The kernel panics return

So...yesterday around noon....working along trying to set up a an IP webcam - nothing fancy or exotic.  BAM!  Primary screen gets the dark overlay and the several language window - "you must shut down and restart your machine".


The iMac's been running fine since the last episode (Sept 12th - see the post) and now this....I hadn't updated or installed anything in a while.


Boot to safe mode....everything's fine.....restart....kernel panic.  Go to time machine backup from the previous day.....kernel panic.  Oh boy - here we go again - except this time I've been running 10.6.7 and back in Sept. I was running 10.6.8 - how many versions do I have to regress this time?


Screw it....let's upgrade to Lion and be done with it.  Boot to safe mode - navigate to the Lion installer and start it.  A while later, Lion's installed, and I restart.  Another kernel panic before it gets past the login screen.  Boot to safe mode - it's fine.  Dammit!  WTF?  Go take a break.


Return after a while...restore previous day's TM backup again.  Restart for the heck of it - kernel panic.  OK.....time for the snow leopard equivalent of archive and install (the process that worked back in Sept).  Boot to DVD, run the installer.  Back to 10.6.0 - restart - all's well.  Let the machine sit overnight.  Next day, still fine.  Deleted a few apps I never use, shut down a few things that started up automatically on login.  Ran Outlook, got my email, copied some new downloads to the NAS (just in case).  


Navigate to the 10.6.7 combo updater and run it with fingers crossed.  Restart - login - let the machine sit.....so far so good.  Wait 10 minutes and start iTunes.....still good, then Outlook - wait - ok.....then Chrome (using it to type this now).  Uptime of 1 hour 20 minutes and no KP yet....is the demon beaten into submission for good, or just regaining strength to attack in another few weeks?


My plan before all this was to upgrade to Lion over Thanksgiving....however, looks like I'll have to clone this drive (assuming no further issues) and then try the upgrade.  If I get kernel panics, I'll have to do a fresh install and then bring over my apps and such.....it'll suck, but a good cleaning might be called for since some of the stuff running now is left over from my migration from my 2007 Mac Mini.


Note to self:  If/when this happens again, there's a good chance iTunes won't recognize my iDevices any more....to fix that go here:  http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3540


Essentially: 

1. Disconnect the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and quit iTunes.
2. In Finder, click the Go menu and then choose Go to Folder. Enter the following location into the text field that appears:
   /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
3. Click Go.
4. Locate the file "com.apple.usbmuxd.plist~orig" and drag it to the Trash. (Do not move the similarly named "com.apple.usbmuxd.plist" file to the Trash.)
5. Restart your Mac, open iTunes, and connect your device. 

Upgrading to iOS5

Updated the iMac to iTunes 10.5 last night.  Then attempted to upgrade my iPhone 3GS to iOS 5 (I let it go overnight)....looked at the phone this morning and it had the "plug me in" symbols on it (even though it was still tethered to the Mac.


Looked at iTunes - had the wonderful "An unknown error (3004)" on screen.  A quick Google shows that Apple's servers were/are getting hammered and to be patient.  So....the only option presented to me by iTunes is to restore to factory settings.....once that completed it says it's restoring the last backup made just before the update attempt.  Then I guess we'll try iOS5 again.  The 3GS was to be the guinea pig install for updating the iPad2 later....we shall see...


(time passes)


It took forever to do the entire restore (about 1 hour 45 minutes), which I thought was to iOS 4....however, once the phone finished and I untethered it from USB, it said I had a few more steps to perform.  Turn on location services, check, pick a wi-fi network, check, enter Apple ID, check, set up iCloud - wait! what?  Turns out iOS 5 was on the phone after all.  The initial scare wasn't warranted after all, but the process could have gone a little smoother.


On to the iPad2...kind of anti-climactic....started the update and a while later it finished fine - just what you'd want to happen.  Now I get to play with the 200+ new features of iOS 5!

Playing with VMware Fusion 4.01

Loaded Fusion 4.01 on the iMac last night.  Tried to load my Windows Vista bootcamp install as a virtual machine and it failed, just as it did with Fusion version 3.x...and if true to form, it also horked my ability to boot up straight to Windows using bootcamp.  Since I hardly ever do that any more (since Parallels and Fusion have gotten so much better and faster over the last couple versions) it's not a big deal.  Now I just run Win7 in a virtual machine.

