An open community 
of Macintosh users,
for Macintosh users.

FineTunedMac Dashboard widget now available! Download Here

Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
iMac/Lion shut down on its own
#22320 06/27/12 04:04 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
grelber Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
What happened?!

I was merrily going about my business and put my iMac to sleep (as usual). Two minutes later apparently it decided to shut down completely on its own (while in Sleep mode).
I only discovered this some 2 hours later when I had to start up from scratch.
The only diagnostic report information is in the form of the following 2 lines:

12-06-27 8:24:28.877 [0x0-0x1a01a].org.mozilla.firefox: NOTE: child process received `Goodbye', closing down
12-06-27 8:26:44.309 powerd: PMScheduleWakeEventChooseBest: m=0.00 s=0.00 a=0.00

I have no idea what either of those lines means.

More important, is this an indication of something having gone catastrophically wrong with my iMac? And is it likely that I'm going to experience more unpleasantness due to whatever caused the shutdown?

FYI:
Running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 on iMac 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5.
I have since verified the disk and repaired permissions, with nothing apparently "out of order".

EDIT (1): Apparently whatever happened caused my browser (Firefox 13.0.1) cache to clear.

EDIT (2): Since I use dial-up Internet access, the computer is not connected to same at any time I do not actively engage it.

Last edited by grelber; 06/28/12 09:31 AM. Reason: Addenda
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22335 06/29/12 07:51 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
grelber Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
And I ran an updated anti-virus program (Sophos) on all files (including archived and compressed): no threats detected.

So I'm still trying to figure out what went wonky. Not a peep from assembled talent.

Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22336 06/29/12 09:46 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 3
Moderator
Offline
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 3

What technique did you use to put the Mac to sleep?



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
dkmarsh #22337 06/29/12 01:03 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
grelber Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
4 of out 5 times via the power button; 1 out 5 via the Sleep command in the Apple menu. In this case I imagine it was the former.

Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22338 06/29/12 02:09 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
If the symptom occurs intermittently, it will be hard to diagnose. In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to reset PRAM.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
jchuzi #22339 06/29/12 02:13 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
grelber Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
So far it's only been that once.
I am extraordinarily reluctant to reset PRAM unless it's absolutely necessary.
And it would hurt: I hate resetting all my preferences.

So ... no one knows what those 2 lines from the diagnostic report mean?

Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22340 06/29/12 02:46 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
Maybe you won't have to reset too many preferences. What's Stored in PRAM.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22344 06/29/12 03:46 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
I've seen this happen twice, once on my own machine, both with the same cause. Turned out to be a battery that had become possessed. It would apparently just stop sending power to the computer, at random times. I'd be using it or it would be awake, and then would CLICK off like I'd pulled the power cord without a battery. It started becoming very frequent when I would leave it awake overnight, I don't normally sleep it overnight so the backup runs. And I kept getting up to see my computer was OFF.

Took me awhile to narrow down the cause. I had a second battery and it never happened with the other one. Replaced. Problem solved. There were no other reasons to suspect the battery, it showed healthy with a low 100's cycle count and good capacity, and passed all tests.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
Virtual1 #22348 06/29/12 04:26 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
grelber Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
As far as I'm aware, the only batteries associated with my set-up are in the Magic Mouse, and that wouldn't have anything to do with the problem.

Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22350 06/29/12 05:30 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 1
Moderator
Offline
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 1

Originally Posted By: grelber
So ... no one knows what those 2 lines from the diagnostic report mean?

Sort of. I have no idea what caused that shutdown, as your Console log entries don't explain much if anything. Neither line is all that rare, but an explanation of an associated shutdown is. Apparently Firefox quit due to an external issue like a shutdown or (aborted?) restart process, somehow associated with the sleep process, or rather the awakening from sleep (referred to in the second log entry containing 'powerd').

As I mentioned above, there are a number of error reports from users running Lion about restarting when putting a Mac to sleep (unknown causes), or about not sleeping at all (running background processes) featuring one or both of your two Console log lines (FWIW, I haven't uncovered another shutdown like yours). Like the latter, the former is probably associated with some software based process, instead of with hardware faults, but that rather vague 'conclusion' is about all I can glean from those (otherwise mostly inconclusive) reports, plus the lack of hardware problem reports.


alternaut moderator
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
Virtual1 #22351 06/29/12 05:35 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 1
Moderator
Offline
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 1
Originally Posted By: Virtual1
I've seen this happen twice, once on my own machine, both with the same cause. Turned out to be a battery that had become possessed.

Are you talking about a PRAM-battery equivalent, or the power battery of MacBooks? Grelber runs an iMac, so the latter wouldn't apply to his situation.


alternaut moderator
Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
alternaut #22352 06/29/12 06:15 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
grelber Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 4
Merci.
I guess that's where we're going to have to leave things for the time being.

Re: iMac/Lion shut down on its own
grelber #22356 07/01/12 06:31 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 1
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 1
A side note which might or might not be relevant: I have seen this happen (a computer shutting down while it is asleep) if a kernel panic occurs while the computer's asleep or while it's in the process of going to sleep.


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Moderated by  alternaut, dkmarsh, joemikeb 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4
(Release build 20200307)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.4.33 Page Time: 0.027s Queries: 40 (0.019s) Memory: 0.6339 MB (Peak: 0.7335 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-28 15:46:18 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS