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(2009-05-07) Mac Book Performance Problems

All the sudden my MacBook is periodically driving me nuts. All the sudden the Web Browser will become completely unresponsive (spinning ball), even though it seems like there should be plenty of processor left.

Update: I was travelling at the time, so one various WiFi networks: airport, client office, hotel, etc.

Because I was getting tired of FireFox v3 issues, I tried using Safari as my primary browser. I think this more-extreme-than-FireFox problem arose after trying that. But switching back to FireFox hasn't made the issue go away.

At one point 'mds' was grabbing lots of cycles, but that eventually went away. (I just left the MacBook open/running for a chunk of time. Maybe Spot Light was trying to index something it found on the network?

May11 update: Today I was noticing 'kernel_task' taking up a fair amount of processor when things dragged.

This thread suggested running Console.app (in the Utilities folder) to get more info.

I found 1 message (in the 'Log Database Queries'), about Div X: 'mach-o, but wrong architecture'.

  • This thread suggests that some app installed some bad Div X codecs. And says I need to follow the appropriate uninstall process for the naughty app, rather than just crudely deleting codecs. But if you don't know what app caused the problem, how do you figure it out?

Looked in other areas of Console: in 'system.log' found some messages just before the Div X message

I quit FireFox, relaunched. It noted updates available for plugins (Y Slow, PDF Download): installed them. Haven't had problem recur yet.

Jun29: have been having problems again.

  • check Console.app, found a bunch of 'kernel[0]: disk0s2: I/O error' entries

  • of course I don't have a fresh Back Up, never got around to hooking up to the Time Capsule. Start manually copying stuff to my tiny USB drive, but keep getting stopped by a few individual file errors, and each time it seems to require rebooting the whole thing, so I stop (of course, will regret that later...).

  • ran Disk Utility-Verify, it says I have problems, need to boot from install-disk

    • doh, this would be a good time to have your CD-drive working! Mine has been broken roughly forever.

    • ah, connected to Jihi IMac in FireWire-target mode, running Repair from there...

      • hmm, didn't seem to ever do anything, just ran for hours without any progress notes. Finally killed it. Suspect it had lost its connection sometime (there was a grayed-out note about "Not mounted"), though it let me run anyway.

      • rebooted, tried again. Now it's working.

        • Argh: "Invalid sibling link... Could not be repaired."

Jun30

  • trying the boot-single-user 'fsck -fy' approach. Hmm, 'Invalid node structure... Volume check failed'. Do I try again, do I do it with the '-r'? Do I do 'fsck_hfs'?

  • just repeated. This time got 'Invalid key length (4, 33872)' failure, ending with 'EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8'

  • tried 3rd time: same results as 2nd time.

  • tried 4th time: same results.

  • tried 'fsck -fry': got 'illegal option - r' - maybe that 'r' only applies when doing the 'fsck_hfs'?

  • typed 'reboot', held Shift for Safe Mode as it came up. Hmm, had the Apple icon for a bit, then a progress indicator down below, then it suddenly shut down.

  • tried powering up, no buttons. Same outcome of icon, progress, then shut-down. Yech...

  • powered up in Single User Mode. Got scrolling text on black screen as usual. Tried 'fsck -fy' again. Got 'Invalid key length' again. Reboot led to power-up failure again. Tried just regular power-up, failed again.

  • some suggest Disk Warrior. Disk Warrior [says](http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/F M Pro?-db=alsoftsupport&-lay=main&-max=15&-format=AlsoftSupport-qa.html&-script=counter&-token=176&-Skip=95&-find) it fixes that problem. That would cost $100 (yay, local Digital Society has it at that price). Hmm, can I download to Jihi's IMac and run it via FireWire target mode? http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/[[F M Pro?-db=alsoftsupport&-format=alsoftsupport-qa.html&-lay=main&-max=15&-recid=67&-token=138&-findall= |Yes]]

  • Set up FireWire target mode, install/run Disk Warrior. The first time it shows an "unkinown" disk, and says it can't repair it. After quitting and retrying it won't even recognize the disk. Nor does Disk Utility after that. Lordy...

  • Reboot in Single User Mode, which is does successfully. Do 'fsck -fy' again. Get 'invalid node length' msg. Try again, get 'invalid key length' msg. Try a bunch more times, get one of those msgs each time. Try FireWire-target, Disk Warrior and Disk Utility see nothing again.

Jul1

  • took it to Digital Society

  • they called me back later

    • can't get direct access to drive, so will have to do Data Recovery for $250. Trying to get that done by end-tomorrow

    • shutting down during boot-up is not drive-related, it's Logic Board-related. Luckily the components replacement is all covered by Apple Care, so that won't cost me anything. But they can't send it out until they finish the Data Recovery process.

  • I'm working with my ancient IMac for the moment...

Jul02

  • argh not done with Data Recovery. So it's going to sit in their closed shop for 3 days until someone looks at it Monday morning.

