Weird. 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.
OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
121–130 of 138 posts
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, people who've had exorbitant numbers of kernel panics on Macs have had tons of things installed that muck around with MacOS X internals. VirtualBox, old SIMBL hacks, manual fan controls, etc. Those are all notoriously unstable and can cause lots of kernel panics.
>VirtualBox . . . notoriously unstable Is there virtualization software that is not unstable on OS X?
VMWare fusion has been really good for me.
Some of the only kernel panics I have ever had we I think to do with VirtualBox's kernel module. VMWare feels faster too.
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, "reinstall Windows" is oft-quoted as the best solution to a lot of Windows problems too.
That's true, but I paid ~3000 Euros for my Macbook (thats 4000 Dollars) and that's exactly why this isn't acceptable to me.
That argument makes no sense. It's a fundamental fact that technology isn't perfect and sometimes you need to fix things - regardless of the cost of the device...
And you would rather that your $4000 machine kept crashing rather then spending 30 minutes doing something that could fix it?
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#124I'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-s... I agr…
Strange, 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...
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#125Most 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.
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#126I'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.
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#127Notably 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.
You're misquoting the author. He said that he doesn't have the time now to read through all the T&Cs.
> he doesn't have the time now to read through all the T&Cs.
This makes a lot of sense. IIRC, he's in the business of developing OSs and core OS-level technology. All he doesn't need is to agree with some silly terms and have Apple's legal on his back.
The safety of such agreements depend entirely on your line of work.
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#128I'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.
I have to raise a counterpoint. I have, in my house, 3 Macs, two of them running 10.9, and the only one that ever panicked was the one that's not on 10.9. 10.9, at least here, is rock solid on both an aging MBP13 and on a 2 month old MBPr13. Both are regularly plugged to external displays, via DVI or VGA adapters and through AppleTVs/Airplay.
The only thing that bothers me is that, for some reason, all three have some difficulty reconnecting with the wifi after they wake up - they take more than 20 seconds to reconnect while the Linux laptops do it in less than 5.
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, people who've had exorbitant numbers of kernel panics on Macs have had tons of things installed that muck around with MacOS X internals. VirtualBox, old SIMBL hacks, manual fan controls, etc. Those are all notoriously unstable and can cause lots of kernel panics.
>VirtualBox . . . notoriously unstable Is there virtualization software that is not unstable on OS X?
I use VirtualBox every single day and never had a problem. One of my VMs has been running more or less continuously for more than 10 days.
Re: OS X 10.9.3 Is Toxic
#130I'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.
I have to raise a counterpoint. I have, in my house, 3 Macs, two of them running 10.9, and the only one that ever panicked was the one that's not on 10.9. 10.9, at least here, is rock solid on both an aging MBP13 and on a 2 month old MBPr13. Both are regularly plugged to external displays, via DVI or VGA adapters and through AppleTVs/Airplay. The only thing that bothers me is that, for some reason, all three have som…
Ditto on the wifi reconnection problems. I thought I had it narrowed down to the 5GHz band, but that seemed to be a different issue.
Also, I would say I've had relatively zero problems in recent years. Every now and again there will be a weird freeze, but so infrequently (i.e., a few times per year at most) that I don't blame the OS for it because I don't have any useful info.