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MacPro takes forever to boot

It takes 6-7 minutes to boot. MacPro 8core 3.0GHz, 8G RAM, Leopard last updates, 3x additional internal 1Tb drives (Seagate Barracuda), one external FW 1.6Tb drive (OWC). All usual and unusual procedures attempted (permissions repaired from install DVD, internal additional disks disconnected, external FW dirve disconnected, Ethernet disconnected, Spotlight is not indexing anything, PRAM reset, cleaned with Applejack in Single User mode, removed all disks except for system drive, run Apple Hardware Test), finally I've isolated the problem. I simply attached one monitor only directly to the Mac via a short DVI cable and a short VGA cable and it boots up in both cases in 30 seconds. I normally have 2 monitors connected via two long (15 meters each) VGA cables, since my Mac is in another room and I operate it from a recording studio control room. I can exclude some cables' malfunction (weird because I have two of them) or the cable length. With the same setup, same monitors, my G5 booted pretty fast. I know I should try to have a better extension system, but does any of you have any other ideas ? What is my Mac trying to do in those 6 minutes ? Thank you !!!

Use the "Console" application (under /Applications/Utilities) to look at the messages that are output during booting. Note that they are time-stamped, so you should be able to figure out what is taking a long time.

Yes I checked both system.log and console.log files; it seems there are two points where the boot hangs:
the first one (approx 1 minute) is (from system.log file) between these two lines:

May 14 16:18:39 galante-music kextd[10]: writing kernel link data to /var/run/mach.sym

May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: PACESupport - launchd already started us

the second one (approx 4 minutes) is (always from system.log file) between these lines:

May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext appears to be loadable
May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: kextload: loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext
May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext is already loaded
May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext appears to be loadable
May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: kextload: loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext
May 14 16:19:33 galante-music com.apple.SystemStarter[28]: kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext is already loaded

and this one :

May 14 16:23:58 galante-music loginwindow[34]: Login Window Started Security Agent

The console.log files reports the same things like this:

1st hang:

14/05/09 5:46:26 PM com.paceap.pacesupport[51] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/PACESupportFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/PACESupportLeopard.kext is already loaded

14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] PACESupport - launchd already started us

2nd hang:

14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext appears to be loadable
14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] kextload: loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext
14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiIO.kext is already loaded
14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext appears to be loadable
14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] kextload: loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext
14/05/09 5:47:48 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[28] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext is already loaded

14/05/09 5:52:03 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[106]) Exited: Terminated

Does this tell you anything ? I've searched for duplicates of DigiDal.kext and DigiIO.kext files (they are Digidesign ProTools extensions) with no luck. Same thing with PACESupport.
What I've also tried (unsuccesfully), besides all the "normal" troubleshooting procedures:

- disable Apple Dashboard Advisor;
- verify and repair KeyChain (with KeyChain First Aid from KeyChain Access);
- remove everything from Login Items;
- delete all caches (even system) with Onyx;
- created another user account;
- reinstall the Combo 10.5.6 Update
- uninstall and reinstall PACE software

Thank you in advance for your help !

Verify that this is the problem by completely uninstalling (removing) those system extensions and startup-items and restarting.
Once you've confirmed that those extensions are the problem, make sure that you have the latest version and consider contacting the vendor for support.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayne (Post 533114)

Unfortunately I'm absolutely sure I have the latest versions, but I'll try to uninstall them anyways. One thing I wanted to know, when there's such a delay where's exactly that the OS is "wasting" time ? To complete the task of the first line (before the delay) or the the task of the second line (after the delay) ? Thank you

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevegalante (Post 533115)

One thing I wanted to know, when there's such a delay where's exactly that the OS is "wasting" time ? To complete the task of the first line (before the delay) or the the task of the second line (after the delay) ?

You don't really know. It depends on how the messages were output.
But usually messages are sent after some operation has completed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayne (Post 533119)

You don't really know. It depends on how the messages were output.
But usually messages are sent after some operation has completed.

