tmattox@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Timothy I Mattox) (03/29/91)
If your Mac crashes, or a program "unexpectedly quits" something is WRONG. It is NOT normal for this to happen. Don't tolerate it. There are several possible couses of this problem. 1) INIT/cdev conflicts. 2) Corrupted software, either system files, or applications. 3) Incompatible software or an "old" version. 4) Buggy software. 5) Virus infection. 6) Hardware failure. I have been lucky. I have not had cause #5 on my machine. BUT, I have experience with all the others. If you work at it, all these problems are reasonably correctable, except #4. The bad thing about this "problem solving situation" is that what is causing the trouble is not always a fixed target. In most cases that I have encountered, the original problem did more than cause my machine to crash that one time, or cause that program to stop running. When someting crashes, it has a tendency to take other things with it, particularly the system file. On to a solution. I will attempt to lay down a generic approach to solve a problem with your Macinstosh computer. (ug, this is going to be long...) 1) Determine if your hardware is working properly. Generaly, this is done for you by your Mac, but sometimes things like the following items can slip by its self diagnostics: 1) Unreliable SIMM's. These are unlikely, but still possible. 2) Bad Floppy drive. In my experience this is WAY too common. Can be caused by dust. (especially on the IIci/cx) 3) Unreliable SCSI chain/devices. Usually caused by bad cables or termination problems. 4) Loose ADB cableing. Unplug and reseat the cables for both mouse and keyboard. 2) Run a recent version of a virus checker. I recomend Disinfectant. 3) Make sure you have the appropriate versions of all related software. The Mac software comunity has a rather rapid introduction of new versions of software. Companies don't always widely announce new versions. For new models of the Mac, new versions of some software products were needed for compatability. When the Mac II cam out years ago, MacWrite failed. When the IIci came out, Apple's own CD-ROM software failed. These two things have long since been fixed, but some people still use MacWrite 4.5, and when they finaly decide to move to a Mac II series machine, it doesn't work. A general way of finding out if you have a recent version of a particular program is to look at its creation date. Generally, it should be no more than two years older than the current date. If it hasn't been updated by now, it probably has been replaced by a better program in the marketplace and/or the company has stopped supporting the product. 4) Make sure don't have an INIT conflict. Thats easy to say, but hard to do. First, turn off ALL INITs and control panel devices. When I say turn off, I mean to either move them out of the System Folder, or turn them off using a startup manager such as InitPicker. I say ALL because I have seen many poeple say: "I am only running a few INITs, that can't be the problem." This is incorrect logic. The number of INIT's does NOT affect the reliability of your computer. It is the specific INITs and there order of loading that affect reliability. I have run my IIci with OVER 40 INITs reliably for weeks, without ANY crashes. I have also run a Mac with only 5 INITs and had it crashing every 20 minites. My point is this: an INIT's purpose is to MODIFY the normal operation of a macintosh system. The intent of the modification may be to add a clock to the menu bar, or to optimize your hard disk in the background. When a program runs on a Mac, it expects things to work in a certain way. Some programs are extreamly picky (ex. M*crosoft products). Others are much more tolerant of funny things going on. But if one of the modifications conflicts with what a program expects, you can end up with a clock written overtop of a menu item, or it could crash your computer. Ok, back to the "problem solving": After turning off all your INITs and cdev's, reboot and see if the problem persists. If it has stopped, you know it was casued by an INIT conflict, and you can proceed to step #6. BUT, if the problem does persist, you have NOT eliminated INIT conflicts. An old INIT conflict might have left you with some semi-permanent damage. 5) Replace any corrupted software. If your machine has been crashing, who knows what files might have been left in a less than pristeen state. Re-install the system software using the Apple Installer. Do not just copy over the system files from the installer disks. Re-install all pertinant software from the original disks. If your computer still crashes, you should re-install the system files again, but this time, throw throw away the system files on your hard disk before running the Apple Installer. This is sometimes neccisary if the corruption is too bad for the installer to fix. 6) Slowly re-install the INIT's that you realy want to use. Slowly means this: install ONE init/package at a time, and wait at least a few hours of computer use before installing the next one. Take into consideration that INIT's are very prone to being compatible with only a subset of the Macintosh line of computers. i.e. a realy cool neato awsome INIT that runs on a friend's Mac Plus, might become a realy mean nasty data destructor on your brand new Mac LC, IIsi, IIci, IIfx... ************* Disclaimer: I am just an active Mac user, who dislikes hearing people say that their mac crashes alot. I hope I have helped supply some useful information to anyone with a mac that is misbehaving. -- Live long and prosper. - Tim Mattox - (email: tmattox@ecn.purdue.edu) (talk: tmattox@en.ecn.purdue.edu)
tmattox@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Timothy I Mattox) (03/29/91)
As a reply to my own post, I just found this text file I made last year when I was tracking down the cause of an "unexpectedly quit" syndrome. *** Begin text file A REALY weird INIT conflict. With the following inits and a DA, and two programs in MultiFinder on a 8 meg Mac IIci using the onboard video set to 256 colors (Apple 13" RGB). INITPicker 2.0 ColorDesk 1.0 displaying an almost full screen mandlebrot set RAM Disk 1.1 set to an 800K RAM disk ClairvoyantINIT 1.1 master switch turned off. LaserFix 2.0 The Finder is set to 350K. The DA is Appointment vers 3.0.2S from JAM. The first program is Zterm vers 0.85 set to 520K. The second program is QuickGIF Plus vers 1.1 set to 4000K. Simply choose Open in QuickGIF and you get a ID=10 Crash soon after drawing the border of the GetFile Dialog. The INITPicker log follows... INITPicker 2.0 ) 1989,1990 Barry J. Semo. All Rights Reserved. Configuration: Macintosh IIci, System 6.0.5, 32-Bit QuickDraw System started on Sunday, December 2, 1990 10:40:27 PM Selected set: Iso Startup Document BufPtr Memory System Heap Memory Total ________________________________________________________________________ ColorDesk 307200 9148 316348 RAM Disk 819200 3152 822352 ClairvoyantINIT 68308 4 68312 LaserFix 2.0 990 0 990 ________________________________________________________________________ Total 1195698 12304 1208002 *** End text file I could remove any of the INIT's, QuickGIF, or the Appointment DA from the setup, and nothing would go wrong. Only when I had the above setup did it crash. I have no idea which of the 6 programs/INITs/cdev's where at fault. I have since just stopped using LaserFix since it seemed not to work the way I wanted it to. I also seem to remember that LaserFix messed up somthing on my sister's Mac IIci when used with one of her Graphics Arts programs. Any comments on this weird conflict? -- Live long and prosper. - Tim Mattox - (email: tmattox@ecn.purdue.edu) (talk: tmattox@en.ecn.purdue.edu)