P2 crashing powerbook

[KerryB]

Hi,

Long time lurker, first time poster... I've found this an extremely valuable site and appreciate the contributions here, and hope I can contribute as well.

I've searched the archives, and the web in general, and haven't found much on the subject... I'm having a little trouble with P2 crashing and freezing my powerbook g4 1.67... not everytime, but just about every other time I physically eject the card from the PCMCIA slot the screen will lock, or crash completely.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Kerry

[Bob Fagan]

Hi,

Long time lurker, first time poster... I've found this an extremely valuable site and appreciate the contributions here, and hope I can contribute as well.

I've searched the archives, and the web in general, and haven't found much on the subject... I'm having a little trouble with P2 crashing and freezing my powerbook g4 1.67... not everytime, but just about every other time I physically eject the card from the PCMCIA slot the screen will lock, or crash completely.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Kerry
Kerry,

I have an old Titanium 1Ghz PB that has absolutely no problem, but then I did about a dozen P2 loads onto a friend's 17 inch 1.67 Ghz PB and it had a hard crash about every 3 or 4th time I ejected the PB. (P2 driver update installed also). I asked the friend when the last time he repaired permissions, and I think he never has so I did that (took about 30 minutes it was so messed up). Seemed to work better after that, but I only did another 3 cards. Will try to use it more this week so if it's still a problem, I'll post here.

But anyway, if you haven't repaired permissions of late, try that.

-Bob

[KerryB]

Thanks Bob,

I repaired the permissions, but no go... still crashing constantly. I'm running OSX 10.4.6, with the latest P2 driver and firmware...

[puredrifting]

Hi Kerry:

FWIW, I too have a 15" 1.67GHz PB and I am experiencing the same although it's more random. Sometimes I can go an entire day with no crashes and other days, it crashed nearly every time I eject a card.

Have repaired permissions and done everything else I can think of but to no avail. Seems like it's just part of the whole P2 workflow for us.

Lemme know if you figure out a solution and I will do the same.

Best,

Dan

[Bob Fagan]

Used the friend's 1.67 Ghz again today and it was still crashing every 2 or 3 card ejects.
Meanwhile my 1 Ghz PB (10.4.6) works like a champ...not one crash after 20+ cards and 3 days constant use.

I'm not sure why one works & the other doesn't...both exactly the same setup as far as software goes. I thought it might be because I have a FW drive connected to the 1.67 Ghz one, but when I hooked the drive to the 1 Ghz one, it still worked fine.

The oddest part is that it crashes only when I physically eject the card, not when I dismount it from the desktop. And its a hard crash (mouse freeze, no force quit enabled). Will see about bringing my friends 17 inch home to do some straight comparisons, but I'm wondering if it's a firmware difference between the models (one being 3 years old, the other being less than a year old). The eject button is also different, but why would that matter?

Very odd.

[Bob Fagan]

Quick question...one difference between my two setups...the old PB has no VPN software, the 1.67 Ghz one does. Do you have VPN software on your Mac? Why that would matter, I don't know, but it is a difference.

[Bob Fagan]

Been testing the two different powerbooks...1.67 Ghz one (friends) and a 1 Ghz one (mine).

The 1 Ghz one does not crash when ejecting P2 cards...the 1.67 Ghz one did. One thing I noticed is the 1.67 Ghz one would crash more when I had a Firewire drive hooked up, but it didn't seem to make a difference with the 1 Ghz one.

When I made a new account on the 1.67 (which effectively creates all new preferences and therefore avoids old corrupted preferences) it has not crashed since.

I've only mounted and ejected 24 cards, but so far so good. I'll be working with the 1.67 throughout the week and will post the results.

-Bob

[KerryB]

Thanks Dan and Bob for the replies... That sounds exactly like my experience, only freezes when physically ejected from the slot.

I'm not sure what you mean by VPN software? If making a new account solved the problem, then is there a way to correct corrupted preferences on an existing account?

It's begining to look like this is a problem specific to 1.67 books, but could just be coincidence.

-Kerry

[Bob Fagan]

Did about 12 dumps from P2 card today on the 1.67 GHz PB. Not one crash. The only thing different now is that I did a Disk Warrior repair of the hard drive and I'm using the original user account. Will continue to use it this week and next week and see if it throws up again.

