Apple posts fix for freezing iMacs
By Darren Murph 
posted November 2nd 2007 10:24AM
posted November 2nd 2007 10:24AM
[Via PCWorld]
Read - iMac Software Update 1.3 for Leopard
Read - iMac Software Update 1.2 for Tiger
posted November 2nd 2007 10:24AM
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@Eric - what a joke. Twice the rate of nothing still is irrelevant. The only reason Apple isn't much of a competitor (which is a shame as competition is good for everyone) is exactly this - they abuse their customers, and then clowns like you defend the company at all costs like it's frickin' Amway. How about we start demanding Apple be better and step up to the challenge.
I AM an Apple customer by the way, but I pick and chose what I will buy and I don't live in Job's Reality Distortion Field. I have owned eight Macs until I just couldn't take the abuse and arrogance. Nothing has changed since I switched my computer on my desk. Maybe if they could at least get iTunes working without crashing all the time.
What? 6-7% quarterly of the PC market is not 'nothing,' dear hater. "Abuse the customer..." You sound ridiculous. Stop.
I had the first PC on the market (dual floppies), the first hard drive (10MB -- yes, I have photos larger than that) and have had every version of Windows, except Vista. I bought my first Mac in January 2005 and have not looked back. Those Windows users who bash Apple have likely never spent any time on a Mac. It took me about 3 weeks to "unlearn" the Windows framework and understand that the Mac makes more sense in so many ways. Try networking, for example. To get a printer on one Windows machine to work on another, you have to go through many hoops, IP addresses, etc. Sometimes it works, most of the time it does not. When you finally get it to work, you wonder why it was so hard. The Mac OS is written to anticipate basic funtions, such as printer sharing. It sees a printer, it assumes that you want to use it -- a few clicks and you are done.
Flame away at some of the bugs on the iMac or Leopard. I installed Leopard on 4 machines without a hitch and am blown away by it. For Windows entusiasts, just take a look at shared computers, spaces, quickview and screen sharing. Tell me you are not envious...
While all the recent brouhaha about Apple having lots of difficulties releasing things that Just Work™ is somewhat worrying, I must ask: how much of this is actually happening? How many users have these problems that get hyped up on teh Intarwebs? I mean, people were heckling about the first black MacBooks which supposedly had a flaky paint cover, but this turned out to be an isolated case, as far as I recall.
Of course those who do have problems make the biggest noise while those who don't have them say nothing. I've had no problems whatsoever with my 1st gen. MacBook or new iPod classic (which did, however, become a little snappier after the recent update).
I tend to think Apple are spreading themselves a little too thin lately, but then again, the have more attention on them than ever before. Could it be that a lot of this "Apple are slipping" stuff is just people paying more attention?
@crimrow - Do you understand the concept? Apple controls hardware and software - no other computers allowed other than Apple's - a closed system. Not so hard to understand.
Microsoft does not control what hardware is out there. Developers are permitted to create hardware and drivers - the tools are out there and readily accessible.
It does make their job somewhat easier (or it should at least).
@XM
I still am forced to use a Mac regularly and no I am not envious in the least. Networking? Are you joking? Networking is terrible on a Mac compared to XP or Vista. It's more of a Plug and Pray thing. Because if there's a problem, good luck fixing it. And apparently you don't know how to install a printer because it is about the most trivial thing there is.
ReidB, you're being called out.
You've never used a Mac before if you can't find the effing network control panel.
Of course, in Windows, it's easy to find, becaue there are 5 different ways of getting to it. How intuitive!
I hate MACs simplicity. Doing shit for you automatically.
I want to be in control of EVERY single action and the difficulty it imposes. Windows 2000 FTW.
@SMUGLY
No I don't think it's simply more on the radar. Apple products used to be really high quality and near bulletproof. Apple continues to charge premium prices, which is fine, but has really skimped on quality and their commitment to users. Products are no longer excellent out of the gate, they are beta quality at best. I used to feel like when I got an Apple box, what inside was perfect. Because I paid for that! Now I hope it's not screwed up. And I've become way less prone to jump when a new product is released. Even the iPod line is suffering. I really wanted a new iPod but I didn't feel like they lived up to any of the hype. So I still am using my 5.5 until it dies I guess.
They are making so much money, I really don't have any sympathy for "spreading resources thin". That is just shitty management if that is what is going on.
I think aaron is right. I bought Vista and installed it on recommended hardware, the next day I went out and bought an Imac and then a MacBook. Then I bought my kids MacBooks and just yesterday finished it off with mac minis for my wife and parents. So yeah, I think everyone should buy Vista so they know what they are not missing.
PS I have a alum 24" and it does freeze and its still not enough of an issue to make me switch back. Just applied the patch, we will see if it solves the problems.
@Reid Conti - You are full of shit too. I've used a hell of a lot more Macs and PCs than you probably. I can "find" the control panel just fine. The control panel is shit - that's the problem.
And just yesterday I received 4 separate denials from Apple saying this problem didn't exist.
Most people who have installed the patch report it has done nothing for the issue.
Feel free to share your experience at www.frozenimacs.com
This is the most mature thread in a while.
nothing has gone rong yet...
Just so some of you shut up for a minute, "It just works" was Microsofts thing, not Apples. Vista has more flaws than Any operating system in existence, so don't know Leopard, no its not perfect, but its pretty damn good. The iMac freezing is uncalled for but it's apparently a driver issue with ATI.
Apple will take care of this when they figure it out so calm down everyone.
FOR THE RECORD, I'm on a 24" iMac purchased in September. I've never had a freeze. Not one. Not in Tiger, and not in Leopard.
This would indicate to me that there's a certain software package that's causing this, or it's faulty hardware in select iMacs. This issue does not affect everyone, and it's certainly not any more of an indication of Apple "dropping the ball" than any other problem they've ever had-- They'll track it down and fix it. I doubt highly that Dell or eMachines would be so quick to find out what's causing a similar issue on their own hardware.
Once again-- My iMac runs perfectly, and I've seen several others that can claim the same, so this is an ISOLATED issue, and not present on every iMac.
I do hope the people who suffer this problem get it sorted out, although I wonder why they didn't exchange in the 14-day "satisfaction guranteed" window granted by Apple. My first iMac shipped with some stuck pixels, but the day it arrived I was able to take it into an Apple store and swap for a perfect one with no questions asked, no hassles, and no cost to me.
I've never had any problems with Apple's customer service, although I've had my share of hardware problems. They always sort it out, which is why I'm a loyal customer.
It's unfortunate some people are still having issues, but for me the problem appears to be solved. Before reproducing the issue was as simple as this for me, in Tiger:
• Play some music in iTunes
• Try to open a huge Photoshop file (700MB+)
• Continue on about my business in Safari, Mail, etc.
That's about it, it was pretty much guaranteed to freeze. I had to stop what I was doing while the file opened to get it to work. Now I have Leopard and iMac software update 1.3 installed. Here's what I did:
• First I opened iTunes with some music, and about 20 tabs in Safari
• I fired up a handful of other apps
• Then I opened a 700MB file in Photoshop and continued opening tabs in Safari (with lots of images)
• The Photoshop file opened fairly quickly so I opened a bigger file—1.7GB
• I also let the preview image load in Finder, which is something I'd never think of in Tiger
• I opened up a folder with a ton of movies in it, and launched a couple 1080p HD ones
• ...but I accidentally selected everything and opened all of them. This opened up a couple dozen Finder windows, mounted a dozen disk images, opened a couple dozen images in Preview, and attempted to open hundeds of movies
• QuickTime crashed, but everything else kept running fine (albeit fairly slow)
• I re-opened the two HD movies I tried to open before... scaled the 1080p one to half size, let the other 720p WMV play full size
• I continued to open tabs in Safari with lots of images while the movies played through to the end
• Decided to go ahead and write this post while Photoshop continued loading
• The 1.7GB image finished loading so I flattened it, waited some more and then did a Save As
• Decided to put a visualizer on in iTunes while the image saved
• That didn't take long, so I decided to quit Photoshop, and open both files again PLUS another 1.5GB file
• "Are you sure you want to open 77 bookmarks in tabs?"
• "Are you sure you want to open 156 bookmarks in tabs?"
• I also opened a 1080p movie again and let it play, looped, until all the files had loaded
I'm actually pretting ****ing amazed at how well my computer has been running through all of this. Lots of slowdown, but still totally usable. Even Safari performed beautifully.
Please excuse me while I go close some tabs.
I have a 24 inch iMac running at 2.8 Oddly enough I never had a single freeze up until the upgrade procedure. At the point where it was supposed to re-boot, it just hung on a white screen. After about 15 minutes I pressed the power button and booted back up. All has been fine since then. I have no way to know if the update was successful other than Software Update is not asking for it.
Something is going terrebly wrong here, check it out, why apple retrieve the imac update?!!??!
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/imacsoftwareupdate12tiger.html
THIS IS PRETTY FREAKY
Apple pulled it apparently because it was bricking iMacs that went on to upgrade to Leopard. On macrumors there was a beta tester of this "fix" that told Apple it didn't work. They released it anyways. Rotten to the core.
My new iMac 24" 2.4GHz 2GB froze a few times when I was processing RAW photos in Aperture. This hasn't happened again since applying the update. But I guess I need more time to come to a firm conclusion whether it really fixes the problem.
When it froze, I can still use another machine (windows or mac or linux or iphone, anything that runs ssh client) to ssh into it and use "su reboot" to force a reboot (of course, assume you enabled "remote login" in sharing preferences). I think it's better than just pressing and holding the power button because most processes will be shut down gracefully in my way, except the freezing app & video driver. Sometimes you need to wait longer than usual for it to reboot, but it eventually reboots in 3-5 minutes if not immediately.
And please stop the OS war... It's totally fine for anyone to feel superior with the OS he/she chose. Just don't try to convince others to be converts to your choice.
The issue will be solved.. i believe that Apple is clearly aware, and if the update will not solve this, they will certainly make sure their customers will not suffer under this !
And the OS is so much better then Vista OR XP .. they just keep giving updates because everything goes wrong .. And in all these years Apple has been releasing a new OS - never ever has it been as worse as the Microsft's version of OS ..
So, just give me a Mac .. once you go Mac .. well, you never go back ;-)