CPU load, but not exclusively. The mouse freezes, the fan slowly spins down, and it requires a hard reset. I have two 1920x1080 external monitors (hdmi and thunderbolt) which seems to be a commonly reported configuration with crashes. It came with Mavericks and has done this ever since I got it, under all versions of Mavericks
- sbuk 12y agoFor what it's worth, my late 2011 MBA hasn't crashed once since I installed Mavericks. This article, though interesting, well research and well written is anecdata. Interesting anecdata, but anecdata non-the-less.
- mmastrac 12y agoHas anyone else had trouble with external thunderbolt<->dual dvi adapters in the 10.9.x series? I have a Mac at home that crashes the windowserver every time my external Monoprice IPS monitor is plugged in. It doesn't happen on a newer Retina mac at all.
- sgeisenh 12y agoAt least you know the adapter is working if it crashes your computer. I am lucky to get the adapter to work properly and when it does, plugging in my Shimian crashes my MBP.
- nppc 12y agonot just 10.9.3, entire 10.9.x is the crappiest OSX of all times ! So many stability issues.
- salgernon 12y agoi'm sure that the stock Apple support answer would be to backup, reformat and restore. This would probably have fixed his problem since the backtrace he finally Obtained fingered the file system, which is probably corrupt. (not that this excuses the panic!) This is further evidenced by his "helpdesk" being unable to repair his computer by physically swapping drives.
- brendangregg 12y agoYes, this is a good theory, and consistent with the decoded stack trace we have. Although, consider that three other coworkers are suffering the same panics after upgrading to 10.9.3. Have we all got the same corruption? I suppose that could be possible, if the corruption was caused by the same bug.
- notacoward 12y agoI'm seeing a lot of good reports for people with MBAs, and a lot of bad reports for people with MBPs. I think I can tell which ones the Apple devs use themselves.
- mcmillion 12y ago10.9.3 has been nothing but absolutely stable for me, and I do a ton of development tools installed and do loads of tweaking and customization.
- stephen_g 12y agoWeird. Fr me, I can't remember my MacBook Pro hasn't having a kernel panic in the last six months, and at one was one of the only ones I've ever had. I recall that it was something to do with a VirtualBox kernel module or something, so I upgraded VirtualBox and have had no problems since.
- keerthiko 12y agoMost people here seem to refer to (r)MBPs only. I have a 2013 Fall MBA (a replacement I got for the failing SSD 2012 MBA) and the frequency of hardlock failures has been going up (currently once a day). It also tends to happen a lot during web browsing more than anything else, I don't have any VMs, any external monitors, or any fucking-with-kernel things. Ironically, it's been only 2 years since I started using OSX from Windows and Linux, and basically the amount my computers crashed hasn't changed a bit. I wondered why Apply fanboys kept raving about how crash-free their life was, since I wasn't seeing it. I guess this is just what happens when an OS evolves to become an open enough platform for a lot of software to run on it, it just gets less stable.
- godDLL 12y agoI've had many, many crashes on 10.9.1-2 with my Mini. Started when I connected my 22'' Dell over DP instead of HDMI with Apple-supplied DVI adapter, and added a second display – an Apple Cinema 20'' flipped to the side, to use it in vertical orientation. I didn't wait for 10.9.3 to put that away. I just couldn't stand the way it would blank out the screens with a random color somewhere off my desktop; and hang – several times a day at times. Might have something to do with how crap our power line is (I've seen ceiling lights changing intensity throughout the day when this was happening). Would be fun to check now with 10.9.3, my past experience tells me that the most whined about builds of OS X have worked out to be the most stable for me personally.
- tmikaeld 12y agoI got a couple of kernel panics on upgrading to 10.9.3 but then Nvidia released new drivers for it and i haven't had a single kernel panic since switching to them. Although - one port on the graphicscard won't wake up if a connected screen goes to sleep. Nvidia had that problem on the first released 10.9.2 driver, but fixed it about a day later. Could you try checking if the Nvidia supplied drivers helps?
- xer0x 12y agoOlder OSX updates have done the same thing to my similarly older Macs. I wish Apple would be more diligent with their testing - especially when it comes to video.