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Misbehaving iMac / Lion
#26432 08/14/13 10:29 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
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grelber Offline OP
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iMac (late 2011) 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Mac OS X 10.7.5

As of this morning my iMac has been 'misbehaving' — slow/delayed page loading and switching from one window or application to another in particular. Mouse clicks result in delayed action as does keyboard typing.

This started just after it wouldn't re-awake from sleep. First I restarted it, then tried shutting down for a half hour. It seems to have involved a problem/crash with System Preferences, the diagnostic report (52KB) of which starts off as:

Process: System Preferences [33407]
Path: /Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences
Identifier: com.apple.systempreferences
Version: 11.0 (11.0)
Build Info: SystemPrefsApp-214009000000000~8
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [140]

Date/Time: 2013-08-14 04:19:46.894 -0600
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63)
Report Version: 9

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: 0x000000000000000a, 0x00007fff885c7a49

VM Regions Near 0x7fff885c7a49:
Submap 00007fff77e91000-00007fff80000000 r--/rwx process-only submap
--> Submap 00007fff80000000-00007fffc0000000 r--/rwx machine-wide submap
unused split lib 00007fff863b0000-00007fff863b5000 [ 20K] r-x/r-x SM=COW system shared library region not used by this process

Application Specific Information:
com.apple.preference.network v.2.6.1 (Network)
objc[33407]: garbage collection is ON


In the system log the following 2 messages appear over and over again when it's acting up:

13-08-14 9:57:09.000 kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: default_pager_backing_store_monitor - send LO_WAT_ALERT
13-08-14 9:57:10.000 kernel: macx_swapoff SUCCESS

13-08-14 5:03:36.000 kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_select_segment - send HI_WAT_ALERT
13-08-14 5:03:36.000 kernel: macx_swapon SUCCESS

And very often the spinning pizza shows up, preventing anything else from executing.

I have no idea what any of this means — or how I might correct it.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26434 08/15/13 08:39 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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Follow-up:

I shut down the computer for 6 hours. Upon starting upon everything seemed to be functioning properly again ... for about 30 minutes. Then the following items started appearing again:

13-08-15 3:19:26.000 kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_allocate_cluster - send HI_WAT_ALERT
13-08-15 3:19:26.000 kernel: macx_swapon SUCCESS

13-08-15 3:23:11.000 kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_select_segment - send HI_WAT_ALERT
13-08-15 3:23:11.000 kernel: macx_swapon SUCCESS

13-08-15 3:26:11.000 kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_select_segment - send HI_WAT_ALERT
13-08-15 3:26:12.000 kernel: macx_swapon SUCCESS
13-08-15 3:26:19.000 kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_select_segment - send HI_WAT_ALERT
13-08-15 3:26:19.000 kernel: macx_swapon SUCCESS

At the same time the spinning pizza would appear, apparently associated with the message:
13-08-15 3:28:23.158 xpchelper: for uid: 501 -- timeout while waiting on FSEvents flush; clearing cache.

As noted above nothing can executed while this is occurring.

The slowdown/lag-time in all actions (such as writing these lines) is recurring and getting worse (at least 1 second between keystroke and appearance).


Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26435 08/15/13 10:44 AM
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It is definitely something associated with the following items that is causing the wretched lag-times.

kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_select_segment - send HI_WAT_ALERT
kernel: macx_swapon SUCCESS

Just in case there might be a browser problem, I'm using Firefox 23 (but the same issues arose when I tried using FF 22).

Hang time (eg, for keyboard action to screen appearance) is now on the order of 1.5 seconds.

Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26436 08/15/13 11:30 AM
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Somnabeech!

I disabled Ghostery 5.0.1 20 minutes ago and since then no weird system log messages and no hanging on inputs. No idea how that compromised the entire system.
Now wait and see if that's well and truly the problem and its solution.

Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26437 08/15/13 02:08 PM
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Final (?) commentary:

(1) The folk at Ghostery admit to causing the problem and advise that they have "released 5.0.2beta which fixes the CPU issue".
However, until a final, thoroughly troubleshot and confirmed reliable form, I won't be using Ghostery.

(2) To the moderators: Should you feel that this thread is a waste of space in the Forums (except possibly for heuristic purposes of dubious value), I have no problem with its being deleted or edited at your discretion.

(3) I would still like to know what those alert/error messages mean.


Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26438 08/15/13 04:29 PM
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Thanks for posting all those comments. In my setup, launching Safari 5.1.9 also results in the spinning beachball and very slow loading of websites for a few minutes. I can hear the hard drive working while all this happens and the rest of the computer is slowed down. After a few minutes, everything works normally. I'll experiment by disabling Ghostery and restarting (when I get around to it later, maybe tomorrow).

I'll post back with my results.

EDIT: I'm using Ghostery 1.4.2

Last edited by jchuzi; 08/15/13 04:36 PM.

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: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
jchuzi #26439 08/15/13 05:19 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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The problem didn't exist before version 5.0.0/5.0.1 – ie, right up through version 2.9.6 (released this past spring).

Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26441 08/15/13 07:52 PM
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I just tested it out, and Ghostery is not the cause of my problem. I haven't spent a lot of time trying to solve it because it disappears after a minute or so.

ADDENDUM: I suspect that the problem arises from loading my browsing history. I have set Safari to remember the last 1000 sites so that could very well be the issue. I don't want to clear History because I would lose those sites. So, either I experiment and start History from scratch, or I deal with it. So far, I opt to deal with it.

Last edited by jchuzi; 08/15/13 07:59 PM.

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: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26443 08/16/13 11:57 AM
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I note that a final version of Ghostery 5.0.2 has been released for Firefox (albeit not yet vetted by Mozilla.org).
I've installed it and it seems to be working properly vis-à-vis my system. Let's hope that it continues to do so.

Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
jchuzi #26449 08/16/13 04:54 PM
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While it may not apply when the issue is a flaw in certain Ghostery versions, it's probably still worthwhile to point out (perhaps again) the option to whitelist certain web addresses in Ghostery's settings, rather than turning the extension off completely. Obviously, you'd need to know which sites qualify for whitelisting, but if you do*, you may retain the extension's benefits for other sites. Also be aware of the possibility that problems may increase in frequency when blocking more trackers.

*) Example: after changing Ghostery's blocking options, I noticed that certain Google (sites.google.com) and Macworld (macworld.com) pages no longer worked as expected. Since they displayed OK with Ghostery turned off, I added the affected domains to the whitelist with the same result. IIRC, Artie had similar experiences.


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Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
alternaut #26450 08/16/13 06:21 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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You may want to determine whether it's the blocked trackers or blocked cookies which could be causing the described problems.

I simply have Firefox block third-party cookies directly (via privacy preferences) and don't block any via Ghostery.
As Ghostery advises:
Warning! When combined with other cookie monitoring addons such as Beef Taco, Cookie Monster, and Google Opt-Out, this feature can cause unresponsive script errors. If you experience this error, please try disabling this feature or conflicting addons.

NB — This thread has now taken a turn towards the Networking forum; I suspect it may wind up there soon.

Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26451 08/16/13 07:48 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
You may want to determine whether it's the blocked trackers or blocked cookies which could be causing the described problems.

NB — This thread has now taken a turn towards the Networking forum; I suspect it may wind up there soon.

A good point, and one worthwhile looking into when more than one similar utility is in use, as your Ghostery quote advised. Not changing too many variables at once is helpful in determining what went awry when things go south, a condition that helped me in my example above.

NB, I suspect that your suspicion is right. smirk


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Re: Misbehaving iMac / Lion
grelber #26455 08/17/13 09:06 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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The Mozilla.org-vetted version (Ghostery 5.0.3) is now available via Firefox's Add-ons updater.


Moderated by  alternaut, dianne, MacManiac 

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