  • the IMac gets really slow after a bit of FireFox use. We'll see how much I can stand it - this might drive me to buy a NetBook.

    • nah just restarting FireFox more often, it's livable

Jul06: recovery, not 100% successful (only got ~50GB out of 118GB), but done; machine going out today

Jul09: wow, machine back from Apple already today. They're going to check it out, move the recovered data over, then I can pick up.

Jul10:

  • pick it up. Apple replaced Logic Board, Hard Drive, CD/DVD drive, fan, and other stuff besides....

  • ugh, looks like Data Recovery really missed huge amount of stuff. Very bad. Also note that the short-user-name isn't what I want, so I'm not going to touch the machine until I have a chance to fix that and move along...

Jul13

  • info on changing the Short User Name. That worked, though it leaves the long username as "William Seitz", but I'll live with that.

  • started moving some data around to the correct place. Suspect I'm going to ignore everything recovered in "Library" etc.

  • decide to get some basic stuff up and running. After a little effort, find pre-3.5 FireFox download location. Hmm, but it asks about importing - I probably have to find/move old files to do that...

    • I couldn't get it to recognize my old bookmarks.html file, so I imported it into Saf Ari first, then imported from there to FireFox! (And didn't worry about anything else getting imported.)

  • start downloading OpenOffice, then realize that NeoOffice (ex-NeoOfficeJ) still sounds like a better system for MacOs X.

  • download ThunderBird. Them move over recovered Address Book and local folders. See that these are from Jan'2008. I don't think that actually matters much, as I didn't do much moving of things to local folders.

  • moved over all the documents I'd worked on during the interim on my old IBook.

    • there are others I can rescue from EMail attachments

    • hmm can't seem to import .xlsx and .docx files, which I thought I could on my MacBook before... (hmm, I wonder if that was version 2.x?)

      • importing latest patch (5) to v3.0 - nope that didn't help

      • it sounds like there are issues with the underlying OpenOffice code (or Microsoft's compliance to their bogus OOXML spec - but GoogleApps has been able to open those files).

      • by the way, it sounds like v3 of OpenOffice has Mac-native (Aqua) interface now, so may NeoOffice is less relevant?

Jul14

  • download FreeMind. Saved lots of docs because the partial-saves were saved in a 'freemind' directory separate from individual doc locations!

  • back to OpenOffice/NeoOffice

    • download OpenOffice - no better success at opening

    • hmm, I can't seem to open even files I made and saved as '.doc' on my IBook!

      • restart - no help

      • going to check again on IBook, then re-copy. Maybe Flash Drive issue?

      • confirmed can open a specific file on IBook. Recopy. Still no good.

      • email to myself via You Send It. This I can open on MacBook. So Flash Drive smells like the issue...

      • zip up and send all interim files via You Send It. Success!

  • imported old ITunes stuff

Jul15: install Text Wrangler, AdiumX; empty Trash

Jul16

  • Private Wiki files from Nokia N810

    • run Back Up to external card

    • argh can't get card physically removed

    • connect via USB, can copy zip Back Up files from external card

    • argh can't see anything inside MyDocs. Ah, right, have to look inside '.documents' (do 'ls -a')

    • hmm, can get to 'wiki' directory, but not finding 'text' subdirectory that includes actual meat!

    • ah, need to use 'other.zip' not 'documents.zip'

    • remember to 'cp -f -p ....' to preserve dates (actually should re-look at options next time, if have actually edited any files on the MacBook)

  • time to get a Back Up of this poor machine

  • Python/SQLite/Django/Pinax

    • already have Python 2.5.1 - since there's a nice 2.6.2 disk image available, I figure I'll go ahead and do it.

      • hmm, after install, just typing 'python' at prompt still gives me 2.5.1. If I launch Idle, it shows me 2.6.2.

      • run 'Update Shell Profile.command' but that still doesn't seem to work.

      • doh, quit Terminal, relaunch it, now recognizing new version.

      • install SetUpTools

    • have SQLite 3.4.0, current is 3.6.16 - it sounds like there are plenty of changes, and Django documentation seems unconcerned, so going to upgrade.

      • hmm, have '.bin' files downloaded, but don't know what to do with it! Ah, copied to '/usr/bin/'. (Actually not sure whether I even needed to do this, or if this is correct... did I only download utilities without changing engine?)

    • install official Django 1.0.2

      • test that it's installed (via 'import')

      • make '~/documents/djcode/' directory for bits

      • make a 'mysite' inside there

  • not bothering with Mac Personal SVN Server. Install Git client.

  • Pinax

    • at 'python pinax-boot.py --development ./pinax-env' get 'Could not call install_name_tool -- you must have Apple's development tools installed'. Start downloading X Code. Now it works.

    • finish installation, clone 'social_project' as 'mysite', start it up.

I think I'm done re-building now.

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