As to fixing corrupted preferences. Basically it's trial and painful error. The "new user" setup is used to see if it's the preferences of your old account are affecting the computer's operation. If you are an old Mac user, it's similar to extension conflicts where you had to figure out which extension was causing the problem. Rebuilding preferences usually requires you going into the user Library>Preferences> and dumping one or more of the plist files there. There are many, and I'm not sure which one would be most suspect. UNIX...what fun.

In any case, so far I cannot say what is causing the hard crashes. So far I've repaired permissions and done a Disk Warrior repair. I'm guessing it's a permission/preference issue, but it's hard to tell. If you make a new user and it seems to work okay then, I'm thinking it's some preference problem.

If I start getting crashes again this week, will let you all know.

[KerryB]

Amazing! I had a casting session today, and the powerbook was either freezing or crashing completely every time. After reading your post, I found a utility that checks for corrupted preferences, but everything checked out okay. I just created a new user account, and I've done 6 dumps without a hiccup. I hope it continues to work, and will just use the p2 dump account for that purpose.

Thanks,
Kerry

[KerryB]

Well, the new user account isn't working so hot now... crashing every time again.
K

[DrizztG]

Maybe its time for a clean install of the OS.

Just a question: Do you lose any data when it crashes or all your files transfered are still there when you reboot since they're on an externel drive.

[Bob Fagan]

Yeah...the 1.67 Powerbook is starting to crash again here too. Meanwhile the 1Ghz powerbook is stable.

[John Rivers]

Not that this gets us any closer to a solution, but mine did the same as well today, same exact scenario (fine on unmount, froze on eject).

I'll try it out some more.

Since this is clearly an issue with the Powerbooks, how do we get Apple involved to fix this???

EDIT: ok, I've only had 6 trials with this, but each time it hasn't crashed my Powerbook: when you unmount the P2 card, wait a few seconds before ejecting it. I think I can hear something in the laptop slowing down or turning off (or I might just be hearing things, not sure), but once I waited for about 5 seconds, I eject, and my PB still works. Try this and let me know how it works for other people.

Btw, I also ejected BOTH my firewire hard drives before inserting (Firewire 800 and 400), so this might also lend to the success. Still, lemme know if the waiting works for everyone experiencing this issue.

[Bob Fagan]

I suspected the FW drives also and had unmounted them and the PB still crashed. Is your PB a 1.67 GHz? I will try the "wait for spin down" thing and see if that works.

[Jan_Crittenden]

So Kelly how are your dumping your cards, drap and drop, importing into FCP? I have a 1.67 GHZ and have had no problems. I am assuming that you are ejecting them via the Computer before just ejecting them, right? So let's define your system a little more as I don't see what is going on. What else do you have on the computer?

Best,

Jan

[KerryB]

Hi Jan,

I have a 1.67 powerbook, OSX 10.4.6, a LaCie 1.6terabyte drive and a G-Raid 1000gb drive connectied via firewire 800. I've tried with and without the drives connected with similar results. As far as workflow: I insert the P2 in the pcmcia slot... wait for it to mount on the desktop... open the P2 card and drag the contents and lastclip file into a folder that i've created on my desktop or on one of my drives. Once the download is complete, I drag the P2 icon to the trash/eject bin... when the card dismounts, I then physically eject it from the powerbook. The screen with either freeze, or the error message saying that I need to shut down the system, will appear. The files copy completely and are there when I reboot. My system is crashing 5 out of 6 downloads, so it's very frequent.

Let me know if you need anymore information from me. Thanks for your help!
Kerry

[maverickstunts]

I have a 1.25 ghz pb and haven't had any problems whatsoever. I might try and get it to the genius bar at the apple store. It seems to be the 1.67......

[nsoltz]

I have only read from P2 cards on my Powerbook 1.67 on 3 occasions, and never had an issue. I do have VPN software installed on the Powerbook. I should be able to test this a bit more next week since I will have an HVX for an article I am doing on workflow... and certainly reading P2 cards via the PC slot on my Powerbook is an important component of the workflow.

This is only a shot in the dark but I know that there is a P2 card updater on the Panasonic site. Would applying the updater to the cards have an effect?

Next suggestion would be to reapply the 10.4.6 updater but as combo updater. I never update using the delta updater from software update; I always download the combo updater.

For those users who have had success in creating a new user account, did you have networking turned on or off on that new account?

