MacBook Pro ethernet ports stops working; requires reboot

[Tuesday, May 27th]

Several MacBook Pro owners have experienced an issue in which system ethernet ports suddenly drop connectivity. This behavior is accompanied by a an error in the system logs that reads:

• May 9 12:32:31 maxxbook kernel[0]: AppleYukon2: error - Uncorrectable PCI Express error

This error is then followed by another log entry such as:

• 1/12/08 8:03:20 PM kernel AppleYukon2 - en0 link down

or more commonly:

• May 9 12:32:34 maxxbook kernel[0]: AppleYukon2: 00000000,00000000 skgehw - cppSkDrvEvent - SK_DRV_RX_OVERFLOW: rcv fifo overflow

Once this problem occurs the only way to resolve it has been to restart the computer, and for the most part the problem seems to occur randomly, though for one user he found his problem was associated with the transfers of large file sizes on the network.

Apple Discussions poster bgarlock wrote:

"All I have to do is simply submit any "large" print job, be it to a network printer, or even saving as a PDF will throw this error...The files are usually at least 100 or so pages, but I did have this happen when it was only about 20 pages. I thought it was the printer driver, so I removed the printer, downloaded the latest driver (HP PSC 7310), and installed it. It still did not make a difference."

The "fifo overflow" error in the system longs suggests some network driver buffer is getting used up, also indicating that large file transfers could be to blame.

Fix So far the only fix once the problem occurs is to restart the computer, though one user seems to have had some tentative success in preventing the problem by removing and replacing the Finder's plist file (com.apple.Finder.plist located in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder). Once the driver has been disabled by the system it seems only a restart will get things operational again. Most likely a true fix will have to wait for a driver update from Apple.

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