Where do you go for debugging crashes?

Post #4,073 by Another Scott 8/7/01 2:42:22 PM Reply	Where do you go for debugging crashes? Hi, A big advantage that PCs have over Macs, IMHO, is that there are many more resources out there if you have a flakey machine that you're trying to diagnose. There's greater chance that someone out there has seen the same problem and can suggest a solution. It's tougher with Macs. My wife has a PowerMac 9600/233 (604e/233 MHz) which is fairly stock, running MacOS 8.6. It's on ethernet at work. She runs Office98 (with the latest updates I've been able to find), Eudora 5.x, Netscape 4.6/4.7 or so, and things of that sort. Nothing fancy. The box has a Zip and a Jaz drive. She has trouble with it locking up (clock doesn't update, mouse doesn't move, no response to keyboard) for no apparent reason, sometimes several times a day. Updating Office98 helped with problems with some PowerPoint presentations, IIRC. I thought it might be related to AfterDark, so she removed that. No change. I thought it was related to the Zip and Jaz drivers so we updated them to the latest versions. We thought it was because it didn't have enough RAM, so we upped it from 64 MB to 320 MB. It hasn't really helped. It seems to happen more often when using the Zip drive if Navigator is open, but it's not 100%. I've suggested iCab, but she likes Navigator... Presumably it's some sort of extension/driver/etc. conflict. But even with something like ConflictCatcher, it seems the only way to resolve these issues is trial and error. With something like 30 extensions loaded on startup, it's a tremendous time sink. :-( She's gotten approval to get a new PC, but she likes Macs better... How do you resolve problems like this on a Mac? Every time the machine locks up, it takes 8 minutes to reboot and have DiskFirstAid check the disk. :-( Thanks for any pointers. reOSX: The OS sounds great, but I'm concerned that (according to rumors) Adobe and some of the other big Mac publishers are dragging their feet on supporting Ten. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #4,127 by tjsinclair 8/7/01 8:57:32 PM Reply	www.macfixit.com is an excellent place to have in your bookmarks. There are also newsgroups, the vendor (if you think it's a particular package) and all the usual places, including Apple's own Knowledge Base. (A search at www.google.com might also yield some answers.) I guess I've been lucky. The few problems I've had have been fairly easily resolved. Conflict Catcher is a good tool but TechTool Pro has a database of software conflicts and can check your drive for potential issues. I use: \t- DiskWarrior \t- TechTool Pro ( soon Drive 10 for OS X) \t- Conflict Catcher (not so much anymore since going to X full time) \t- MacFixit (for both OS X and OS 9 related issues) I've also had excellent luck with Apple tech support and have always gotten satisfaction from them. Of course, I also got rid of Office and all other MS software some time ago. I realize that not everyone has that luxury but it has made my OS 9 stuff more stable. Your PowerMac situation sounds a bit mysterious. I'm inclined to say MS Office due to all of the extensions that it spews over the System Folder. The 'lock up' sounds like a Finder crash. Since the Finder runs all of your other apps, if it crashes it takes everything down with it. MS apps and browsers are typically the big culprits here most times. Has she tried IE in place of NS or Mozilla/NS 6? (It's poss. Office might play better with a MS browser but you never know.) Check in at MacFixit and search the archives to see if there are any clues. If it's crashing quite a bit, you may have to do a little PM, such as: - a tool like TechTool or DiskWarrior to check/rebuild the directory structure - rebuild the desktop (Conflict Catcher can help you do this.) Anyway, this is just off the top of my head. As for vendors like Adobe seeming slow off the mark, I'm not too worried. Macromedia seems to be coming along and there are tons of apps already available to substitute as long as you don't necessarily insist on a 'name'. Choice is good.
Post #4,188 by Another Scott 8/8/01 10:35:35 AM Reply	Thanks very much for the pointers!
Post #4,128 by Ashton 8/7/01 9:00:48 PM Reply	Thanks both and.. ARrrrgggggghhh Good question. If I send someone to Apple, it breaks - will they hate me even more? Guess I still need to look a bit more though - getting someone new, M$-free, may be worth a bit of different-kinds of suffering. As to Zip - dunno if their lazy 'engineering' of drivers extends to whatever library calls are made in Mac OS, but when I recently installed 3 W98SE-lites and it came time for Zips (my friend has one): I noted the DLL-Hell reminders - some of the dlls that came with latest download from Gawd-forsaken Utah: included some old versions of popular ones - dates to '97 IIRC, while others are using '00 or later versions. It's so bad re Zip that Roxio (inheritors of the Adaptec CDR s/ware marketing) have a note about specifically ~3 fav Old dlls which Zip still purveys to us all. They suggest renaming the Zip stuff to '.org' and putting latest dlls in \\sys folder. More stuff to do. {sigh} Natch I have no idea if.. such a phenom translates to your OS, nor if Apple OS can have several libraries of same name in memory, attached to different tasks. Last I heard: only One in memory for M$, though it will load from /sys initially, only if it doesn't find it first in the ap's own directory. Dare you momentarily uninstall all Zip stuff? Could be telling. Cheers, Ashton
Post #4,139 by a6l6e6x 8/7/01 9:55:07 PM Reply	Given Iomega reputation, you may have a good point. "Dare you momentarily uninstall all Zip stuff? Could be telling." I'd look for an alternative, if any. Alex Only two things are certain: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not certain about the universe. -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Post #4,151 by tjsinclair 8/8/01 12:31:28 AM Reply	Plus, if it's an extension conflict you could run a conflict test with Conflict Catcher. I found this works noticeably better than trial or error. Ash, I've always had excellent luck with Apple Support. I just make sure to treat them like human beings, explain the problem, explain what I've done already and be prepared to sit by your machine and try stuff when they tell you to. I've been using Macs since '95 and don't have a single support horror story to tell, for what that's worth.
Post #4,156 by Ashton 8/8/01 2:36:04 AM Reply	Not a bad clincher to pass on, next inquiry I get. That kind of service is quite a lot - by any comparison! It also reminds how (many of us?) got sucked in by the creeping gradualism of accumulating lore.. more and more evidence of inherent crappiness but: you remember All that Stuff. Start over ?!? All I know for certain is - there will be no NT, W2K, XP in my future; even on tech. grounds, let alone the association with such a scam. When 9.x is sufficiently assassinated by plan - I will have to choose! for myself too. Thanks to Andy's Aaxnet - I can send folk to see some of the considerations before.. I tell 'em what I think about Billyware. (spread the disillusionment, I say) Hmmm - even though I'm ept enough to have a choice of nix and Apple - with OSX next: I'd still have a similar option of both - as with (just) Intel hdwre now. Now as to that soft glow from the translucent logo on the notebooks.. why that's.. plumb seductive!* Who says logical decisions are best? Not I. :-\ufffd A.
Post #4,192 by Meerkat 8/8/01 10:47:04 AM Reply	Yay for illogical decisions :) Else I would probably never have bought an iBook. But I'm still very glad I did. Ok, Ok, I bought a glowing Apple logo, and it came with a free computer wrapped around it... On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #4,303 by static 8/8/01 8:38:00 PM Reply	Sinceyou put it that way... You could say I bought a nice purple Sony box and it came with a laptop inside... Wade "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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