Ned Soltz

[Bob Fagan]

The new user account I used worked for a while (12 or so P2 ejects) but then started exhibiting the same problem. Network was turned on I believe. I do not own the 1.67 Ghz PB or I would test some more, but my 3 year old 1 Ghz PB has never exhibited this problem with the same OS/Panny driver.

It is the randomness of the problem with the 1.67 that drives me crazy. If it was a problem that you could repeat consistently then it would be easier to diagnose.

[nsoltz]

Thanks, Bob, for those additional details which might be helpful when I get to work on it next week. Meanwhile, you might want to try turning networking off.

I also re-read the posts and it seems that some are reporting a kernel panic (for those less computer-savy, you know you have a kernel panic when you get that white box of death "Please restart your computer"). Kernel panics are usually hardware related and are caused by with hardware. That could definitely lead to either a problem specifically with the 1.67 OR to 10.4.6, which caused problems in a number of other areas.

Ned Soltz

[plexi]

i've got a 1.67 P-book, 10.4.6, P2 driver software installed, and have never had any problems with the computer crashing when i eject cards. the only issue has been that after 5 or 6 cards, the computer won't mount a card, so i've got to restart.

[KerryB]

Anyone making any progress with this? I'm still crashing left and right.
Thanks,
K

[Bob Fagan]

No. Using a 1Ghz PB and just said the hell with the other 1.67Ghz until someone at Apple or Panasonic comes up with an answer. I've already wasted hours testing this, but feel there is no easy answer because of it's randomness.

[nsoltz]

So again, to help get to the bottom and eliminate one variable-- Bob, did you update to 10.4.6 via software update or via the combo updater? Have you tried downloading and installing the 10.4.6 combo updater?

Ned Soltz

[Bob Fagan]

Ned...

My PB 1Ghz used the combo updater...I will have to check with the owner of the PB 1.67 Ghz (it is not my machine, but I was using it) if he used the updater or not. I suspect he did the software updater because he would do what ever is easiest but I do not know for sure. Will try to find out.

The problem I'm finding diagnosing this is that it's so damn intermittent. Sometimes it would seem to work flawlessly through 20 or more ejects...other times it became every 2 or 3 ejects. (And why a physical eject???) I would make a new user and it seemed to work..then a few days later it would start crashing again. I would find it a lot less frustrating if it just wouldn't work at all. And why would it be just a 1.67 Ghz machine? And only some of them?

[cinemakinoeye]

For troubleshooting purposes, in order to isolate the source of the problem, do you have any problems mounting and importing via the camera (in FireWire devlice mode)? If this works like a charm, but you get crashes with the PCMCIA slot, but not on another PowerBook, then I'd start suspecting the PCMCIA slot, but not before doing a clean install.

[Anders Holck]

Hi guys.

I have experienced this as well, mostly on the first import after a wakeup from sleep on my PB 1,25 G4.

The computer freezes for about 10 seconds, then the card is detected by the kernal (I get an eject menu in the menubar) but the card is not mounted by the Panasonic P2 driver.

I strongly believe that it's an Apple Cardbus kernal driver issue.

I had the exact same experience when I had a CF PCMCIA card reader for my DSLR.

The computer had the exact same freezes when I mounted the Compact flash cards, and the whole system would slow down when I offloaded the card. I actually bought an external CF reader instead.

[Bob Fagan]

For troubleshooting purposes, in order to isolate the source of the problem, do you have any problems mounting and importing via the camera (in FireWire devlice mode)? If this works like a charm, but you get crashes with the PCMCIA slot, but not on another PowerBook, then I'd start suspecting the PCMCIA slot, but not before doing a clean install.

No problems otherwise except when ejecting the P2 card from the PCMCIA slot and only sometimes and only sometimes randomly with no actual pattern that you could eliminate variables. Was thinking about a clean install because there have been reports on this forum that people have 1.62 Ghz PBs that work okay. But...it's not my PB and even if I did the clean install, would it show up again 20 or 21 or 22 cards later?

[Bob Fagan]

Hi guys.
I strongly believe that it's an Apple Cardbus kernal driver issue.


That would sound plausible if it happened to everyone but if this was the case, wouldn't all PBs have the same problem? Or do different models have different kernal drivers for their cardbus? Why would they work sometimes and not others? Why is it the physical disengagement that causes the hard crash/freeze?

[KerryB]

Just tried the combo updater. No dice...