Well, if this is the case then my Mac is mainly wasting time doing this :

galante-music loginwindow[34]: Login Window Started Security Agent

which usually means what ? What extensions and/or applications should I remove or uninstall ?
By the way, I tried to uninstall PACE software, re-clean ALL caches with Onyx, then restarting and reinstalling the PACE software (which is absolutely last version and absolutely necessary for my uses). Now the system.log files indicates a waste of time between these two "new" lines:

May 14 19:14:31 galante-music kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Up on en2
May 14 19:14:38 galante-music kextd[10]: writing kernel link data to /var/run/mach.sym

May 14 19:19:49 galante-music ntpd[25]: time reset +0.693254 s
May 14 19:19:57 galante-music loginwindow[33]: Login Window Started Security Agent

As you can see more than 5'30"... :eek:

Other things I tried (always unsuccessfully):
- update to Mac Os 10.5.7 Combo
- disabled AirPort on startup
- followed this article: Startup hangs with “Login Window Application Started” | OSX Journal - Hackintosh Tips, Tricks, and Discoveries on an OSX86
Strangely while doing this it said to me there was no "Extensions.kextcache" file...and when I rebooted I couldn't find it anywhere. In fact, booting time is getting worse, probably it does not rebuild that cache for some reason... :(
- followed this article:
Fix for securityd hogging RAM when reauthorizing apps' Keychain access | 43 Folders
Nothing seems to work... :mad:

Have you in fact verified that the problem goes away if you don't install the 3rd-party system extensions?
It would seem a bit odd that there would be a delay in "writing kernel link data to /var/run/mach.sym" or in starting the Security Agent" that was caused by the 3rd-party extensions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayne (Post 533234)

Is there a quick way to start without loading these extensions or should I have to uninstall some softwares ?

I think you could just move the relevant files out of the /System/Library/Extensions folder (e.g. using the 'mv' command in Terminal) and then restart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayne (Post 533244)

I think you could just move the relevant files out of the /System/Library/Extensions folder (e.g. using the 'mv' command in Terminal) and then restart.

It didn't change anything, so I decided to completely uninstall ProTools and PACE software and restart. No changes in terms of booting time. In the system.log the delay is between these lines:

May 15 18:54:47 galante-music kextd[10]: writing kernel link data to /var/run/mach.sym

May 15 19:00:03 galante-music loginwindow[52]: Login Window Started Security Agent

So I think I could exclude ProTools and PACE Software. I reinstalled ProTools and PACE and now the hanging is here:

15/05/09 7:07:36 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[50] kextload: extension /System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext is already loaded

15/05/09 7:13:04 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[201]) Exited: Terminated

I'm considering giving up... :confused:

Since you have seemingly ruled out those 3rd-party extensions as the cause of slow boots, it is time to look for other possible causes.

The first thing I would look at is your hard disk.
Does its "SMART" status show as verified in Disk Utility (at the bottom)?
Have you tried doing a "Verify Disk" (not "Verify Disk Permissions") in Disk Utility?

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayne (Post 533304)

The first thing I would look at is your hard disk.
Does its "SMART" status show as verified in Disk Utility (at the bottom)?
Have you tried doing a "Verify Disk" (not "Verify Disk Permissions") in Disk Utility?

Yes, the SMART is verified, I also verified it with Onyx. I took out the other three hard disks from the case, nothing changes. I verified all disks, even with fcsk command, Techtool, DiskWarrior. I also used another cleaning utility called "Macaroni", no luck... At this point I am tempted to think that I should go back to the start of this post, at the monitors/extension cables issue. This morning I disconnected one of the two monitors and boot. The booting time "dropped" to 4 minutes and the system.log did not report any dramatic delays between lines...

Little update: I used TechTool Pro 4 to run ALL its routines on the startup drive (and all the others), using its "virtual" startup drive ("eDrive"), very minor errors found (all corrected). Even starting from the virtual drive with only 1 extended monitor results in a pretty "usual" 5 minutes startup time. Restarting the system after all the repairing and optimizations (no defrag of course) does not change things.
Then I re-ran the test of booting with only one monitor connected directly (via DVI cables) with no extensions, booting time is an incredible (at least for me...) 1'15"... Aaaaarghhhhhh :eek:

So it seems that the slow boot up is related to the unusual length of your video cables - or maybe one of the cables is faulty?

If everything else is working fine in this somewhat unusual configuration, maybe just be happy it works and don't worry about the slow bootup.

A little more about these cables - You said at the beginning of the thread that you were running 2 monitors from your Mac Pro (which in a machine room) to your control room and each cable is 15 metres?

The maximum length allowed for DVI is 15 metres and I think it is about 5 metres for VGA - beyond this I am told that the machine tries to push the signal through with more power and this effects performance and is unstable. I have had this problem with a 5/6 metre VGA cable and a PowerMac G5 (in this the machine just would boot) - I have tried to find and cite a reference for this, but I was told this by a lighting expert selling signal boosters at a trade show last year.

Have you tried booting with your 1 15m DVI cable? Are you using a monitor with USB/FireWire ports on it like the Apple cinema displays? Have you tried booting without your iLok key in the machine?

Lastly, have you tried posting a thread over at Gearslutz about this? they specialise in PT set ups and may have a few other ideas...

HTH

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