Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5): Slow app launches; high fan activity, processor usage; crash reports don't submit; desktop icons froze
A bevy of miscellaneous problems and solutions.
Slow app launches? Update prebinding If you're experiencing inordinately slow application launches after upgrading to Leopard, try updating prebinding by launching the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and entering the following command:
- sudo update_prebinding -debug -root / -force
You'll be required to enter an administrator password.
High fan activity, processor usage -- caused by crash report problems? Some users are reporting abnormally high fan activity under Leopard. MacFixIt reader James Tarpley writes:
"I've installed 10.5 in 3 Macs (yes I purchased a 5 seat license): a quad core G5, a G5 iMac, and a G4 laptop, 24 hours after installation, all 3 are running fans at a higher than normal speed - it's constant until the Mac is placed in the sleep mode. Examination of the Activity Monitor reveals on all there 'root' activity consuming nearly 100% of the processors capacity. The root activity involves 'CrashReport' and 'mds'. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what these activities are, but I'm quite certain it's abnormal. As one would expect, the for a couple hours after installation the drives were busy with indexing - this current activity is something else."
Interestingly, as Tarpley's report contains mention of spiking processor usage from the CrashReport process, we've also received reports indicating problems submitting crash reports to Apple, with the system being unable to find specific files (note that Tarpley also mentions "mds" -- a crucial component of Spotlight handling metadata) -- a sure cause for spiking processor usage and consequential inordinately high fan activity.
MacFixIt reader David writes:
"When an application crashes, you get the error message that it crashes and if you want to send a report to Apple. If you agree to, it searches for the System Configuration and eventually fails to find it, and so the report doesn?t get submitted to Apple. This has happened with two different applications."
The temporary fix for this issue is to use Activity Monitor to kill the CrashReport process, the mds process, and others that are spiking in processor usage. See this tutorial for more information on doing so. In some cases, simply killing a process and allowing it to restart will alleviate the issue.
Desktop icons frozen Some users are reporting an issue where desktop icons become frozen and cannot be moved.
MacFixIt reader Merv writes:
"Since installing Leopard last night, I've encountered this issue 3 times -- I get into a state where icons on the Desktop can be neither selected nor moved. It's as if they're nothing more than a part of the Desktop background. Clicking on or near them does nothing except draw a selection box; the icons are 100% unresponsive. When in this state, I can only access items that are on the Desktop by viewing the Desktop as a folder. I believe the Mac going to sleep may be connected to this issue, since each time I got into this state, it was after recently waking the machine from sleep. I'm running 10.5 (of course) on a 2.33 GHz MacBook Pro."
In some cases, this issue can be resolved on a temporary basis by deleting the following file:
- /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist
(Note that the Desktop should be kept clutter-free, if at all possible, for performance considerations)
UPDATE: The suggestion to remove com.apple.windowserver.plist may be a dead letter left over from Tiger. This file apparently no longer exists in your Preferences folder, so a solution to the "frozen icons" problem must be sought elsewhere. There is such a file in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons, but don't remove it: you'll prevent the computer from booting up. (Thanks to reader Greg for acting as a guinea pig on that one; Time Machine came to the rescue, fortunately.)
Problems installing We conntinue to receive reports from readers who are having problems installing Leopard. Note that some of these issue may be caused by previously noted instances of faulty media.
Chris Sanders writes:
"I was in the process of installing Leopard on a Powerbook G4 1.33GHz. During the installation process, an error message appeared stating that an error occurred with the installation and it could not be completed. It suggested that I call the manufacturer and restart my computer and try to install the software again. Upon restarting, the Leopard install screen appeared. Going through the steps and arriving at the screen to select which disk to install the operating system on, it was blank. There were no options available. Knowing there was a problem, I started Disk Utility from the install DVD. The Hard Drive mounted but the volume was no where to be found. Luckily, I made a backup before the installation and decided to reformat the drive and start over. Trying to erase the drive, an error message appeared stating "the operation could not be completed. The resource is in use." I attempted this twice to no avail. I decided to go and partition the drive. As expected, there was no partition on the disk and when I attempted to create a partition, I received the same error message. However, the partition did create.
"After creating the partition, I erased the drive just to be safe and began the installation process again. At this point, everything with the installation seems to be operating as expected."
In other cases, the problem may be related to not having enough RAM.
Andrew Tindell writes:
"I ran into a problem when loading Leopard on my second MacBook. The first a Mac Book with2Gb of memory worked fine. However when I started working on the second a MacBook with 512Mb of memory the installer failed to find any hard disk on the machine. The disk utility within the loader showed the drive but the disk did not appear to be mounted. Exiting from the installer was not easy. In the end I changed the start up disk to network as the harddisk did not appear and then pressed eject when rebooting. The disk came out and the machine rebooted into Tiger normally. In the end after a another attempt with the same results I upgraded the machine to 1GB and tried again. It worked perfectly. This appears to be a bug in the installer."
Loss of Internet connectivity after sleep Some users are reporting loss of Internet connectivity when waking from sleep under Mac OS X 10.5.
One reader writes:
"Since upgrade to 10.5, whenever I put the computer to sleep I lose internet connection (diagonistic says Ethernet-fail as do all the other tests). I am not using AirPort. I have cable modem straight into my pci internet connection , then wired straight to a netgear router. I have to reboot to get the Internet working again.
If you are experencing a similar issue, please let us know.
iChat audio or video sessions not working, fix If you are experiencing problems with iChat video or audio chats, try turning off Internet Sharing in the Sharing pane of System Preferences.
MacFixIt reader David Anderson writes:
"I could not establish or accept and iChat audio or video sessions with Leopard. The solution for me was to switch off Internet Sharing in the System Preferences Sharing Panel. (I had been sharing my Airport connection with an Ethernet port.)"
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
For further coverage, see our Leopard product page and the Leopard Hot Topic Page.
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