Anyway - My iMac is running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.7 - see previous post as to why not 10.6.8) and I decided to try installing Lion (OS X 10.7) in a Fusion virtual machine.  Guess what?  It worked!  See http://mattgemmell.com/2011/09/14/lion-in-vmware-fusion/ for a good runthrough.   Even updated to 10.7.1 without an issue.  Cool to be running a "guest" OS that's newer than the "host" OS.  Now I get to see if I like Lion, before actually committing to it as my main OS.  Only thing I haven't figured out is how to change the virtual display size....it's running Lion in a 1024 x 768 window which doesn't take advantage of my 1920 x 1200 monitor's screen real estate.  I'll keep you updated if I get that solved.

Currently, I'm downloading Windows 8 Developer Preview so I can follow the procedure at OSX Daily to install it in a Fusion virtual machine....then I'll be able to compare Lion to Win8 to Win7.  Yeah - I'm a geek....

UPDATE:  A query on MacRumors led me to the way to change display resolutions in the Lion virtual machine...I needed to install VMware Tools on the Lion VM....the process of which was a little convoluted, but I finally got it.  You have to shutdown the VM, go into the VM settings, then delete and re-add the CD/DVD drive so it just says "Superdrive".  Then restart the VM, go into the VM menu and choose install VMware Tools.  You'll get a couple windows telling you the machine is already using the drive.  Just click OK and the tools installer window should pop up.  Now I'm able to use Lion in a much larger window.

Also played with Windows 8 for a couple minutes....to say it'll take some getting used to is an understatement.  It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out how to do get to the "shutdown" option.  I have a feeling it's going to change A LOT between this developer build and the release product.

Macs "just work" - until they don't

Here's my weekend saga...sorry for the length, but any comments would be appreciated. I've been using/repairing PCs for 20+ years, but have only been using Macs since 2007 - I'm still learning some OS X nuances.

24" iMac (2.93 GHz C2D, 8GB RAM, 640GB HD, GT120 GPU) running 10.6.8 (since the update came out) - had the iMac since mid-2009 and it has never given any problems before.

Saturday morning - couple hours before a golf outing....I notice my uptime (via Geektools) was 27+ days. Decided to check software update - there was the latest security update and safari 5.1, so I figured I might as well install them since I figured it was time for a restart anyway.

The updates install, then the necessary restart...grey apple (no gear yet even) - bang! kernel panic. BSD module name: unknown. Never had a kernel panic before with this machine.

Quick web research as to next steps...Zap PRAM - no good (by no good I mean same KP), Repair permissions - no good, boot to safe mode - safe mode works fine - restart - no good, boot to SL DVD, repair boot disk (it says disk was fine), repair permissions again - no good, unplug all stuff (and power) and replace wireless KB and mouse with USB, plug all back in - no good.

OK...enough...I have TM set to back up early every morning. Let's just restore back to this morning before I did the software updates and be done with this. Boot off DVD, restore from this morning's backup - same panic! Go to golf outing and put it out of my mind for the rest of the day

Return to machine Sunday morning. Hmmm....haven't restarted in 28 days...maybe something I installed or tweaked in the last month is to blame. Restore to my TM backup that's 29 days old and restart. This time I get the gray apple and spinning gear (fingers crossed)....argh, kernel panic - this time BSD module name is DirectoryService. I try one more restart - spinning gear - KP - module this time is kextd. For the heck of it I restored a 34 day old TM backup - restart gave the same KP's

I know when I've met my match and decide to call Applecare. Tech is friendly, I walked him through everything I did so he didn't suggest the same things again. At this point my drive has a 34 day old backup on it. He wants me to disable all my startup/launch and start at login items to satisfy his checklist. Do that - restart - KP at DirectoryService.

Tech suggests SL version of Archive/Install and would sit there while I did it...I told him if I'm going to do that, I first want to restore my most current TM backup so, if it works, I don't have to migrate a month's worth of data back over. I get a case number, thank him, and hang up.

I do the TM restore to just before the software updates that started this saga, then install SL 10.6.0 off the DVD. To my amazement, when the machine restarts, no KP, and things seem to be working fine, except I'm at 10.6.0. OK....now to install the 10.6.8 combo update. Install it, restart, BAM (no gear) - KP! 10.6.8 used to work on this machine until yesterday!!!

So, I re-installed 10.6.0 off DVD (again) and downloaded the 10.6.7 combo updater.  I installed the update, did some incantations, and YAY! - 10.6.7 seems to be working well at this point.  Do I dare attempt 10.6.8 again - or just wait until I'm ready to install Lion???

The humble beginnings of the CNY_geek blog

Just started futzing with Google (Blogspot/Blogger) Blogs.  This will be a placeholder for my random ramblings on technology and other things I feel are relavent enough to post about.